Point England

History

Ngāti Pāoa established a foothold along the western side of the Tamaki River and at Mokoia (present day Panmure) in around 1780. Extensive settlement and agriculture by Ngāti Pāoa in the Mokoia area was recorded by the missionaries John Butler and Samuel Marsden around 1820. Mokoia was a significant settlement in the region. Butler estimated four thousand inhabitants. When Butler climbed what was Maungarei / Mount Wellington he saw twenty villages in the valley below and "with a single glance, beheld the greatest portion of cultivated land I had ever met within one place in New Zealand." Between 1836 and 1839, Ngāti Paoa was among five iwi negotiating transactions with a missionary for a large block in Tamaki which allowed Maori to occupy the land without conflict. In 1837, missionaries noted on the back of one of the deeds that in selling the land, iwi would retain the use of at least one third of the block, around 83,000 acres. Sixteen Ngāti Paoa rangatira signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Karaka Bay at the entrance of the Tamaki River on 4 March 1840. In 1842, the Crown granted 5,500 acres to the missionaries and retained the remainder of the land. Following protest, some of the land was returned to Māori, however, Ngāti Paoa did not receive land or compensation and were not permitted to remain on the land set aside for their use in 1837. In 1935, a proposal to establish an airport on 244 acres at the eastern end of Point England Road was proposed as it was only eight miles from the Auckland central Post Office. At a meeting of Auckland metropolitan local authorities in May 1938, a decision was to abandon the Point England site for one at Manukau harbour. On 20 March, 2021, the Crown and Ngāti Paoa signed a Deed of Settlement. In its settlement with Ngāti Paoa,…

Most-observed species

• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  17,897
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  16,207
• Tui

  Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae (J.F.Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  14,299
• Common Myna

  Acridotheres tristis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  13,005
• Kelp Gull

  Larus dominicanus M.H.K.Lichtenstein, 1823 · Aves
  12,004
• Welcome Swallow

  Hirundo neoxena Gould, 1842 · Aves
  10,307
• Silver-eye

  Zosterops lateralis (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  10,104
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  10,049

Most recent

• M 2.9 — 2011-07-01
  5 km NNW of Tamaki, New Zealand
• M 4 — 2007-03-13
  26 km NNW of Coromandel, New Zealand
• M 3.8 — 2007-02-21
  31 km NE of Murrays Bay, New Zealand
• M 4.5 — 2007-02-21
  30 km NE of Murrays Bay, New Zealand