Evan Harrison
Evan is a freshwater ecologist who led the Wellington City Urban Stream Monitoring Programme. He currently leads the Knowledge Unit in the Environment Group at Greater Wellington Regional Council and has previously worked at the Ministry for the Environment and University of Canberra. An understanding of the remnant ecological values in our protected headwater streams highlights both the resilience of many of our freshwater species whilst also highlighting the challenge with severed connections between these headwaters and the coast. But beneath our feet, indigenous ecology hangs on with investigations and anecdotal evidence showing large numbers of tuna, koura and fish living and moving in a subterranean stream network. This remarkable resilience should provide motivation to make the steps needed to protect and enhance the conditions in which these taonga species are subjected too.
The hidden waters of Te-Whanganui-a-Tara – understanding our past to rekindle connection and care, for future generations.
As with towns and cities across Aotearoa, Te Whanganui a Tara retains a dendritic network of urban streams that continue to provide a path for water from Ki uta ki tai (from the hilltops to the sea). Depending on where you are across the city these streams may be fresh flowing headwater streams in regenerating forest reserves or forced to flow through darkened pipe networks that remain beneath our city streets. In other places they remain open but with uncontrolled stormwater pulsing in every time it rains. The flow in these streams persist regardless of the human induced conditions and these waterways continues to provide ecological connectivity for a range of indigenous and endemic species. Community connection, awareness and sense of kaitiaki is however challenged by the degraded condition that we now find these stream in. Similarly, the agencies tasked with ‘managing’ the stormwater networks to primarily provide urban drainage and flood resilience have become disconnected from the natural system in which they work. But times are changing and once again these cherished urban waterways are again becoming a focus of urban regeneration and renewal.