love Skutnall-Kangas, 2000, Linguistic Genocide in Education- or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates lnc: Mahwah, New Jersey, 94.
Cultural landscapes are described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention as landscapes that represent the combined works of nature and of man. Cultural landscapes embrace a diversity of interactions between human kind and its natural environment. This thesis is interested in the definition of associative cultural landscape, as places with powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations with the natural elements but where cultural evidence may be significant or non-existent.
Gavin McLean, 2002, 'Historic Landscapes- New Kids on the Block?', PHANZA: E-Journal. Edited notes from panel discussion at PHANZA 'Historywork' conference in Wellington, 24 November 2002, 2-3.
Tove Skutnall-Kangas, 2000, Linguistic Genocide in Education- or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc: Mahwah, New Jersey, 91.
1 0 0 H El WH E N UA O RA
between peoples, lands and their responsibilities to the region. The coast is an associative cultural landscape where powerful relations with the natural elements require contemporary kaitiaki to actively protect what remains of those values and environmental principles therein. Responsibilities to place have stemmed from early nineteenth century inter-iwi contests, established inter-tribal alliances and allegiances; rights afforded by occupation, settlement and cultivation of the region; the interment of ancestors in designated places; the shared collective enterprises and events that cemented ties with other whakapapa related tribes;4 and the experiences that accumulated between peoples and spiritual entities in natural areas. As outlined in Chapter
3,
kaitaiki were obligated to protect significant ancestral landscape, and to maintain ahi ka for the home community's ongoing wellbeing.Further pressures and complexities for the coastal region included legislative demands imposed upon an area long regarded as ancestral and under tribal protection. Community anxiety for the coast escalated from the misinformation and confusion created around the Foreshore and Seabed Act
2004.
When theNo Queen's Chain 2001
series of paintings concluded that the supposed rights of access afforded by the Qyeen's Chain edict of18435
were actually based on ideals of expected public access, such 'rights' then developed into the current but unsubstantiated presumptions of Crown 'ownership' of all coastlines. Early surveyors did not survey out one chain reserves. These Crown officials were often after control of the land for themselves.6 In investigating the context of place and in talking with elders, it was revealed there were no legal precedents to the Crown's audacious claims that they 'owned' the foreshore or seabed in the first place. Despite the law being based
4 The h istorical activities of intertribal entrepreneurs included cultivating subsistence gardens and foodstuffs for trading with whalers, and later grain crops for flour mills shared between related tribes.
5 Public access to the coast, lakes, rivers and streams for all citizens of New Zealand has been an ideal feature of New Zealand land law and practice from the earliest colonial times. 'The ideal was kept alive rather than some of the imperfect attempts made to express it in practice and in law .. . indeed it m ay have become larger in life than it did in law. One feature is common to all of the e arly legislation relating to Crown land after 1843 was that there were no statutory requirements to reserve marginal strips along water boundaries. What followed in the next fifty years was a unique phenomenon in land law. The factual reality is that in the period between 1840-1892, when most of the "good" land was alienated by the Crown, a chain reservation generally in the form of a public road was laid off along the bulk of the coast and major rivers.
B. E Hayes, 2003, The Law on Public Access Along ifater Margins, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries: Wellington,I-2. 6 Personl communication with Mr Edward O'Conner,July 2007.
C H APT E R F O U R 1 0 1
on government assumptions? in the minds of local Maori residents, the Kuku foreshore remains hapii or ancestral property with riparian rights from the estuary into the sea.8 Walking through
complex landscape
Whanau researcher Mr John Wehipeihana travelled around the region with his Maori grandparents who delighted in pointing out areas of importance to their whangai grandson. Some forty years later other kaumatua conducted walking tours to enrich the potentiality of ecosystem restoration and cultural landscape protection. With Tahamata Incorporation representatives, the new share milker and environmentally interested others, kaumatua revealed aspects of their long-lived experience with lands, waterways and related biodiversity. Their knowledge was brought together with the values of ecosystems and wahi tapu as taonga in urgent need of rehabilitation or protection. They read cultural landscape and offered their interpretations to new listeners. They pointed out cultural markers in ancestral landscape, the particular areas that were deemed valuable to them and the places that expressed tribal identity, history, spiritual associations or land bases of past local hapii authority.
Kaumatua recollections have underpinned strategies for improving wahi tapu and historical papa kainga site protection. Cultural landscapes in Kuku ranged from dominating expansive landforms such as Otararere foot hill on the Poroporo ridgeline beneath the imposing Tararua Ranges, to the waterways and freshwater springs; from the whole Kuku coastal region at sea to the Ohau river beach, to precisely specified areas such as different papa kainga or burial areas in dune systems. In dealing with localised aspects of history or whakapapa associations the special nature of information transfer remained complex. Substance of site varied according to a range of associations with previous inhabitants. As landscapes embraced layers of associations, this intensified the relationship between
Huhana Smith, 2002, 'No Q;leen's Chain', Article for Te Y1arae Atea section, Mal1a magazine, February/March, Issue 44, Auckland. In keeping with iwi and hapu aspirations for the coast, in 2007 the tribe's environmental committee entered into dialogue with entities to extend he kawenata arrangements with the Ministry of Conservation and Nga Whenua Rahui. 1he committee also sought customary rights and provisions under the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004.
8 A chorus of kaumatua (videoed at a wananga on 18 March 2005) collectively echoed each other that the beach at Kuku into the sea, was well regarded as belonging to iwi and hapu ofTukorehe. As attested by many,
"No-one ever talked about the ownership of the beach, we always knew that the beach belonged to 1ukorehe." Mrs Jane Poctsch.
"There was no inhibition as the beach was always considered our beach for our needs." Mr Ike M iritara (-2006).
"There was no rarurau because everyone knoew the beach was 'owned' by Tukorehe. It was always our beach." Mrs Ruhia Martin. "We had to go and look for kai. We stayed the weekend in summer and winter. We collected toheroa and pipi. One thing we did in those days was look for frost fish . . . early in the morning." Mr Martin Wehipana.
1 02 H EI W H E N UA O RA
people and land, which meant that each landscape warranted unique management and protection measures.9
Complex cultural landscape extended to the surrounding pasture, cropland and forestrylO as agroecosystems or modified environments. They too became part of the whole area undergoing rehabilitation. Modified agricultural environments were still connected to residual natural remnants or groundwater dependent ecosystems including Te Hakari wetlandY Understanding interconnectedness between the agricultural and natural remnants stemmed from sub-surface water bodies or large underground lakes as artesian waterways or ground water seepages. These subsurface waterways hydrologic ally linked the former Ohau River meander system with Te Hakari dune wetland. When flooding from the river was a regular, natural occurrence, floodwaters inundated the wetland and recharged its subsurface aquifers. In severing the meander from the Ohau River and channelling the surface floodwaters to sea, the engineering works not only adversely affected the remaining 'loop' but also impacted on the long-term health and vitality ofTe Hakari dune wetland12 some distance away. Te Hakari wetland is subject to tidal pressure. The dune wetland is at its best when the Ohau River migrates up to
3.5
km southwards over aI2-I5
year period. It erodes sand dunes and creates a southward pointing sandspit before naturally cutting out at the northern extent of the river. Te Hakari will have its dry periods when the river breaks out to the north. Later, groundwater abstraction for farming around the wetland increased the wetland's vulnerability to groundwater pollution in its recharge areas to the east. The reinstated Te Hakari Stream flowed west from the wetland through the revegetating indigenous forest around the wetland to the swampy damp hollows within the dune belt adjacent to the Ohau River beach. The river is better able to tidally affect water levels in the dune wetland since reinstating Te Hakari Stream. Despite the presence of introduced plants like marram grass, pasture grass and pampas, the damp hollow areas have been revitalised with wiwi as common sea rushUuncus gregiflorus],
alongside oioi or jointed wire rush[Leptocarpus similis],
mingimingi[ Coprosma propinqua],
toetoe upoko-tangata, giant umbrella sedge or coastal cutty grass[ Cyperus ustulatus]
and harakeke[Phormium tenaxj .
With the stream flowing again to the Ohau River the estuarine area is also populated with native covers like Maori or native musk
[Mimulas repens]
and ureure or glasswort 9 Miranda Sims & Michelle 1hompon-Fawcett, 2002,'Planning for the Cultural Landscape'in Kawharu, M., 2002 (ed.) Whenua:Managing our Resources, Reed: Auckland, 257-258. This is particularly so for Tirotirowhetu and Kuku papa kainga sites. While Tirotirowhetu is 'owned' by sympathetic non-Maori landholders, Kuku papa kainga is split between Tahamata ownership and the recent purchaser- an Otaki-based farmer. He purchased the large farm while working for another neighbouring Maori farming incorporation. With increasing pressure for land more lifestyle blocks, possible subdivision could impact on known archaeological regions and spring systems as former food gathering areas.
10 GeoffPark, 2000, New Zealand as Ecosystems, Department of Conservation: Wellington, 10.
Il Dr. Olivier Ausseil, 2007, Te Ht!kari Wet/and ifater Quality Investigation, Horizons Regional Council, Palmerston North, 5. f2 Te H akari is the product of the very shallow unconfined groundwater some 4-5 metres from land surface. 111is is explained
Figure 4.1: Pingao stands, 4 April 2005.
Photograph by Huhana Smith
C H AP T E R FOU R
Figure 4.2: Pingao stand about to fall into Ohau River, 13 July 2007.
Panoramic photograph by Huhana Smith
Figure 4.3: Marram grass in dynamic Ohau River dune region, looking across shore pimpernel carpet, estuary backwash towards the Tararua Ranges, 16 April 2005.
Panoramic photograph by Huhana Smith
1 0 4 H EI WH E N UA O RA
Figures 4.4, 4.5: Te Hakari Stream, reinstated to the Ohau River in early 2000, with a view back towards wetland [top] and view towards the river, October 2005.
Panoramic photographs by Huhana Smith
Figure 4.6: Te Hakari Stream running from Te Hakari wetland across dunes to the Ohau River, December 2003.
C H A P T E R F O U R
Figure 4.7= S hore pimpernel and glasswort with Kotuku ngutu papa in Ohau River estuary
22 September 2005. Photograph by Huhana Smith,
Figure 4.8: Detail of shore pimpernel carpet with ureure or glasswort present,
16 April 2005.
Photograph by Huhana Smith
1 0 6 H EI W H E N UA O RA