Our Carbon investment is designed as an Indigenous-led series of projects focused on recloaking New Zealand in native ngahere (forests), and utilising other nature based solutions to create carbon and nature based credits. All credits will be issued through ICVCM-certified global registries, holding ourselves to the highest internationally recognised standards for quality and authenticity. Aotearoa New Zealand has seen nearly 70% of its native forests destroyed over the last 1000 years. Each project plans to plant and maintain between 10,000 and 15,000 hectares of native forest. We work through a collaborative partnership model that brings together landowners, ecologists, Māori cultural advisors, specialist nurseries, and best-in-class pest management and planting partners — combining modern technology with cultural integrity at every stage. Our long term vision is to enable a range of nature-based and engineered carbon removal credits (biochar, carbonated materials, blue carbon) as part of an overall community-led restoration strategy. Our first project in Te Waipounamu (South Island) is currently at advanced mobilisation stage.

We designed this investment fund to solve a specific problem: landowners who share a genuine aspiration to restore their land often lack the capital, expertise, or resource to act on it. Our model provides all three. In our kōrero (discussion) and hui (meetings) with landowners across Aotearoa, we consistently find deep alignment with our purpose. For Indigenous landowners, restoring whenua (land) to native ngahere (forest) is both a cultural and spiritual commitment — fulfilling their role as kaitiaki (guardians) of the land across generations. For farming landowners navigating economic uncertainty, climate variability, and market risk, our projects offer a stable, predictable return derived from land not currently used for productive farming — with no compromise to their core operation. Farmers and other landowners we work with also hold a deep commitment to the environment and the historical forests they know once thrived on their land or in their regions.

Native forest restoration delivers measurable outcomes across verified carbon sequestration and biodiversity recovery. It also strengthens cultural connections to land. But it doesn’t stop there! Our projects are designed to create a business ecosystem for those contributing to the project: creating employment, training and education opportunities and empowering indigenous new or scaled businesses to grow. We believe that the most durable environmental outcomes are achieved when the people closest to the land (landowner and indigenous cultural knowledge (Mātauranga)) lead the design. And the most enduring social outcomes are achieved when those closest to implementing the projects co-design the work plan.

Current insurance models mean Indigenous people have limited control over the relationship or the outcome of their insurance arrangements. They do not profit from no claim periods in terms of returns to their communities. Mā Tātou is helping create an insurance future where value stays closer to home and works harder for Indigenous people.

This investment is about more than securing insurance cover. It is about building Indigenous capability, reducing dependence on external partners, growing a valuable indigenous-owned asset, and creating a genuine Indigenous insurance journey, where assets are treated as taonga (treasure).