Mō te rohe o Waikato About the Waikato region

The early days

The environment influenced where people settled in the Waikato region. Early Māori and European settlements grew alongside rivers and the coast, close to areas rich in natural resources. Many of today’s towns have developed around these early settlements.

Tangata whenua of the Waikato region are believed to have originated from the Tainui and Te Arawa waka, part of the fleet of canoes that arrived from Polynesia around 1350. Pre-European settlements were small and scattered. They were often on headlands or river terraces that could be defended.

Early European settlers were traders and missionaries. Mission stations were set up at Kawhia, Mangapouri, Matamata and Pukawa.

Māori resistance towards land sales to increasing numbers of Pakeha settlers was followed by the land wars of the 1860s. Under the 1863 New Zealand Settlements Act the Crown confiscated approximately 500,000 ha of land from Tainui (one fifth of the region). After the land wars, European settlers cleared and developed the land. However, the boggy swamps of the Hauraki Plains and the steep slopes of the Kaimai Ranges made settling and getting around difficult.

From the 1880s dairy farming was the main agricultural activity in Waipā and Waikato areas. Small towns grew near dairy factories. Settlements also grew around gold mines in the Coromandel Peninsula and coal mines near Huntly. We used rivers for transport. Hamilton, on the Waikato River, became a busy centre of economic activity.

A century of change

The last hundred years have seen sweeping changes to the region’s landscapes and where we have settled, used and created resources. Early this century, most of the hill country was developed for farming. After World War II, more service towns and industries thrived, and small settlements grew around hydroelectric dam constructions.

Native timber was logged north and west of Lake Taupō. Pinus radiata planted in the 1920s and 1930s started today’s plantation forestry industry.

Tokoroa’s population more than doubled in 10 years between 1961 and 1971 (7,000 to over 15,000) as people moved to jobs created by the local and world markets’ demand for wood products. Many new arrivals were Māori, as jobs and Government housing policies encouraged Māori to move to towns and cities.

Government incentives during this period promoted sheep and cattle farming and bush clearing, so more land was put into farms and forestry. Much of this was marginal land and could only be farmed with the use of fertiliser.

With increasing mobility and leisure time, New Zealanders headed for the beach. Many coastal areas were subdivided, such as the Coromandel Peninsula.

In the 1970s economic recession, changing markets and automated production of industries meant less employment in the coal and timber industries. The number of people living in Huntly and Tokoroa fell.

In the 1980s, New Zealand’s economy was restructured. This meant many industries were deregulated or no longer run by the government. During this time farming subsidies were removed. As a result farming had to be more efficient, which often meant more intensive use was made of the land, and stocking rates increased.

Without subsidies, some areas are now uneconomic to farm. The land is reverting to scrub and gorse on its way back to native forest.

The region is broken up into one city (Hamilton) and 10 districts, three of which lie across the regional boundary.

Waikato Regional Council has overarching regional responsibilities for:

• planning  and leadership
• regional civil defence
• regional land transport
• managing the effects of activities on air, soil, coastal and water resources
• regional research and investigation
• flood control and drainage
• animal and plant pest control
• environmental education.  

Hamilton city and the districts each also have a separate local authority, focusing on their own specific area. The map below shows where the city and district boundaries are. The local authorities are listed below the map.  

The Waikato region, centred around 38 degrees south, is exposed to prevailing west and southwest winds from the Tasman Sea. These bring mild, humid conditions.

No location is more than 80 km from the sea which means temperatures are quite regulated.  The north central Waikato region tends to have warm, humid summers and mild winters. Our sheltered and elevated inland places experience more extremes of hot and cold.

The Waikato region is renowned for the high number of fog days. Fog commonly forms over moist or marshy ground on cloudless nights with light winds. Although sheltered inland areas have less rain, they do have many frosts and fog events as do Coromandel and Waihi. 

Some climate facts:

• The average annual rainfall is 1,250 mm. This is generally enough for agriculture but there is potential for drought during summer.
• The Coromandel Peninsula often has annual rainfalls over 3,000 mm and sometimes in excess of 4,500 mm.
• The Waitomo/Kawhia area is exposed to moist winds from both the south and northwest, bringing rain.
• The alpine area around the Tongariro National Park experiences high rainfall and very cold temperatures.
• The lower Waikato lowlands and the Hauraki Plains, sheltered to the east by the Kaimai and Coromandel Ranges and to the south by the central North Island plateau.
• The Taupō area is sheltered by the Hauhungaroa Range.
• The Reporoa Valley sheltered by the Paeroa Range.

The natural environment of the Waikato region is made up of diverse landscapes, plants and animals.

Landscapes

The region’s landscapes include flat floodplains, rolling hills, mountain ranges and steep volcanoes. There are four four distinct topographical areas, characterised by our different landscapes:

• Taupō volcanic zone
• Waikato lowlands and Hauraki Plains
• Western and central hill country
• Eastern Ranges.

Much has changed since people have settled here, and very little of our native vegetation and once extensive wetlands remain.  Only a few beaches are undeveloped and coastal subdivision for housing and holiday homes continues to put pressure on our coasts' natural character.

Biodiversity

New Zealand has an unusually high number of species that are found naturally nowhere else in the world. More than 90 per cent of  freshwater fish and insects, 65 per cent of plants and 57 per cent of land birds are found native to our country, and many are endangered. Some of these species are only found in the Waikato region, such as the giant cane rush (Sporadanthus ferrugineus) which is found only in Waikato wetlands.

In addition, some 6,000 exotic species have ‘escaped’ or been released into the New Zealand countryside.

Ecosystems

Ecosystems are made up of animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and other micro-organisms (biodiversity) and the soil, land, air and water they habitat (physical environment).

Just as the human body 'system' relies on the circulation of blood and oxygen and the conversion of food to energy, an ecosystem relies on the circulation of water, gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide), nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus) and energy (sunlight, food).

Ecosystems are our ‘natural capital’, and provide us with valuable goods (food, water, oxygen), services (flood control, nutrient cycling) and experiences (recreation, aesthetics and spiritual values).

The Waikato region's ecosystems result from our diverse landscapes, climate and the effects of human settlement and resource use. Today, our ecosystems are dominated by species introduced to New Zealand. We have rolling rye grass/ clover pastoral ecosystems in the north. Extensive pine plantations cover the volcanic plateau.

Our remaining native ecosystems are precious, and include:

• hill country forests and scrub
• small remnants of lowland forest
• wetlands
• waterways
• lakes
• coasts
• alpine areas.

Caring for our enviroment

Waikato Regional Council uses an ecosystem approach when managing the environment.  This means it's our job to:

• understand the natural processes that support life
• understand the links between air, water, land and all living things (including humans)
• be aware of the links between environmental, economic, social and cultural values and concerns and
• work with other resource managers, resource users, land owners, and communities.

We collect a wide range of data and scientific information on land, water, soil, plants and animals, and social, economic and cultural information. We develop policies and rules around use of the environment, and process and monitor related resource consents. We provide environmental education and resources. We help local care groups protect and enhance our lakes, streams, rivers, land and beaches.

We all need to understand that the way we live, how we use our land, what we buy and use affects how healthy our environment is. In turn, everything we do - building towns, turning forests into farms, using cars - depends on a healthy environment: clean water, clean air, healthy soil and a variety of life forms.

It’s easy to use nature’s resources to suit our short term needs. But to have a healthy environment in the long term, we need to be prepared change the way we do things now and in the future.

Tourism is a key industry for New Zealand. The tourism industry markets New Zealand’s scenic beauty internationally. Many New Zealanders have a strong relationship with the outdoors and over half of adult New Zealanders use beaches, rivers and lakes for leisure.

Visitors from New Zealand and overseas value the Waikato region’s many scenic and natural attractions. High profile tourist and recreation activities based around our natural environment include:

• Waitomo Caves
• geothermal activity, especially in the Rotorua area
• Coromandel Peninsula
• Lake Taupō
• Tongariro National Park.

Tour operators, holidaymakers and day–trippers also regularly use the Waikato’s nationally recognised tourist routes (State Highway 1, State Highway 3 and the Pacific Coast Highway).

High tourist numbers and demand lead to an increase in:

• damage to fragile natural environments
• development that may affect our environment
• strain on infrastructure, such as waste treatment services and roads.

We need to manage the demands that increasing numbers of tourists and holidaymakers put on our environment. For example, the Thames-Coromandel district's usual population grows by six times as much over the Christmas Day to New Year’s Day period, when holiday property owners, their friends and families, campers and holiday makers arrive.