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From issue: Autumn 2003

Isolation no longer protects archaeological heritage

by Jane Phare

An aerial view of pre-European stone wall formations at the Pukehuiake Pa site, Waikakeno. Photo: Kevin Jones, Dept of Conservation

To the untrained eye, the view from the dusty, unsealed Wairarpa coastal road to Waikekeno, for all that it is impressive, is not unexpected. The scenery is rugged and isolated - rolling farmland, a jagged coastline and steep bush-clad hills.

Not until Robert McClean, heritage adviser for the Historic Places Trust, stops the car and pints to some mounds in a paddock do things get interesting. Beneath the scrubby grass are piles of stones. Suddenly, they begin to take shape, revealing walls and mounds formed by pre-European Maori.

Nearby the steep banks of the Waikekeno Stream have eroded to reveal a shell midden, dotted with paua and charcoal, layers of archaeology laid bare by time and weather.

A steep climb leads past kumara pits to the remains of Pukehuiake Pa. From here, the view of the wild Wairarapa coastline stretching in both directions is breathtaking. Below, the outlines of mounds and walls, thought to be garden plots, are clear. Old aerial photographs are even more revealing and more recent damage by grazing cattle is obvious.

Across the road near the beach is a small fenced site in the middle of the paddock, an urupa (burial ground) with graves dating back to the 1850s.

Apart from the urupa, which is a Maori Reserve, this land is part of Waimoana Station, owned by Bill and Lynne Thompson. The Thompsons are currently selling some of the coastal land within Waimoana Station for development.

The Trust received a proposal to register the Waikekeno area as an historic area.

The Thompsons are not alone in wanting to develop some of their coastal land. Further along the coast, the Flat Point coastal subdivision is already underway. John and Mary McGuinness have farmed Flat Point Station since 1980 and are now developing the beachfront with 39 sections, a private nine0hole golf course and an airstrip. New beach houses are being built on sections already sold.

The Trust required an archaeological survey to be undertaken at Flat Point prior to development. This survey failed to reveal physical remains of Maori occupation at the exact site of the housing development. Local iwi fought the development, unsuccessfully, through the Environment Court.

Until recent years, the Wairarapa coastline has been a place where a few farmed, surfers looked for solitude and a few hunkered down in old baches dotted amongst the tussock and sand dunes. Populations were centred in the settlemetn towns of Masterton, Carterton, Greytown, Martinborough and Featherston. As Maori gradually left the coast, the land was taken up as leased land for stations.

But development pressure on the coast is likely to continue as coastal farmers compare the economic gains of subdivision versus grazing. In the past 10 years 450 new sections have been created along this 200 kilometre stretch of wilderness.

The piecemeal way in which applications for development have been handled in the past caused the formation of the Wairarapa Coastal Strategy Group I 2001. The group, representing the Masterton, Carterton and South Wairarapa District Councils, the Wellington Regional Council and local iwi, called for submissions last year from groups with an interest in the coast, including the Trust. After public consultation a coastal strategy will be developed towards the end of this year.

The Trust is taking a "precautionary" approach to development along the Wairarapa coast, viewing it as a cultural and historic landscape.

First settled by Maori nearly 1000 years ago, the Wairarapa coat is an area steeped in Maori and European history. Bernie Manaena, whose grandparents were of the last hapu to remain in the Waikekeno area, is researching hundreds of sites that show signs of Maori occupation. Its European history includes the early remains of Te Kopi port and ferry crossings, early farm settlements, lighthouses, whaling stations, shipwrecks and Home Guard units, which were set up along the Wairarapa coastline to guard against Japanese invasion.

From the top of the Pukehuiake Pa site at Waikekeno, McLean gestures to the surroundings.

"This is New Zealand heritage. If someone demolishes a neo-classical building, there are still other examples reproduced elsewhere. But if someone bulldozes this land, it is gone forever".

Jane Phare is the Editor of Heritage New Zealand.