Puketutu Island

Puketutu Island
Te Motu a Hiaroa
The motu (island) today, from Māngere Mountain
Highest point
Elevation	65 m (213 ft)
Coordinates	36°57′55″S 174°44′50″E / 36.965186°S 174.747248°E / -36.965186; 174.747248
Geography
Location	North Island, New Zealand
Geology
Volcanic arc/belt	Auckland volcanic field

Te Motu a Hiaroa Island

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Te Motu a Hiaroa is located in Manukau Harbor

Puketutu Island, also known as Te Motu a Hiaroa, is a volcanic island in the Manukau Harbour, New Zealand, and is part of the Auckland volcanic field. European settlers called it Weekes' Island, but this was eventually abandoned in favour of the historical Māori name. The island is joined to the mainland via a causeway known as Te Ara Tāhuna.

Te Motu a Hiaroa means "the island of Hiaroa" in reference to an ancestor who arrived on the island after journeying on the Tainui waka.^[1] Puketutu refers to one of the several maunga (mountains) and puke (hills) on the island. The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "tutu shrub hill" for Puketutu.^[2]

History

Approximately 18,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum when sea levels were over 100 metres lower than present day levels, the Manukau Harbour was a river valley. Puketutu was a hilly feature which rose from the surrounding area. Sea levels began to rise 7,000 years ago, eventually separating Puketutu from the mainland.^[3]

Te Motu a Hiaroa is linked in Māori traditions to Mataaoho, the deity responsible for volcanic activity, who created the wider Auckland volcanic field. The creation of these volcanoes is the result of Te Riri o

Doctor Henry Weekes settled on Puketutu Island in 1846, inspired by the novel

In the 1950s, several of its

charitable trust proposed a scheme whereby biosolids from the nearby Māngere wastewater treatment plant (covering 600ha on the landward sides, and served around 600,000 people in the 1990s)^[5]

could be used to reshape the older form of the island. While the process could take up to 35 years, the final goal was envisaged as reestablishing the Māori customary owners and providing open space for Aucklanders. [6] Watercare then bought a long-term lease of the island and transferred the island's title ownership to Te Motu a Hiaroa (Puketutu Island) Charitable Trust, with representatives from Waikato-Tainui, Te Kawerau a Maki, and Makaurau Marae/Te Ahiwaru Waiohua.^[7]

Te Motu a Hiaroa Charitable Trust plans to reestablish a whare wānanga and has a partnership with Auckland Council to rehabilitate the island and create a type of cultural park accessible to the people of Auckland.

• 
  Puketutu Island (then called 'Weekes' Island') in the 1910s, before it lost most of its cones to quarrying.
• 
  Puketutu Island's Pinnacle Hill, with a waka or canoe in the foreground.

See also

• New Zealand outlying islands
• List of islands of New Zealand
• List of islands
• Desert island

References

1. ^ "Home". Te Motu a Hiaroa Charitable Trust. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
2. ^ "1000 Māori place names". New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 6 August 2019.
3. ^ "Estuary origins". National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
4. ^
   ISBN 978-1-988587-33-2
   .
5. IPENZ
   , Engineering Publications Co Ltd, Page 9
6. ^ Redemption near for Puketutu – City of Fire, insert magazine in The New Zealand Herald, Friday 15 February 2008
7. ^ Rehabilitating Puketutu Island with biosolids (Watercare. Accessed 2020-06-16.)

See also

• City of Volcanoes: A geology of Auckland – Searle, Ernest J.; revised by Mayhill, R.D.; Longman Paul, 1981. First published 1964.
  ISBN 0-582-71784-1
  .
• Volcanoes of Auckland: A Field Guide. Hayward, B.W.; Auckland University Press, 2019, 335 pp.
  ISBN 0-582-71784-1
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Puketutu Island.

• Photographs of Puketutu Island held in Auckland Libraries' heritage collections.