Taranaki

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Taranaki
Country: New Zealand
Cities and Towns
Cities: New Plymouth
Towns: Stratford, Hawera, Patea, Waverley, Opunake, Waitara, Bell Block, Inglewood
Regional Council
Name: Taranaki Regional Council
Population: 105,000
June 2006 estimate [1]
Land Area: 7,257km²
Chair: David Walter
Website: http://www.trc.govt.nz/
Territorial Authorities
Names: New Plymouth District Council
Stratford District Council
South Taranaki District Council
Websites: http://www.stratford.govt.nz
http://www.newplymouthnz.com
http://www.stdc.govt.nz

Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named for the region's main geographical feature, Mount Taranaki.

Geography and people

Taranaki is situated on the west coast of the North Island, surrounding the volcanic peak. The large bays north-west and south-west of Cape Egmont are prosaically named the North Taranaki Bight and the South Taranaki Bight.

Satellite picture of Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont from the NASA Earth Observatory, showing the nearly-circular Egmont National Park surrounding it. New Plymouth is the grey area on the northern coast.

Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont—Te Maunga O Taranaki—is the dominant feature of the region, being the second-tallest mountain in the North Island. Māori legend says that Taranaki previously lived with the Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu mountains in the central North Island but fled to its current location after a battle with Tongariro.

A near-perfect cone, Taranaki last erupted in the mid-18th century. The mountain and its immediate surrounds form Egmont National Park.

Although Māori had called the mountain Taranaki for many centuries Captain James Cook re-named it Egmont after the Earl of Egmont, recently retired First Lord of the Admiralty, who had encouraged his expedition. The official name is "Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont".

The region has an area of 7258 km² and an estimated population of 105,000 (June 2006). Just under half live in the city of New Plymouth, located on the northern coast. Other centres include Waitara, Inglewood, Stratford, Opunake,Okato, Kaponga, Eltham, Hawera, Patea and Waverley, the southern-most town.

The region has had a strong Māori presence for centuries. The local iwi (tribes) include Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Ruanui, Taranaki, Te Ati Awa, Nga Rauru, Ngāruahinerangi and Ngāti Tama.

View of Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont from Stratford, facing west. Fanthams Peak is to the left of the main peak. Note the cow in the foreground; Taranaki is a major dairying region

The region is exceptionally fertile, thanks to generous rainfall and the rich volcanic soil. Dairy farming predominates, with the milk factory just outside Hawera being the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere. There are also oil and gas deposits in the region, both on- and off-shore. The Maui gas field off the south-west coast provides most of New Zealand's gas supply as well as supporting two methanol plants (one formerly a synthetic-petrol plant called the Gas-To-Gasolene plant) near Waitara. More fuel and fertilizer is produced from a well-complex at Kapuni. However, the Maui field is being depleted sooner than expected, leading to increased efforts to find further reserves.

The way the land mass projects into the Tasman Sea with northerly, westerly and southerly exposures results in many excellent surfing and windsurfing locations, some of them considered world-class.

History

Subsequent to Māori settlement in the 13th century and the off-and-on settlement of British whaling and sealing sailors in the early 19th century, New Plymouth first experienced organised European settlement in the early 1840s. European expansion, out from New Plymouth, was prevented by the local tribes' opposition to selling their land and, later, to a strong identification with the King Movement.

As a result of dubious land trading at Waitara there was much fighting in the New Zealand land wars of the 1860s, with thousands of British imperial troops being called in to attempt to pacify the area.

The present main highway follows the path taken by the British as they marched from Patea to New Plymouth.

Following the withdrawal of the British troops Māori resistance continued, with Titokowaru leading an uprising that achieved notable successes against the colonial forces in the south Taranaki region. Titokowaru advanced, southward, almost to Wanganui while defeating three colonial forces and causing much alarm among the settlers.

Titokowaru's vigorous military response can be contrasted with Te Whiti o Rongomai's peaceful opposition centred in Parihaka. However, Te Whiti's peaceful community was brutally suppressed by colonial troops on 5 November 1881.

The result of Māori opposition to illegal settlement of their land was a series of illegal government land confiscations. By 1865 the entire Taranaki district had been confiscated. The release of a Waitangi Tribunal report on the situation in 1996 led to some debate on the matter. In a speech to a group of psychologists, Associate Minister of Māori Affairs Tariana Turia compared the suppression of Taranaki Māori to the Holocaust, provoking a vigorous reaction around New Zealand, with Prime Minister Helen Clark among those voicing criticism.

For a fuller coverage of the land confiscations, see Waitara, New Zealand.

Governance

Provincial Government

From 1853 the Taranaki region was governed as the Taranaki Province, (initially known as the New Plymouth Province) until the abolition of New Zealand provinces in 1876. The leading office was that of the superintendent.

The following is a list of superintendents of the Province of Taranaki during this time:

Superintendent Term
Charles Brown 1853-1857
George Cutfield 1857-1861
Charles Brown 1861-1865
Henry Robert Richmond 1865-1869
Frederic Alonso Carrington 1869-1876

Taranaki Regional Council

The Taranaki Regional Council was formed as part of major nationwide local government reforms in November 1989, for the purpose of Integrated catchment management. The regional council was the successor to the Taranaki Catchment Board, the Taranaki United Council, the Taranaki Harbours Board, and 16 small special-purpose local bodies that were abolished under the Local Government Amendment Act (No 3) 1988. The Council's headquarters were established in the central location of Stratford to "provide a good compromise in respect of overcoming traditional south vs north Taranaki community of interest conflicts" (Taranaki Regional Council, 2001 p.6).

Functions

The Council operates under the Resource Management Act mandate of sustainable management, and carries out the following functions:

Chairmen

Placenames in Taranaki

The Māori language spoken in Taranaki replaces the sound of h (both on its own and in wh) with a break. (The sound used in adjacent Wanganui is similar but not identical.) Thus the famous elder Hina Okeroa was universally known as Ina. The name of the river flowing through New Plymouth, Waiwakaiho, would be written wai whakaiho (meaning "water flowing downward") in Central North Island Māori. It has been suggested that this sound be represented by a question mark, as in "Waiw?akaiho", but that has not caught on.

Famous sons and daughters

Further reading

  • J. S. Tullett (1981). The Industrious Heart: A History of New Plymouth. New Plymouth District Council
  • Belich, James (1988). The New Zealand Wars. Penguin.
  • Dick Scott (1998). Ask That Mountain ISBN 0-7900-0190-X. Reed.

Other information

Taranaki's landscape and the mountain's supposed resemblance to Mount Fuji led it to be selected as the location for The Last Samurai, a motion picture set in 19th-century Japan. The movie starred Tom Cruise.

See also

External links

39°18′S 174°8′E / 39.300°S 174.133°E / -39.300; 174.133

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