-109As a water table lake, Waiwiri is dangerously susceptible to the numerous bores and drains which puncture and criss-cross the plains. The water flowing across the sandplains from the Tararuas forms a life support system for the lake; this life support system has been drawn on so heavily that the lake’s levels have dropped considerably since the 1890s. Lake Waiwiri is a system of cultural history, of water, and of slow moving geological change. And it is a system which relies entirely on the transect between Beach and Bush, from the coast to the mountains. A large portion of these lands are old dunes, successively blown inland in depositional episodes, starting as far back as 2nd century, and continuing today82 as shown in Figure 68. This results in a unique environment which is constantly in flux, where dunal lakes - such as Lake Waiwiri - have formed as the build up of dune sands blocks stream paths to the sea. Even now, through the rectangular sections, vegetable fields, and newly tilled paddocks, one can perceive that this is a land that is used to being in a perpetual state of change. The multiple sections of marshy lands and swamps are ever-changing. They are the evidence of the continual battle farmers have against this naturally wet land. It is “...a long. relentless war between man and wild things” as Helen Wilson said83, a sentiment that was repeated by many a settler when faced with swampy forest, which they considered an oppressive and wasteful space. It is within this site and history that the native landscapes of the Beach, the Swamp and the Bush can be connected as one functioning ecosystem along a transect from coast to foothills.
82 McFadgen, B. (1997). Archaeology of the Wellington Conservancy: Kapiti-Horowhenua. A prehistoric and palaeoenvironmental study (Part 1). Wellington: Department of Conservation. 11. 83 Park, G. (1995). ‘Ngā Uruora: The Groves of Life. Ecology and History in the New Zealand Landscape’. Wellington: Victoria University Press. 167.