Threat to one of NZ's oldest burial sites the 'canary in the coal mine'

1News

10-07-2025

One of New Zealand's earliest and most significant archaeological sites is at risk of rising sea levels driven by climate change, according to a new study.
Referred to as the birthplace of the nation, the Wairau Bar, or Te Pokohiwi o Kupe, in the Marlborough region is widely regarded as the landing site of the first settlers from Polynesia.
One of the study's authors Corey Hebberd of local Rangitāne o Wairau iwi told Breakfast that the site had been subject to science and research in the 1940s, despite protest from local iwi.
He said it resulted in the remains of 60 tupuna and their associated taonga being uplifted 'in the name of research' by the then Dominion Museum. Only in relatively recent times were they repatriated and returned to the Wairau Bar for burial.
'So it's a significant site,' said Hebberd, 'not just for us as Rangitāne, not just for us as Māori, but for the country as that place of first settlement that links us to Hawaiki and serves as our first place of settlement".
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Now there are concerns around the impact of climate change on the site. Hebberd referred to recent weather events that have caused severe flooding to the top of the South Island.
'We seem to be having 1 in 100-year storm events every year. The site as we've found through the research project is susceptible to 1 in 100-year flooding events, and by that we mean that 20% of the site could be impacted, meaning disturbing of middens, of artefacts, of burial sites.'
The more worrying concern, he said, is the threat from rising sea levels.
The research suggests that approximately 54% of heritage land becomes affected by a 100-year storm inundation event with a 0.5 metre increase in sea level – likely to be reached between 2045 and 2060.
The modelling also suggests that a 1 metre sea level rise is likely to be reached between 2070 and 2130, where approximately 75% of heritage land then becomes compromised by a 100-year storm inundation event.
Alongside whānau, the iwi have been working closely with NIWA – which has newly merged with GNS Science to become Earth Sciences New Zealand – for the past couple of years.
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'We've been modelling former storm events, we've been creating vulnerability maps, but we've also been engaging with our whānau to understand in their lifetime some of the memories that they have of the flooding impacts of the flooding events.'
From their research they are developing a model that talks to the cultural impact the events have beyond the coastal and environmental.
Corey Hebberd (Source: Breakfast)
Hebberd said in some respects their findings have been alarming.
'You sometimes think that these things might not happen in your lifetime but, you know, the years that I've just rattled off, I'm a child of the 90s, those will happen in my lifetime and they become a real responsibility for my generation and generations to come.'
He hopes the model they are working on will lead to further exploration and development of tools that can help mitigate the threat to the site.
'Like what are the soft engineering features that we can start to do, are there things that could slow down erosion, are there protections that we can put in place, what research can we do in the meantime to understand the area'
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'There's also the opportunity for us to work together at a national level at a local level to put more protections in place. To raise profiles of sites like this to come up with national planning strategies that address these sites, because they are vulnerable and they are at risk of being lost and they tell so much story, and they tell so much about our national identity.'
He describes the situation at Te Pokohiwi o Kupe as 'the canary in the coal mine', pointing to other low-lying sites of archaeological, as well as cultural, significance such as marae and urupā.
'What we're hoping here is that this research will help to develop a new tool that can inform policy and decision makers around some of the cultural impacts that this has around identity and so we can work together to come up with ways to minimise and mitigate the impact that these events have.'