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Kaipara Harbour is a large enclosed harbour estuary complex on the north western side of the North Island of New Zealand.

The northern part of the harbour is administered by the Kaipara District and the southern part is administered by the Rodney District. The local Māori tribe is Ngāti Whātua.

According to Māori tradition, the name Kaipara had its origins back in the 15th century when the Arawa chief, Kahumatamomoe, travelled to the Kaipara to visit his nephew at Pouto. At a feast, he was so impressed with the cooked root of the para fern, that he gave the name Kai-para to the district. "Kai" means food in the Māori language.¹

Contents 1 Physical environment 1.1 Harbour entrance 1.2 Tidal power 1.3 Sand mining 2 Ecology 3 Fisheries 4 Māori history 5 European history 6 Management issues 7 Timeline 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Reading 12 External links

Physical environment

By area, the Kaipara Harbour is one of the largest harbours in the world. It is broad and mostly shallow, and is formed from a system of drowned river valleys.² It covers 947 square kilometres (366 sq mi) at high tide, with 409 square kilometres (158 sq mi) exposed as mudflats and sandflats at low tide.³⁴⁵ The harbour shoreline is convoluted by the entry of many rivers and streams, and is about 800 kilometres (500 mi) long.⁶ A number of small islands off the shoreline are connected to the mainland by mudflats at low tide.

The harbour extends for some 60 kilometres (37 mi) from north to south. Several large arms extend into the interior of the peninsula at the northeast of the harbour, one of them ending near the town of Maungaturoto, only ten kilometres (6 mi) from the Pacific Ocean coast. The harbour has extensive catchments feeding five rivers and over a hundred streams, and includes large estuaries formed by the Wairoa, Otamatea, Oruawharo, Tauhoa (Channel) and Kaipara.

Harbour entrance

The harbour entrance is a channel to the Tasman Sea. It narrows to a width of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi),⁷ and is over 50 metres (160 ft) deep in parts. On average, Kaipara tides rise and fall 2.10 metres (6.9 ft). Spring tidal flows reach 9 km/h (5 knots) in the entrance channel and move 1,990 million cubic meters per tidal movement or 7,960 million cubic meters daily.⁸

The harbour head is a hostile place. Big waves from the Tasman Sea break over large sandbars about five metres below the surface, two to five kilometres from the shore. The sand in these sandbars comes mainly from the Waikato River. Sand discharged from this river is transported northward by the prevailing coastal currents. Some of this sand is carried into the Kaipara harbour entrance, but mostly cycles out again and then continues moving northwards along the west coast. The southern sandbars at the entrance are constantly accumulating and releasing this sand.⁸

These treacherous sandbars shift and change position, and are known locally as the graveyard. The graveyard is responsible for more shipwrecks than any other place in New Zealand, and has claimed at least 43 vessels—some say as many as 110.⁹¹⁰

In Māori mythology, the ocean-going canoe Māhuhu voyaged from Hawaiki to New Zealand and overturned on the northern side of the entrance. It was commanded by the chief Rongomai, who drowned. His body was eaten by araara (white trevally), and his descendants to this day will not eat that type of fish.¹¹¹ The first European shipwreck was the Aurora, a 550-ton barque, in 1840,¹² and the most recent was the yacht Aosky in 1994.¹³ Today, the remains of wrecks still become visible under certain tidal and sand conditions.

For this reason, the Kaipara is rarely used today for shipping, and no large settlements lie close to its shores, although many small communities lie along its coastline.

Tidal power

External images
	Kaipara Harbour main channel14
	Proposed cable and turbines14

See also: Cook Strait#Tidal power

In 2008, Crest Energy, a power company, received resource consent to install about 200 underwater tidal turbines in the Kaipara Harbour, which would use the substantial tidal flows moving in and out every day near the harbour mouth to produce electricity for approximately 250,000 homes.¹⁵

Crest plans to place the turbines at least 30 metres deep along a ten kilometre stretch of the main channel. Historical charts show this stretch of the channel has changed little over 150 years. The output of the turbines will cycle twice daily with the predictable rise and fall of the tide. Each turbine will have a maximum output of 1.2 MW, and is expected to generate 0.75 MW averaged over time.⁸¹⁶

The peak level of generation for the combined turbines is about 200 MW. This exceeds the projected peak electricity needs of Northland. It would have environmental benefits in offsetting annual carbon emissions from a thermal-based, gas turbine generator of 575,000 tonnes of carbon.⁸ The project is costed at about $600 million and to be economic would have to be scaled up rapidly to near full capacity.¹⁷

However, while the Department of Conservation has approved the project, and has made substantial environmental monitoring conditions part of the consent, the project also has objectors on the grounds of claimed influences on the local ecosystems and charter fishing. Appeals before the Environment Court are still likely.¹⁸

Sand mining

Currently (2007) about 219,000 cubic metres of sand is mined each year from the entrance and tidal deltas of the Kaipara. This sand contributes over half the sand requirements for Auckland. The sand is used in the production of concrete and asphalt, and also in drainage systems and beach nourishment. A suction pump is usually used to extract the sand from the seabed. It is pumped into a barge as a sand and water slurry. As the barge loads, shells and other objects are screened out and the sea water drained back to the sea. The availability of sea sand within the Auckland region means the road costs of transporting sand from further parts of the country are avoided.¹⁹ Concerns about possible negative consequences of this sand mining have also been raised.²⁰²¹

Ecology

The Kaipara Harbour is a productive marine ecosystem, with diverse habitats and ecotones. There are tidal reaches, intertidal mudflats and sandflats, freshwater swamps, maritime rushes, reed beds and coastal scrublands.²² The area includes 125 square kilometres of mangrove forest.²³ with subtidal fringes of seagrass.²⁴

The Kaipara is a migratory bird habitat of international significance. Forty–two coastal species are known, and up to 50,000 birds are common. Rare species use the harbour for feeding during summer before returning to the northern hemisphere to breed, such as the bar‑tailed godwit, lesser knot, and turnstone. Threatened or endangered native species, such as the North Island fernbird, fairy tern, crake, Australasian bittern, banded rail, grey‑faced petrels, banded and NZ dotterels, South Island pied oystercatcher, pied stilt, and wrybill are also present . Significant local populations of black swan, pukeko, and grey duck also breed in the area.²²

Land habitats adjacent to the harbour support some rare botanical species, including native orchids, the king fern, and the endangered kaka beak.²²

Bar-tailed godwit

Fern bird

King fern

Kaka beak leaves and flowers

In particular, Papakanui Spit on the south head of the harbour entrance, a mobile sandspit, is important as a breeding and roosting area for the New Zealand dotterel and the fairy tern. It also has areas of pingao.²⁵ The spit was an important habitat for the caspian tern. The birds have moved to other parts of Kaipara Harbour, possibly due to human disturbance. An air weapons range used by the New Zealand Defence Force is a short distance south of the spit.²⁶²⁷

Fisheries

Much of the coastal fishing industry in New Zealand depends on mangrove forests. About 80% of fish caught commercially are linked to food chains dependent on the mangroves, and at least 30 species of fish use mangrove wetlands at some stage of their life cycle. The marine and estuarine areas in the Kaipara Harbour breed snapper, mullet, flounder, sole, kahawai, white trevally, gurnard, yellow‑eyed mullet and skates, rays and sharks.²⁸ The Kaipara is the largest estuarine harbour on the west coast of New Zealand and provides significant areas of suitable breeding grounds and habitats for juvenile fish. It has less problems with water quality than the Manukau, and is the single most significant wetland for west coast fisheries.²⁸

Native rock oysters are plentiful on the rocky shores, and the introduced Pacific oysters flourish lower in the intertidal zone. There are cockles and tuatua on the lower tidal flats, mussels from low tide on the rocks to subtidal beds closer to the mouth of the harbour, and scallops in the tidal channels.²²

The scallop population has periodic incidences of high mortality, the causes of which have not been identified. Concerns in recent years about the size and availability of scallops have resulted in temporary closures of the scallop fisheries.²⁹³⁰

Early versions of oyster farming occurred between the early 1900s and 1950s. Thousands of tons of rocks were placed along the shorelines to act as an additional substrate on which the natural rock oyster could grow.²²³¹ In 2002, the Crown settled the historical claims of Te Uri o Hau, a hapu of the northern Kaipara Harbour. As part of the settlement, access to and the rights of the hapu to gather oysters within the existing "Maori Oyster Areas" were recognised.³²³³ In 2008, resource consent was given to Biomarine to establish New Zealand’s largest oyster farm in the Kaipara. The farm is projected to produce about NZ$30 million in annual exports and 100 new jobs.³⁴

In recent years, there has been a perception amongst locals that commercial fishers have damaged fisheries in the Kaipara. Locals have been frustrated in their attempts to gain government support. The veteran film-maker Barry Barclay has examined this in his 2005 documentary, The Kaipara affair.³⁵³⁶³⁷

Māori history

Māori settlements and marae have been scattered around the harbour margins for hundreds of years. The waterways of the Kaipara provided, and still provide, Māori with resources and a ready means of moving between marae.³⁵

Today, most marae are associated with the Ngāti Whātua sub-tribes, Te Uri-o-Hau and Te Taoū.³⁵ Both Te Uri-o-Hau and Te Taoū descend originally from the chief Haumoewhārangi. He had travelled down the Kaihū valley and northern Wairoa River and settled at Poutō, on the northern side of the Kaipara Harbour entrance. He was killed during a dispute over kūmara (sweet potato) gardens. His widow Waihekeao formed an alliance with Kāwharu, a warrior chief from Tainui. Kāwharu led several destructive campaigns through the Kaipara area. The descendants of the five children of Haumoewhārangi and Waihekeao eventually took control of north and south Kaipara Harbour. Hakiputatōmuri was the founder of Te Uri-o-Hau, and Mawake was the founding ancestress of Te Taoū. Te Uri-o-Hau came to control the northern part of Kaipara Harbour and Te Taoū the south.³⁸

European history

External images
	Map of Kaipara Harbour

In 1839, European settlers began arriving in the Kaipara to fell and mill kauri trees and build boats for local requirements.³⁵ Despite the treacherous bar at the harbour entrance, the Kaipara became a busy timber port from the 1860s, handling millions of metres of kauri timber and thousands of tonnes of kauri gum.³⁹

The Wairoa is the principal river feeding the Kaipara from the north. Thirty kilometres upstream, the town of Dargaville was established. The stretch of water to Dargaville is broad and straight and provides an easily navigable route into what were then kauri forests in the interior. Dargaville thrived as kauri trees fell and mills buzzed. Croatians and new arrivals from Britain were drawn to the district. Ships up to 3,000 tons carried logs and timber down the Wairoa and braved the Kaipara Harbour bar before continuing on, often across the Tasman Sea to Australia.⁴⁰

The Kaipara River is the principal river feeding Kaipara Harbour from the south. From 1863 Helensville established itself as a timber port on this river, and provided shipping services around the Kaipara. Once the logging days were over, Helensville turned to dairy and sheep farms, and more recently to deer farms, nut plantations and vineyards.³⁹

Further south, Riverhead was a main centre for gum digging, and a key trading link with Helensville and the Kaipara. Also set by a river, it milled timber and flour, and made paper. Later it turned to tobacco. From 1929 to 1933, the Riverhead State Forest was planted on 5,000 ha of poor gum land.³⁹

Once the forests had gone, the Kaipara became a backwater.³⁹ The timber and gum industries declined after 1920 and were replaced by farming, particularly dairying. South of Dargaville dairying occurs on the fertile Ruāwai flats, below sea level, but protected by drainage systems and stopbanks.⁴⁰ Sawmilling settlements established at the water’s edge at Tinopai, Arapaoa, Matakohe, Paparoa, Pahi, Whakapirau, Tanoa, Batley, Oneriri and Ōruawharo survive today as tranquil backwaters. Pahi has become a launch point for houseboats and fishing. Matakohe has a museum which commemorates the kauri industry and the early Pākehā settlers.³⁵

Dargaville survived as the main centre of the district. It grew steadily until the 1960s, when the population levelled. It is the country’s main producer of kūmara (sweet potato).⁴⁰

Management issues

Management of the Kaipara Harbour does not have a central administration. The northern part of the harbour is administered by the Kaipara District and the southern part is administered by the Rodney District. To further compound matters, the local iwi is split between Te Uri-o-Hau in the northern part and Te Taoū in the southern part. The Ministry of Fishing allocates quota for the north west region of New Zealand as a whole, but does not tailor quota specifically for the Kaipara. Local iwi feel they are not sufficiently involved in management issues.

As part of the worldwide trend, there is a decline in biodiversity within the Kaipara.⁴¹ The timber industry removed most of the native forest. Much of the kauri and kahikatea forest, and scrub and riparian vegetation, has been replaced with farm and urban areas. Mangrove forests and wetlands have been "reclaimed". Soil erosion has increased on the land and sedimentation in the harbour. Shellfish abundance has declined, especially scallops, toheroa, pipi, tuatua and cockles. Finfish, such as snapper, school shark, mullet and kanae have diminished.⁴¹

Natural vegetation in the Kaipara catchments have been reduced to “islands” of forest and wetlands in man-made landscapes—isolated by pastures, exotic forests, urban areas and roads. Insufficient information on the status and extent of marine and estuarine biodiversity, including coastal habitats, exists for the Kaipara. A recent reconnaissance survey undertaken for the Otamatea Ecological District states that estuarine habitat is still extensive, but less than ten percent of the land cover is now indigenous vegetation or wetland. Even if all priority areas were protected, there would still be a need for ecological restoration of additional corridors and buffers to provide better connectivity between natural areas and encourage biodiversity recovery.⁴¹

Timeline

• c. 1300: The Maori chief Rongomai arrives in his canoe Māhuhu from Hawaiki, and is drowned at the harbour entrance.
• 1807 or 1808: Ngapuhi fight Ngāti Whātua, Te-Uri-o-Hau and Te Roroa iwi at the battle of Moremonui on the west coast of Northland, the first battle in which Maori used muskets.
• 1839: European settlers begin arriving to fell and mill kauri trees.
• 1840: The Aurora, a 550-ton barque, is the first European ship to be wrecked at the entrance.
• 1860s: The timber industry is established.
• 1899: The timber industry peaks.
• c. 1939: Timber trade ends, and the area becomes a backwater.
• 2005: Film-maker Barry Barclay makes his documentary, The Kaipara affair.
• 2002: Crown settles historical claims of Te Uri o Hau
• 2008: Biomarine receives resource consent to establish an oyster farm
• 2008: Crest Energy receives resource consent to install tidal turbines

See also

• Aotearoa Wave and Tidal Energy Association

Notes

Coordinates: 36°25′S 174°13′E / -36.417, 174.217

References

• Diggle, E and Diggle, KGL (2007 8th ed) New Zealand Shipwrecks: Over 200 Years of Disasters at Sea. Hachette Livre. ISBN 9781869710934
• Haggit T, Mead S and M Bellingham (2008) Kaipara Harbour Environmental Information Review ARC Technical Publication TP 354.
• Kaipara Harbour

Reading

• Scott, Dick (1988) Seven Lives on Salt River. Hodder & Stoughton/Southern Cross. ISBN 9780340492963 (explores seven early families who lived on the shores of the Pahi and Arapāoa rivers).

External links

• Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management Group
• Te Tiaki Mahinga Kai – coalition of Māori environmental guardians supporting the management of customary fishing areas.
• Kaipara lighthouse 1884, NZ

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 11 November 2008, at 21:54.

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