JULY
HONGONGOI 2024
New plan to change the course of history by Louise Parry Changes to a section that may have formed part of a pā site have highlighted an urgent need for protections for areas of significance to Māori in the District Plan. Mana Whenua (Te Āti Awa-Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa) are working with Hutt City Council on the revised District Plan, which will be out for consultation later this year. This comes too late to investigate what was potentially a fortified pā site before bulldozers levelled it. Historical Society of Eastbourne researcher Ali Carew may uncover some archaeological finds. A group of houses in Days Bay/ Ōruāmotoro were sold recently, with the subsequent demolition and earthworks at 43 Ferry Road on what is believed to have been a pre-European pā site. Wellington Tenths Trust Trustee and Hīkoikoi Management Ltd relationship liaison officer Richard Te One says Mana Whenua are working with HCC to include an extensive list of historic sites in the revised Plan, which will include protocols relating to work on historic sites. This could include precincts or buffer zones, which would mean any planned earthworks over a certain size would trigger engagement with local iwi, and possibly accidental discovery protocols. Work would stop if any items of historical significance were unearthed and archaeologists called in. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, may become involved. “But it’s not going to stop them doing what they want to do, which is one thing we have
to be careful about because people get this idea that we’re there to stop them doing stuff and in fact we’re not, we just want to make sure that if you do find something there is a process in place to protect it,” says Mr Te One, who believes the proliferance of historic sites around the Harbour has meant there has not been a drive to include them in District Plans. “We t e n d e d t o settle along the coast and up the rivers and streams…historically a lot of these sites weren’t important to settlers – they were only imp or tant to An early map of Wellington, showing sites of significance to Māori along the Mana Whenua. It’s eastern bays. Map courtesy of Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives only relatively recently New Zealand that we started putting these things into District Plans to give them Awakairangi and subsequently pursued Ngāti some level of protection.” Ira up the river to their inland pā in Upper Historical accounts of the Eastbourne area Hutt. The conflict significantly reduced Ngāti document a Ngāti Ira pā site in what is now Ira’s numbers, and when the Taranaki hapū Ferry Road. This pre-dated the pivotal arrival returned to Wellington, they found the inner of a war party in 1819/20, comprised of various harbour largely abandoned. Despite this, northern iwi including some from Taranaki scattered groups of Ngāti Ira persisted along the and Ngāti Toa who journeyed southward, harbour’s edges, engaging intermittently with gathering support as they progressed. They the newcomers. By the time the New Zealand clashed with Ngāti Ira near the mouth of Te (Continues on Page 2)
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