The Kaituna is the only River that drains Lake Rotorua and Lake Rotoiti. Starting at the outlet of Rotoiti at the Okere Arm, it flows approx 35km to the sea at the Maketu estuary. Between Rotoiti control structure and Paengaroa the river passes through a number of deep gorges, popular for fishing kayaking and white-water rafting. The river then meanders through the alluvial terraces of the mid-Kaituna River and the peat and sand deposits of the lower Kaituna basin. The Mangorewa River is the only major tributary to the Kaituna.
The Kaituna is particularly significant to the Te Arawa tribe, as it mostly flows through their lands.
The Ngati Pikiao people of Te Arawa took a successful claim regarding the water quality to the Waitangi Tribunal in 1978.
Recreational Kayakers have been using the Kaituna for more than 30 years.
The lower gorges once considered unnavigable were run in a series of attempts starting in the late 80's. Some came away with tales of terror, but by the mid 1990's the river had been continuously kayaked and rafted from source to sea. Commercial white water rafting started in the early 1990's on the upper reaches and now the kaituna is one of NZ's premier rafting destinations.
There are a few things that make the Kaituna unique in the world!
The river has deep untouched gorges with vegetation that only grows in the deepest darkest and wettest of environments. No animals have ever grazed on the steep gorge walls and they have mostly (except the Okere falls area) escaped the hand of humans.
During the Waitangi claim to stop Rotorua sewerage being pumped into the Kaituna Mrs Emily Schuster presented some of the experiences of the local iwi. Mrs Emily Schuster is a weaver of great skill and standing, not only in the local Maori community but throughout New Zealand. She conducts classes in arts and crafts and the products of her work were put before us. She spoke in detail of the raw materials she and her students gathered from the river banks and she told us, naming each, of the qualities of one type of vegetation after another. "In the Rotorua area," she said quite sadly, "we have progressed so much that the only place I can take the women is along the Kaituna River. The kiekie is essential and has to be specially treated. To get the true whiteness out of the kiakia it must be soaked in running water and the only place we can do this is the Kaituna..." Even to the untrained eye the quality of her workmanship was obvious, and the importance to her work of the flora on the Kaituna riverbanks was plainly evident. She told us that she "would lay down her life to save the Kaituna."
But perhaps the most dramatic moment in the whole hearing was when a white-haired elderly Maori man came forward and introduced himself as Tamati Wharehuia from Te Matai, an elder of his tribe and one of a long line of Chiefs who had lived by the Kaituna River for generations. (He is also known by the European name of Bob Roberts and is one of the claimants). He told us, as the others had done, of the importance of the river, of its prominent place in tribal history, of the events that had occurred from time to time and from place to place down the whole course of the waterway. He urged upon us the need to protect it from harm and likened the river to his own people whom he had a duty to protect from harm. Then, in a ringing voice he brandished his tokotoko (staff) and said to us: "...If this scheme goes ahead I want to make it clear that I will myself have to take direct action. I will take the patu that has been handed down to me from my ancestors generation by generation and do injury to stop this thing. After that the law must take its course with me, but that is beside the point..."
We spoke earlier of the depth of feeling shown in the evidence. Let us give some examples. Mata Morehu described the course of the Kaituna River from Lake Rotoiti downstream. He told us of the sequence of natural features, illustrating the history of each. He spoke with deep emotion of the place called Te Wai-i-rangi, a stretch of the water near to where the discharge is to take place as the pipeline is now planned. This spot on the river (a lovely clear pool from which the river flows on into a green tunnel of vegetation) was, he said, the place "where my ancestors returning from battle would go to the water and rid themselves of the tapu upon them after the bloodshed of warfare." He went on to speak of burial caves that line the river in the steep gorges through which it runs, all of which are sacred places to the Ngati Pikiao. If the river were to be placed under tapu these sacred places would become inaccessible. The silence in the meeting house as he spoke showed the close attention which all present, Maori and European alike, paid to his words.