Maori spiritual values help block plan for tidal gates on inlet

By ANNE GIBSON

The Environment Court has blocked a plan to install tidal gates across a Manukau Harbour inlet partly because of its impact on Maori spiritual values.

Papakura District Council wanted to build gates under the Southern Motorway to turn the upper Pahurehure inlet into a lake for water sports.

But the court found it would affect Maori spiritual values by interfering with the natural flow of the tide.

"The inlet is an integral part of the Manukau Harbour," wrote presiding Environment Court Judge Gordon Whiting. "If the water is interfered with, the wairua [spirit] of its water will decay and when the gates are reopened the resulting decay will affect the wairua of the greater Manukau Harbour."

The decision also noted that the development and loss of habitat would have an impact on bird life.

The ruling comes as the Resource Management Act, which says Maori spiritual and cultural concerns must be taken into account in environmental matters, comes under increasing pressure. A Thames developer is fuming over Maori claims of lights flicking on and off and water running without explanation at a proposed building site.

In that case, Justice David Baragwanath in an interim ruling reserved his decision on Cornelis Kruithof's plan to build houses on the property, saying it had been described as "tapu" or sacred.

National Party environment spokesman Nick Smith said Ngati Maru's warnings of strange events was "hocus pocus" and the Manukau Harbour decision further highlighted the "nonsense" of having the Environment Court "delve into the spiritual world".

While the Government was considering changes to the RMA, National would give the Act a "thorough clean-up" to remove any references to the spiritual world, Dr Smith said.

Act environment spokesman Ken Shirley said his party was campaigning to do the same.

In the Manukau case the court heard an appeal against the granting of a consent to operate tidal gates at the Pahurehure inlet.

The inlet, once an open body of water with sandy beaches, became degraded after a motorway causeway was built in 1964. The council proposed to build tidal gates, which would have operated on weekends and some weekdays to create a lake.

It got 237 submissions, including 228 supporting the scheme. The Pahurehure Inlet Protection Society supported the scheme to enhance use of the inlet for rowing and sailing.

However, Ngati Tamaoho Trust and its chairman Ted Ngataki took the Auckland Regional Council, Papakura District Council and a local water protection society to court to stop the proposal.

Mr Ngataki and the trust objected on the grounds of the harbour's significance to tangata whenua. He opposed artificial constraint of the natural flow of the tide, the impact the gates would have on traditional fishing grounds and ecological effects of sediment and stormwater. He told the court how his ancestors had taught him that the flow of water from the peaks of the mountains to the sea must not be halted.