Many "win-win" benefits are expected to flow from a collaborative digital recording and conservation project involving rare engraved Moriori trees at Otago Museum.
The Hokotehi Moriori Trust has been granted $10,000 by the Lottery Environment and Heritage Committee towards "urgent conservation work on rare and significant engraved rakau momori (Moriori trees)" long housed at the museum.
The trees and engravings were "internationally important treasures" involving Moriori history and culture, an Internal Affairs Department communications adviser said.
There used to be thousands of the engravings all over the Chatham Islands, but there were now "just 58 in the forests", she said.
Museum curator, Maori, Dr Gerard O’Regan said 21 sections of engraved trees (dendroglyphs) held at the museum had only rarely been on display.
Some were collected from Rekohu (the Chathams) in the 1920s but more than half were obtained in the early 1960s, he said.
The welcome funding had enabled the museum to support, through partnership, efforts by the Hokotehi Moriori Trust to learn more about the trees, and to improve their protection.
This was a "wonderful opportunity" to take the trees out of storage and study them, including by laser scanning.
"These treasures are getting the attention they should be," he said.
University Surveying School professional practice fellow Richard Hemi said the exciting laser scanning project was providing invaluable experience for four senior surveying students who were creating an extensive digital record.
