The Battle of the Lakes — Transcript

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1. 0:06they called it the battle of the Lakes
2. 0:08it went on for 20 years Farmers wanted
3. 0:11to open the lake and drain the valley
4. 0:12Maori wanting it closed it was a battle
5. 0:16between
6. 0:17two different economies and you know two
7. 0:20different cultures
8. 0:23the Maori traditional economy Reliance
9. 0:27on on nature and also the settlers who
10. 0:31were reliant on the pasture before
11. 0:33European settlement
12. 0:35the lake was
13. 0:37closed from November to March over the
14. 0:41summer period the valley filled with
15. 0:44water
16. 0:45this Lake used to double in size
17. 0:49it went from 25
18. 0:51000 acres to 45 over summer once the
19. 0:55rains come in the late summer and
20. 0:59beginning of of Autumn and through
21. 1:01autumn the level of the waters rise
22. 1:05quite considerably that high
23. 1:09level of water is what our people have
24. 1:13referred to as what's referred to as the
25. 1:14hinurangi catchment management you
26. 1:17referred to it as a flood but it's
27. 1:20actually hinrudangi which serves
28. 1:23multiple purposes it's the time when all
29. 1:26the the eels migrate the yields
30. 1:29naturally run in the Autumn and they
31. 1:33they run
32. 1:35when the barometer drops
33. 1:37the first time it drops in February
34. 1:40they're away the waters burst through
35. 1:43the sandspit in March when the Autumn
36. 1:48Reigns came and that's when Maori
37. 1:50harvested the tuna then the water would
38. 1:53gush out
39. 1:54and so over winter
40. 1:56the valley would drain
41. 1:59that is what nature designed
42. 2:02that was the system that Maori lived
43. 2:04with and worked with when they used to
44. 2:08harvest the Tunica in the Tunica season
45. 2:11the fires lit up on on both sides of the
46. 2:15mouth and was a fire light that would
47. 2:17attract the tuna
48. 2:18and trenches were dug and on each swirl
49. 2:22that came in they would push turn it
50. 2:24into the into the trenches and everybody
51. 2:26would just race down and grab and wake
52. 2:28them out once the eels are harvested you
53. 2:31know wouldn't wouldn't be um
54. 2:35unusual to see
55. 2:37all the fence lines just covered with uh
56. 2:40drying joint eel
57. 2:42hundreds of thousands of them I know
58. 2:44when um
59. 2:45in the school when the eels were being
60. 2:49caught and the be quite a strong
61. 2:52sort of oily smell in the school bus you
62. 2:56know the smaller ones would be handguns
63. 2:58sort of along the fence line or a
64. 3:00clothesline and
65. 3:01drawing in the in the sand when the
66. 3:05first European settlers arrived in
67. 3:08whanganuetara in Wellington they were
68. 3:12looking for land obviously and the land
69. 3:13around what lake wairarapa was Choice
70. 3:16land for them because it was clear it
71. 3:18was grassy and it was available
72. 3:20basically Marty were Keen to lease so
73. 3:23they were Keen to come around and it
74. 3:25didn't take very long before we started
75. 3:28in a contest between the pahia wanting
76. 3:32the lake drained and certainly to stop
77. 3:34the annual flooding in Autumn and the
78. 3:37the Maori wished to keep the flood in
79. 3:39the Autumn for to harvest the tuna the
80. 3:42farmers
81. 3:44opened the lake initially with shovels
82. 3:46and with a bit of a Contraption behind
83. 3:50their horses only the local farms um
84. 3:54would go down with a
85. 3:57small escape with about two horses but
86. 4:00there would be quite a number of teams
87. 4:02working all at once and then the final
88. 4:05bit being dug out in the bottom would be
89. 4:08would be dug out by hand with a shovel
90. 4:10they took medicine to their own hands
91. 4:13and opened it themselves Maori protested
92. 4:17this which they did very actively in
93. 4:20fact it got sort of a little bit of
94. 4:22radar at times where there was some
95. 4:25peaceful protein literally peaceful
96. 4:26process where Maori Chiefs would hold
97. 4:30the shovels and a woman would hold the
98. 4:32shovels that the men were going to use
99. 4:34to break open the bar at Lake onalki
100. 4:36they didn't open it unless they really
101. 4:40had to and they'd wait until it got up
102. 4:43and then there would be
103. 4:46a lot of complaining my farmers
104. 4:49further up but um
105. 4:52we're getting land flooded
106. 4:56they did the obese peaceably to or suit
107. 5:00their ownership and control over the
108. 5:04lake and it's you know it's an
109. 5:06environment in terms of how that was to
110. 5:09be managed
111. 5:10but the pressure was still you know was
112. 5:14still
113. 5:15and put on them to allow
114. 5:18the lake to you know to be
115. 5:20opened at wool well Maori numbers the
116. 5:26number of Maori to do this were the
117. 5:28dominant culture that Lake remained
118. 5:30closed but once setlist numbers grew and
119. 5:34they became the majority
120. 5:36the battle became too difficult our
121. 5:39people
122. 5:40whilst they fought into the very best
123. 5:43without resorting to any violence
124. 5:47tried to do that through the courts
125. 5:49through the legal structures to retain
126. 5:54you know their manner their control over
127. 5:56the lake they were always up against it
128. 5:59eventually
129. 6:01their numbers dwindled and Maori weren't
130. 6:05able to protest it any longer they lost
131. 6:08their rangatura
132. 6:10who was the leader he died
133. 6:13that was when Maori gifted the lake to
134. 6:17the crown to the people of New Zealand
135. 6:20that is when the wholesale drainage of
136. 6:23the valley began they said to the crown
137. 6:25we'll gift you the bed of the lake uh as
138. 6:30long as you return us with some Reserve
139. 6:34so they would didn't actually phrase it
140. 6:35like that it would have been given as a
141. 6:38gift and an expectation would have been
142. 6:40that there would have been reserves
143. 6:42given
144. 6:43but really from the time the crown had
145. 6:45control of it there was interest in
146. 6:46draining it in in a number of ambitious
147. 6:49schemes were thought of large parts of
148. 6:51Berlin had been alienated to that point
149. 6:53and
150. 6:54it would have been the the largest
151. 6:56natural resource or that they had
152. 6:59remaining
153. 7:00you know the future of it was
154. 7:03threatened by the putting in the sorts
155. 7:06of measures that was going to
156. 7:09see
157. 7:10the lake not being able to perform in
158. 7:13the way it worked for centuries you know
159. 7:16how people knew that the whole
160. 7:18biodiversity and you know what was
161. 7:20required for the lake
162. 7:22that it needed to go through that
163. 7:24process of the Hindu langi the flooding
164. 7:28in the world
165. 7:29happens now even when I first came here
166. 7:32I remember flooding
167. 7:33it's not happening like it was
168. 7:37but the late mouth is still being opened
169. 7:42um when the water gets to a certain
170. 7:43level to implicate the land that was
171. 7:46drained it was more like the living lung
172. 7:49it would expand and contract expand and
173. 7:51contract and nowadays what we try to do
174. 7:54is keep it into a confined area and a
175. 7:57much reduced confined area as well so a
176. 7:59lot of the wetlands around the margins
177. 8:01of the lake have been drained and
178. 8:03converted into pasture so in a way what
179. 8:06we've done I suppose is we've converted
180. 8:07eel fat into butter fat but it hasn't
181. 8:11really been to the good of the of the
182. 8:13lake at all the first bulldozer was used
183. 8:17was a D2 was
184. 8:20um you know just a little toy almost and
185. 8:23I remember to see down there seeing that
186. 8:27and that was been a
187. 8:29in the 1940s early 1940s
188. 8:33we are still addressing
189. 8:36the needs of the land not the needs of
190. 8:38the water the land now needs water
191. 8:43seems to me this conflict has not
192. 8:46shifted
193. 8:47what happens they take the big diggers
194. 8:50down the person who opens the leg has a
195. 8:54contract to do so when the water levels
196. 8:56get to a certain point and if we get
197. 8:59lots of southerly that can happen two or
198. 9:01three times a month the southerlies are
199. 9:04bringing sand and to close it over
200. 9:07now and again some people do come down
201. 9:09here it happened about four years ago
202. 9:11where agrifice came down and we
203. 9:13reinvented what happened back in the
204. 9:15back in the day
205. 9:16relearning of the old of the old methods
206. 9:19and trying to keep it alive but it's
207. 9:21really it's doesn't happen anymore
208. 9:22purely because the numbers the eel
209. 9:24stocks just aren't there anymore not
210. 9:25only through overfishing
211. 9:28but through the um
212. 9:31through the changes of the waterways you
213. 9:33know intensive farming and Landers
214. 9:35destroyed a lot of natural habitat for
215. 9:36the tuna
216. 9:37and it's just a sad reality
217. 9:41Maori had to give up their water they
218. 9:44had to give up their land they had to
219. 9:46give up their life
220. 9:48four
221. 9:50Europeans to carry on their culture to
222. 9:55carry on
223. 9:56their farming and their structures they
224. 9:59did that
225. 10:01but they didn't disappear
226. 10:03and they're coming back I believe good
227. 10:06things are going to happen Society is
228. 10:08undergoing change so as we uh
229. 10:13um becoming more understanding of a
230. 10:15Maori worldview
231. 10:17there's not so that world view is
232. 10:20becoming more predominant within local
233. 10:23government within the national
234. 10:24government and so we're starting to see
235. 10:26that the way that we've done things in
236. 10:28the past hasn't really been good enough
237. 10:30for the natural world and we need to do
238. 10:32better and I think younger people
239. 10:35certainly believe it much more strongly
240. 10:36I know many people who are beginning to
241. 10:41understand this
242. 10:43and are making very positive moves
243. 10:47to rectify the damage we have done
244. 10:50there is a long way to go whether or not
245. 10:52we can get back to where we should be
246. 10:55I don't think I'll see it
247. 10:57but
248. 10:58I think we have to try very hard no
249. 11:03matter what it is that has to be done we
250. 11:05have to have the courage to do that
251. 11:09and it won't be done by expanding our
252. 11:12current practices they have to change