Bouw Secundus
Making our way out of Taupo passed the lake I’m reminded of it’s full maori name, Taupo-Nui-a-Tia. “Te Arawa, one of the waka (canoes) from the 14th century fleet which traveled from Polynesia to Aotearoa/New Zealand, made its last stop at the Bay of Plenty. On board were two very influential men Ngatoroirangi (a powerful tohunga or high priest) and Tia, another chief from the canoe.
Maori oral tradition records how they were involved in the naming of the district and the lake and many other geographical features. Leading separate parties, the men left the coast and began to explore inland. Tia continued west until he came to the Waikato River. At a place near Wairakei he came to some river rapids whose tiered form fascinated him. Today they are called Aratiatia (the stairway of Tia). Journeying on to present-day Lake Taupō, he was disappointed to find a large tribe, Ngati Hotu, already living there.
Tia continued around the eastern shores of the lake to Hamaria, where he noticed that the peculiar colouring and appearance of the cliff face resembled the distinctive patterned rain cloak of flax leaves he was wearing. In response, he named the cliffs Taupo-nui-a-Tia (the great cloak of Tia). It is said that, there was an argument about which group of explorers had reached Taupo first and in a show of anger Ngatoroirangi is said to have conjured a ‘mantle or cloak of darkness” which impeded the progress of Tia and his group. Nevertheless, Taupo-nui-a Tia was the name later given to the lake by the occupying tribes that followed.”
I’d heard an interesting project called ‘Energy Farming to Protect Lake Taupo (& Provide Sustainable Income for Threatened farms)’ had been undertaken and completed in the region earlier this year. Its aim was to develop methods and a handbook to enable landowners to grow crops of salix to help them in growing short rotation crops, especially Salix, the feedstock for ethanol and bio-polymers.
“Lake Taupo Development Company (now Pure Power Global), in conjunction with Agrigenesis, had been exploring the opportunity to grow short rotation Salix. Through a bio-refining process, ethanol for fuel and bio-polymers for a range of bio-degradable plastics and films can be produced from coppiced Salix tissue. They believed there is an opportunity to produce 5% of NZ’s transport fuel, and lead the world in bio-polymer technology, while mitigating the nitrogen impact of current land use practices and thereby protect Lake Taupo.
Pure Power is a global, vertically integrated renewable energy company, with a blend of revenue generating best-of-breed established technologies and next generation disruptive renewable energy technologies. It combines a passionate, successful international leadership team with some of the world’s best scientific minds, to define, drive and direct the renewable energy industry.
It also recently acquired a stake in Aquaflow Bionomic, a New Zealand company that is harvesting wild micro algae and is supporting the Air New Zealand biodiesel (the biofuel will include 50 percent standard jet fuel and synthetic fuel made from the oil from seeds of the jatropha plant) trial scheduled for next month. Pure Power also acquired BioJoule Limited, a cellulosic ethanol concern. In a statement, management said that the International Energy Agency forecasts a 57 percent increase in energy needs by 2030, and that two-thirds would come from developing countries, led by China and India.
New Zealand’s Aquaflow Bionomic has achieved commercial-scale algae harvest levels at its plant in Marlborough, and said that its new bioreactor installations are expected to bring the company to commercial-scale production of biocrude’“within the next few months’. Aquaflow is rumored to be the fuel supplier for the Air New Zealand biodiesel test flight next month.” Interesting times.
A person might be forgiven for thinking that they’d landed on Bouw Secundus (my name penneylaneonline put through a sci-fi name generator) a nuked landscape with headless trees, crippled stumps and grassless earth where vegetation ought to be. Except it’s not. We are a short 15 minute drive from Taupo and it’s hard to believe I’m in the same beautiful country.
I feel a peculiar kind of sadness for the way the land has suffered here, it looks for all the world like a graveyard for trees. The soil (in so far as I can tell, sitting in a car cruising at 100kms an hour) has been leeched of any goodness it might have had and the tree stumps themselves appear totally dejected. It seems a cruel twist of fate for one whose life began so well and my hope in the future is that (along this stretch of road) we’ll at least have the good conscience to create something better than what’s currently there.
