Our session starting with a brief introduction and receiving some light reading before we headed out to Waikauwau, or Hannah's Bay as it is known to the locals.
As we walked through the reserve we received information about how the land that the airport currently resides on was taken from the local hapu. Prior to the 1960's much of this land contained housing and was a walkway for tamariki to hikoi between two marae's walking past the fruit trees that still grow on the site today.
Land that is visible on the top of this picture (at the lakefront) was to be returned to the hapu if the ownership of the Rotorua Airport ever changed hands (which it did in 2014) - this was part of an agreement signed back in the 1960's. Unfortunately the local council have yet to return this to the hapu so they are looking at taking their case to the environmental court to get this enforced and returned to them.
As we walked back along the waterfront, it gave us a chance to reflect on the information that we have received this week and wonder how this reserve would look if it hadn't been repurposed for the airport - how could we use this information in the classroom? What systems were involved and who has been let down by the systems that were in place last century?
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