CHAPTER 7 THE ANCESTRAL LANDSCAPE: THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, 1886–2006
The Rangataua estuary is the life blood of our people, ‘ngā wai koiora’, that courses through our veins: its tributaries the Waitao, Kaitimako, Omatata, Otamarua, Te Waiū and Te Awanui are the veins that supply it, and thus us with life giving nutrients – life itself … all living breathing features of our ancestral landscape …
Te Awanuiarangi Black, Ngāti Hē1
7.1 INTRODUCTION
By 1840, Tauranga Moana had become one of the most continuously occupied and densely settled landscapes in New Zealand.2 It is not hard to understand why. It is a place of great natural beauty, and diverse and productive ecosystems: open seas, offshore islands, coastal sandy beaches and rocky shores, the large harbour lagoon and its many estuaries, mudflats, tidal pools, and wetlands, together with many waterways draining densely forested hills. Over generations, many hapū have been drawn to Tauranga Moana by the plentiful resources offered by these different environments – the seemingly unending supplies of fish and shellfish in Tauranga Moana itself; the eels, freshwater fish, and kōura found in the waterways draining the hills encircling the harbour; the abundance of animal and plant resources in the forests.
As hapū became entwined with this environment and its resources, they became the tangata whenua of Tauranga Moana.3 The pēpeha ‘Ko Mauao te maunga, ko Tauranga te
1. Te Awanuiarangi Black, brief of evidence, 24 May 2006 (doc Q34), p 3
2. Anne Salmond, evidence in the Planning Tribunal, [undated] (doc D1), p 3; Robert McClean, ‘Tauranga Moana Fisheries, Reclamations, and Foreshores’ (commissioned research report, Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, 1999) (doc D7), pp 20–22
