Ray Ahipene-Mercer
[2] He is also a guitar-maker, musician, and well-known environmentalist,[2][3] and was one of the leaders of the Clean Water Campaign, which led to the end of sewage pollution of the Wellington coast.
[8] Ahipene Mercer's closest Māori links now are at Pirinoa, and Kohunui Marae, the people of his maternal grandmother.
His mother's father, from whom the name "Ahipene" was passed down, was of the Ngati Kahungunu, tribe from the area around Pōrangahau, and also of Ngāi Tahu descent.
Both parents were both active members of the celebrated Ngati Poneke Māori club in Wellington City, and later the famous Hutt Valley Mawai Hakona group.
He joined the music programming section of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in 1967, resigning in 1969 to become a full-time musician at the age of 21.
[citation needed] Between 1972 and 1980 Ahipene-Mercer worked in London, UK, playing in pub bands, and returned to New Zealand to tour with the Rocky Horror Show in 1978.
[10] He has the unusual status as the only City Councillor ever to perform in the Wellington International Festival of the Arts as part of the "Maori All Stars" in 2006.
[2] He is well known for his work to protect and rescue little blue penguins or Korora,[3][12] and arranged the construction of the first artificial nesting areas for the birds in Wellington.
[13] Poachers of pāua,[14] or New Zealand abalone, have been a particular target of Ahipene-Mercer's attention, and as an honorary fisheries ranger he has seized and returned many thousands of illegal paua to the sea.
He has sought to reintroduce a number of Maori names to Wellington, such as Te Tangihanga-a-Kupe, for the rocks known also as Barrett Reef, and Tarakena Bay,[15] and in 1996–1997 assisted Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in creating an audio tape of Māori names of flora and fauna for use by sanctuary volunteers and members.
[20] Mana News Service reported that in 2001 he was one of only 20 Maori, out of a total of over a thousand New Zealanders, to win office in local elections that October.
