Greater Wellington Regional Council
The Wairarapa Moana Wetlands Restoration Project
The vision of the Wairarapa Moana Wetlands Project: Whakaora te repo ka ora te taonga wai - restoring this wetland treasure.
The Project
The Wairarapa Moana Governance Group has been working on improving the land around Wairarapa Moana since 2008, focusing on the environment, recreation, and culture. However, the area is very large, so they needed help. Our client, the Greater Wellington Regional Council, received funding to boost restoration efforts from the Ministry for the Environment through Jobs 4 Nature, as well as from the Department of Conservation and the 1 Billion Trees project (led by the Ministry for Primary Industries).
We were asked to help create a plan that would:
Expand the pest control area to 1,000 hectares
Guide ecological restoration for over 30 hectares
Upgrade five areas to improve the experience for visitors.
Our scope included developing three plans:
Wetland restoration plan
Pest (plant and animal) management plan
Masterplan for Lake Domain Reserve.
“The project mission is to work with the community to enhance the spiritual identity and ecology of Wairarapa Moana and improve recreational and economic opportunities for Māori and the wider community.”
– Wairarapa Moana Governance Group
Objectives
The project was huge, with big goals. To get it right, we had to figure out what people wanted the plans to do. Here’s what we focused on.
Cultural
The plan needs to help restore the mana and spiritual connection of Wairarapa Moana. Mana whenua have a deep connection to the Moana, so we knew we had to work closely with local iwi from the very beginning.
Ecological
The Restoration Plan must improve Wairarapa Moana’s ecology while supporting the lakes and wetlands’ role in keeping ecosystems healthy. Focus areas include habitat quality, protecting natural areas, fish movement, spawning, and bird nesting.
Recreational
Wairarapa Moana offers many recreational benefits to the community. People use it for swimming (at Ōnoke), boating (including waka ama), fishing, and birdwatching.
Economic
There were also commercial values to consider. These had to benefit the whole community, especially since iwi would receive redress as part of the Treaty settlement process. The project needed to help create jobs for locals, too.
Approach
We took a values-based, partnership approach, working with mana whenua from the start to include cultural, ecological, recreational, and economic values. Understanding cultural knowledge, both nationally and locally, was key since iwi would be receiving the moana and reserve areas back as part of their treaty settlement, and the plan needed to be meaningful to them.
Collaborative design
We worked closely with local iwi, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Rangitāne o Wairarapa, including groups like the Kohunui marae hapū and others from supporting groups like Pae Tū Mōkai near Lake Domain. These iwi are in the process of receiving back parts of their land through their treaty settlement, and many sites in the Wairarapa Moana complex are included in this.
We recognised that their local knowledge (Mātauranga) was crucial to the restoration, so we invited them to co-lead the project with us. With their help, we included mātauranga Māori in the plan, using mātauranga-based tools for monitoring and creating job opportunities for rangatahi.
Through hui, wānanga, hīkoi, and discussions with iwi and other key groups – like local environmental groups, landowners, and Fish & Game NZ – we developed a set of values that everyone involved in the project could connect with.
Values
Mauri
Kaitiakitanga
Taonga species
Wairuatanga
Mahinga kai
Wāhi tapu
Customary use
Mana whakahaere
Wai repo
Natural form and character
Contact recreation
Economic opportunities
The outcome
The wetlands and lake have adapted to changes, with endangered native plants, birds, and insects now living there. Changing things too much could risk losing them. People and farms have also settled in the area. It’s not just about reconnecting the awa to the moana – it’s a balance of ecological, cultural, recreational, social, and economic values. The women leaders in the hapū groups played a key role in bringing people together to figure out how to address these interconnected issues. The wider group and stakeholders helped identify the key values, guiding us in restoring 40 sites, each needing care. With limited time, money, and people, we had to prioritise. We focused on sites and actions after working together to explore these factors:
Values – cultural, ecological, and recreational
Threats – pest plants and animals, as well as recreational, land use and water quality threats
Land ownership including areas to be returned to iwi
Past and present works - planting, pest plant and animal control, and fencing.
We organised the sites into three tiers: tier one (highest priority), tier two, and tier three. Tier one sites included Lake Domain Reserve, JK Donald Wetland, Wairio Wetland, Tūranganui Delta, Tūranganui River, Upokokirikiri Pā stream, Ōnoke Spit, and Lake Ōnoke wetlands. These had the greatest overlaps of values and needs. From this, we created a detailed report with clear actions and SMART goals. Tier 1 sites received the most focus, and Lake Domain got a masterplan from our landscape architect.
To learn more about this project, read the full report here: https://www.waiwetlands.org.nz/project-plans
Background
Wairarapa Moana is not just Lake Wairarapa but a mix of 40 freshwater ecosystems in a fragmented group. There are several different kinds of wetlands like swamps, marshes, ephemeral (they come and go) wetlands, lakes, river deltas, springs, and old oxbows (wet areas in paths that the river used to take). There are also various manmade channels and lagoons. It’s the largest wetland complex in the North Island and has been recognised internationally as one of seven Ramsar sites in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Locals affectionately refer to it as “Wai Mo”.
How water moves in and around these wetlands and rivers (‘the hydrology’) is crazily modified. We humans thought it was important once upon a time to drain the swampy areas and create farmland. Larger wetland areas are usually found at the bottom of catchments, so they are naturally good at filtering out nutrients and sediment and are nature’s flood managers (they’re often called nature’s sponges or kidneys). It’s also why they were easy to drain, clear and develop into pasture. Most of our towns and cities are built (or partly built) in wetland areas (think Christchurch). Because of this, we’ve lost 90% of them across Aotearoa in the last 150 years, and the Wellington Region has only 3% left (97% lost!). The maps below illustrate the significant loss of the Wairarapa Moana wetlands over time (both maps from the Landcare Research “Our Environment” mapping portal).
Wairarapa Moana wetland complex Pre-European settlement
Wairarapa Moana wetland complex today
The images below depict the Wellington region wetlands in their original state (shown in red) before human settlement, compared to their current extent. To learn more about this loss, watch the full Forest & Bird video about ‘The loss of New Zealand’s wetlands’ here.
Why are wetlands cool though?
Since then, we have learnt more about how special and important wetlands are to the wider environment. They are huge biodiversity hotspots, meaning they are CHOCK FULL of birds, fish, plants, animals, insects and lizards – they are some of the most biodiverse areas in the world. This is the number one environment-based reason for this project’s importance to the Wairarapa. But there’s more to it than that.
Context
The theme of RECONNECTION was important to our mana whenua partners. There has been a lot of sadness and grievance surrounding the hapū since their forced move from the area to Mangakino (on the Waikato River near Lake Taupō) in the early 1900s after the moana was acquired by the crown in 1896. To add to this, the Lower Valley Development Scheme (LVDS), begun in 1964, was a large-scale drainage and reclamation process to prevent flooding and create land for farming and dairying. The scheme redirected the Ruamāhanga River from its natural path into the moana to flow straight down to Lake Ōnoke (Lake Ferry). The remaining arm of the river that used to connect to the moana is still called “the diversion”. This, along with flood gates, stop banks, pumps and then barrage gates that were put in later to manage water levels, completely changed the nature of the moana and its wetland system. Many species were lost, and access to mahinga kai and other cultural uses of the lake and wetlands was hugely compromised.
Wairarapa Moana wetland complex Pre-European settlement [1]
The water from a flood in 1947 [2]
Notice anything? The water from a flood in 1947 (the largest on record) shown above (in the map on the right) went where the wetlands once were.
This flooding triggered the design and creation of the LVDS to prevent flooding like this happening again.
Map from Landcare Research “Our Environment” mapping portal.
Map from Greater Wellington Regional Council Attachment 1 to Report 08.328 Page 1 of 16 WGN_DOCS-#534110-V1 Lower Wairarapa Valley Development Scheme – Proposed Adoption of a New Rating Classification.
How we helped on this project
Services we provided:
Project management
Facilitation and group management, workshopping, presentations, wānanga and hīkoi
Storytelling, report writing and design
Creative problem solving
Working with iwi and hapū through a co-led partnership approach
Combined project team – multi-disciplinary, internal and external team members working together
Background research and collation of a large back catalogue of work – scientific papers, reports, maps, data, kōrero, and imagery
A sensitive and respectful approach to gathering and protecting mātauranga
Action planning with SMART goals
Unique design and reporting
Respectful use of Te Reo Māori and correct tīkanga