Environmental uncertainty and muddy blue spaces: health, history and wetland geographies in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Since 1840, when the British colonisation of Aotearoa New Zealand formally commenced with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, there has been a significant reduction in the total area and health of wetlands as a result of drainage and river ‘improvement’ schemes. When thinking about current environmental crises and future impacts of climate change, it is critical that we contemplate how certain human- environment relations are institutionalised in dominant resource management policies. From the outset of European encounters with the wetlands of Aotearoa New Zealand, European explorers, missionaries and settlers perceived the muddy fluid blue spaces as deeply problematic ‘liminal zones’. Unlike Western scientific traditions, no clear division made between separate elements of freshwater systems, such as the water, riparian, river bed, wetlands or estuaries. Between 1894 and 1910, the European settlers attempted, unsuccessfully, to drain the Rangitaiki wetlands.