Waitemata Harbor: one of Auckland’s greatest assets.
In an open letter to New Zealand’s leading port company in March 2015, a wealthy entrepreneur named Stuart Smith wrote that the Waitemata Harbor was one of Auckland’s greatest assets. It connects the country’s largest city to the Pacific and is home to beaches, yacht clubs and marinas, including the largest marina in the Southern Hemisphere. In pre-colonial times, the Maori named it Waitemata, after the texture of volcanic glass. But today it’s also the site of a controversial scheme to develop the port even further. “Aucklanders deserve better than this,” continues the letter by Smith, a principal funder of the Stop Stealing our Harbour campaign that rallied 2,000 people and 300 boats at Waitemata in protest this March. The plan, approved hastily by the Ports of Auckland company last year, includes the construction of two massive wharf extensions that are set to start soon, and would have the effect of blocking large swaths of the harbor view. In solidarity, we’ve presented our own, slightly higher, view over Auckland Harbor.
[Header image of Auckland by New Zealand Defence Force, used under CC BY 2.0]
WATCH THE LIVE DROPCAM VIEW OVER WAITEMATA HARBOR
