Stu Farrant
Stu is an Ecological Engineer with a passion for improving how we use water as the catalyst to drive regenerative urban development. Through understanding the relic stream networks of the city and the unfortunate legacy of land reclamation, piping and uncontrolled urbanisation there is a basis to recognise how we need transformative change in how our towns and cities respond to rainfall and respect the critical ecological connections that must be protected if we want to see urban biodiversity and ecology for future generations. Can we achieve a future where our once cherished freshwater awa are again flowing freely through communities and connecting people with Te Taiao in the face of a changing climate and ongoing urban development.
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.