Sanctuary Mahi Whenua is an organic community garden and food forest beside the Unitec campus in Mt Albert, Auckland. Volunteers have run it since 2011, and the group has been an incorporated charitable society since June 2017. The garden has more than 400 species of plants and trees, and is home to butterflies, bees and birds. The site is also a registered archaeological site, after pre-European gardening tools were found there. The group says it was the city's first multi-layered food forest and the first engineered swale in Auckland.
Members are at the Sanctuary on Sunday mornings, and working bees are held on the second Sunday of each month. Visitors can walk in at any time, by way of the Oakley Creek / Te Auaunga Walkway. We hear that access from the Unitec side is currently blocked by construction fencing for the Carrington development. The website says the garden and food forest are under threat, and it asks people to sign its petition. It also says that donations made through Change.org do not support the garden directly.