Earlier this year, I sat above the wide swirling waters of the Ruamāhanga. I was with a class of year 3 and 4 students from Kahutara primary school in a new storytelling spot for us on Ongaha Farm. The tamariki were beginning their eight month conservation and arts journey run by Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation, called Te Reo o te Wai. We always start field trips with a story beside the river. On this occasion it happened to be a story about a river. At the end of the story the tamariki asked questions and shared reflections. One little boy piped up and said; ‘all water connects.’ His words stayed with me and I thought about how the journey we are taking with the river which flows past our farm is connecting us to some special places in the South Wairarapa.
A strong memory of my teenage years is camping under a grove of tī kōuka beside the river. I loved seeing the sunset reflected in the shimmering water and it was exciting and a little scary to swim to the other side of the river as the current can be very strong. I still occasionally swim in the river but am now more hesitant as I am never sure about how clean the water is. Over the last couple of years thanks to our collaboration with the charity Mountains to Sea Wellington classes from Martinborough and Kahutara School, on the Te Reo o te Wai journey have been able to measure the clarity and temperature of the water and monitor the presence of fish and macro organisms. The coolness of the water, around 10 degrees, at least on the day we last measured it and the presence of mayflies was encouraging.
A highlight of the programme has been the visits that Maddy Glover and Kara Kenny from Mountains to Sea have hosted for us at Lake Wairarapa. Last year we went to Wairio Wetlands and this year to Lake Domain Reserve where we caught, counted and released about fifty enormous eels. Kara led an effective action game which brought home how ingenious and environmentally valuable kākahi, fresh-water mussels are. They use a little foot to propel themselves along and the babies hitch a ride upstream to areas safe from predation by attaching themselves to the back of passing kōkopu and other native fish. By the time they reach maturity they can filter 1 litre of water an hour by drawing water in through an inhalant siphon, passing it over their gills to extract nutrients and oxygen, and then expelling the filtered water through an exhalant siphon. Apparently some kākahi can live for over 50 years. Of real concern is that according to the citizen science monitoring programme led by Greater Wellington Regional Council, that has run for the last 11 years around the lake, hardly any juveniles have been found.
When I was a teenager, we knew very little about the lake, and thought of it as merely a muddy expanse of water. The rich cultural and mythological history of the lake is now more widely appreciated. Most children know that the trickster Maui fished the North Island out of the Pacific. It was only a few years ago that I learned that Lake Wairarapa is te karu o te ika a Maui, the fresh water eye of that fish. The lake is so significant and stunningly beautiful and it is sobering how environmentally degraded it has become.
We heard from Kara how the area now more frequently referred to as the Wairarapa Moana includes Lake Wairarapa, Lake Onoke, Lake Pounui and also the lower part of the Ruamāhanga awa. In times gone by this area flooded frequently and would become one huge body of water.
With all of this new learning in mind and the many wetland and riparian trees they have planted, we asked the tamarki to write about their role as Kaitiaki of our Moana. Here is a small taste of some of their writing.
I love the shining awa
I love the singing birds
I love the oily black eels
I want the fish to live free
I want the eels to have babies
I want the kākahi to make the water clean and fresh
Sofia Eneliko – 7 years, Kahutara Primary School
Te Reo o te Wai is a collaboration between Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation, Mountains to Sea Wellington, Green Jersey Cycle Tours (who provide buses), Joe Potangaroa, Sam Ludden and last but definitely not least Martinborough and Kahutara Primary Schools.
