The Taumarere is a taonga to Ngati Hine and they won an Environment Court
case ten years ago which directed the regional council to acknowledge
the special connection between Ngati Hine and the river. They have
embarked on some planting and fencing but they have been unable to
protect and clean up the river. The combination of agricultural
intensification, draining of wetlands, sewerage, cows in the river,
and forest clearance is just too big.
Taumarere and the Kawakawa rivers, 4 Feb 2010
Today, in the grounds of Te Tii marae at Waitangi, I ate a smoked mullet caught by the local mana whenua at one of the estuaries leading into the Bay of Islands. Very tasty. Yesterday I paddled the Taumarere and the Kawakawa rivers, from near the town of Kawakawa over to Opua in the Bay.
These two actions share a common goal - I'm building up my resistance to water borne illness.
The Taumarere river flows into the Kawakawa river which ends up in the Bay. It was the awa for Kawiti, one of the leaders of Maori resistance in the mid-nineteenth century.
I spent yesterday morning with Susan Henare from Ngati Hine having a look around the catchment of the Taumarere River above Moerewa. Taumarere is a taonga to Ngati Hine and they won an Environment Court case ten years ago which directed the regional council to acknowledge the special connection between Ngati Hine and the Taumarere. They have embarked on some planting and fencing but they have been unable to protect and clean up the river. The combination of agricultural intensification, draining of wetlands, sewerage, cows in the river, forest clearance etc is just too big.
Susan and others have established Te Rere I Tiria Trust to help clean up the river. The day I was there they were working with a group of young Maori guys as part of a Community Max project to build a fence to keep stock out of the river next to the local Tiria waterfall and swimming hole. They were learning fencing skills while contributing to cleaning up the river. Cool.
Sadly, this fence was very much the exception. The lack of fencing around the river and its tributaries was marked in both dairy and beef farms in the catchment. Susan pointed out various "fields" that were until recently wetlands - instead of cleaning the water as they did when they were a wetland, they are now sources of effluent and soil erosion.
In the afternoon Susan and I joined Chris Richmond and Vicky Froude, locals with some rather expert knowledge, on the banks of the Taumarere near Kawakawa. We first paddled upstream to have a look at a nearby dairy farm, which had zero fencing between cows and water and the hoof prints were clearly visible in the water. Really disgraceful.
Then we headed downstream through the brown brown water into a stiff headwind. The enormous sediment loads making the river so deeply brown have smothered the seagrass beds in the Bay - both physically and by cutting off their sunlight. These meadows were once nurseries for snapper, so if you like fishing in the Bay you should care about what's happening upstream.
Amongst the large native mangroves along the edge of the river, there were quite a few maimai (hides) for duck shooters. A "no shooting" reach of the river with signs saying it is a brown teal sanctuary was a welcome surprise. People complain about mangroves but if they are spreading it is because of all the sediment coming down rivers, and they play a role in stabilising the sediment. Trying to cut down mangroves instead of cutting down the sediment loads is plain stupid - treating the symptom not the cause.
We ended up at the marina café at Opua. The boats in the marina get rapidly slimed up because of all the algal growth caused by the nutrients in the water. Apparently Doug Schmuck was there about the same time but sadly we missed each other. I had a chat at the café with David Clarkson who is involved with the Bay of Islands Maritime Park group www.marinereserve.co.nz which is an umbrella organisation bringing together 35 stakeholder groups that want to improve the environmental health of the Bay of Islands - they've got their work cut out.
