June 03, 2020
Names flow into sea
The New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa is all at sea with its latest mahi.
It’s consulting on proposals to rename three undersea features.
Poverty Canyon, offshore from Māhia Peninsula is to be renamed Māhia Canyon, the Matakoa Re-entrant, a low area between two undersea hills offshore from East Cape, will have its spelling corrected to Matakaoa, and Whareama Sea Valleys off the Wairarapa coast will be shortened to Whareama Valley.
Board secretary Wendy Shaw says the Māori names help preserve and strengthen corresponding land-based features.
"Whareama is connected with a land-based river, the Whareama River, and the story that goes with that name is around the meaning of a house with carved posts," she says
Matakaoa describes the surface of the tide as it churns over a reef.
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