Greed and arrogance
BY RAHUI KATENE – The Marlborough Express
My uncle, Mike Reeves, was born and raised in Waikawa, and tells me that in the mid-1940s, both sea and freshwater food was plentiful.
There was a swamp from the beach which supplied the whanau with lamprey eel and ordinary silver belly eel. This was also a breeding area for whitebait and thousands of baby flounder right across the Waikawa Pa foreshore.
In those days the people there were able to enjoy fresh flounder, scallops, cockles, pipi and tons of herrings and mackerel.
There was also a huge snapper area on the west side of the bay. In the bay itself there was plentiful blue cod, paua and kina.
The whanau were able to go to their beach to pick mussels, kopakopa and other kaimoana.
Then the Waikawa marina was dug out and land reclaimed by uplifting the seabed and filling in the beautiful swamp, which today only holds great memories.
The people have lost their source of natural, healthy sea and freshwater food because of marina pollution. Their scallops have shifted out of the bay into deeper water because of pollution. The only shellfish left – kopakopa – is way out in the bay.
Now Port Marlborough wants to shift this shellfish from where they have been for hundreds of years by extending the marina so more wealthy outsiders can moor their expensive toys there. Uncle Mike said: “The word is no!” And I agree.
When will local authorities stop listening to companies wanting to make money at everyone else’s expense and at the expense of the environment? They don’t care that our people are going hungry. The wealthy outsiders don’t care that they are mooring their expensive toys on top of seabed which has been stripped of its bounty.
The local authorities don’t care about the wishes of the locals or about the loss for future generations.
This is pure and simple greed and arrogance. It is time the people of Marlborough told the council, port authority and Waikawa Marina that money is not everything. Quality of life, a clean pristine environment, the ability to go to the beach and pick your own food, leaving a legacy of beauty and wonderful memories is so much more important.
I hope you support Te Ati Awa and Uncle Mike in their fight for a better, beautiful, bounteous Waikawa Bay.
Rahui Katene is MP for Te Tai Tonga. She is a member of the Maori Party.
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