The Tauranga City Council may revert the name of the Ōmanawa Falls Reserve to its original te reo Māori to reflect the historical significance of the area.

Ngāti Hangarau has provided the name Te Rere o Ōmanawa for the reserve south of Tauranga, which features a 35m waterfall famed for its beauty.

“Ōmanawa” translates to “of the heart”, and the full name means “the waterfall of the heart”.

In a council meeting on Tuesday councillors will debate whether the reserve should be renamed or take the dual name of Te Rere o Ōmanawa – Ōmanawa Falls Reserve.

A report by council staff said renaming the reserve to Te Rere o Ōmanawa would best meet mana whenua objectives and address elected member concerns around confusing visitors.

Safety upgrades

Ōmanawa Falls Reserve is owned and managed by the Tauranga City Council and sits within the Western Bay of Plenty District. It is in the rohe of Ngāti Hangarau.

The renaming was supported by the Ōmanawa Falls Governance Group, made up of representatives of Ngāti Hangarau, Tourism Bay of Plenty and the Tauranga City Council. The Western Bay of Plenty District Council also supported it.

The governance group managed work to make the reserve safer after several incidents, including the drowning of a 27-year-old man in 2018 and the death of a man in 2021 after he failed to return from climbing a cliff.The reserve access in May 2023, during the period it was closed. Photo / Sun Media

The reserve closed in January 2016 and reopened in December 2023 after the upgrade, which included a walking track to the edge of the waterfall pool with more than 750 stairs and three viewing platforms.

One incident had been reported since the site reopened: a visitor broke an ankle after slipping on gravel, according to a council statement.

Restoration of original name

The council report said the original name, Te Rere o Ōmanawa, became anglicised after the arrival of European settlers, the development of a hydro power station and the creation of the reserve.

Ngāti Hangarau Hapū Trust chairman Koro Nicholas told Local Democracy Reporting that the proposal was not a renaming, but recognising the name used for centuries.

Nicholas said the land was wrongfully confiscated from tangata whenua in the 1860s.

He said the Crown admitted this in 2012, but the hapu still struggled to reconnect with the whenua today.

“Our people have had a very strained relationship with the land, lots of our kids don’t even know that it’s a part of our whenua, part of our whakapapa.”

He said the hapu had lived on this land for 800 years.

“Our language, our culture, our identity, were all developed as a part of ourselves living within that environment.

“It was important for us when we opened up the track that our own people were able to come back and reconnect with this land.”Ngāti Hangarau Hapū Trust chairman Koro Nicholas.

To Ngāti Hangarau, he said, the name Te Rere o Ōmanawa meant the place their hearts could connect with the environment.

Nicholas said reverting to the original name was not about excluding anyone.

“It wasn’t exclusive from our perspective – we didn’t think it was an exclusive resource to be opened only to our people.”

The ultimate goal was for visitors to have a meaningful experience and leave with a richer understanding of the significance of nature.

“When people understand the significance of this place, they have a stronger connection to it and use it in the way the local people intended.”

A statement by Ngāti Hangarau in 2022 said the waterfall and the pool of water below were recognised as wāhi tapu (sacred).

The falls were also considered good luck, and a place for fortune-telling and for healing.

Naming policy

The council’s naming policy allowed for the renaming of existing reserves where a new name would better meet the aim to promote local identity and mana whenua connections.

The naming policy was revised in May 2020 and encouraged locally significant Māori names for streets, reserves, community facilities and other public places in Tauranga, and to enable greater visibility of mana whenua connections to Tauranga.

If the council decided to rename the reserve, the name Te Rere o Ōmanawa would be formally recognised on supporting documents and records.

It would be supported by a translation for the next few years, and as long as required.

The Ōmanawa Falls Governance Group and the council would support Ngāti Hangarau’s planned application to the New Zealand Geographic Board to officially rename the waterfall to Te Rere o Ōmanawa.

Ayla Yeoman is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based in Tauranga. She holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in communications, politics and international relations from the University of Auckland, and has been a journalist since 2022.