the flow as were the people of Te Taou. The first white man to attempt to halt the sand was Mr Richard Monk, who took up land at Woodhill in 1870. Mr Monk employed Renata Poata Uruamo and others of Te Taou in planting poplars, marram and experimental grasses from Australia on the sand at the back of his farm. The marram flourished and the poplars can still be seen from the main road to Helensville. Later, another Pakeha who attempted single-handed to check the sand was Mr Richard Hoe of Reweti. This man was a friend of all Te Taou and had greatly admired their tohunga chief, Otene Kikokiko. In the 1920s Mr Hoe planted marram, lupin and pines, but though these grew well his efforts were of as little use as trying to empty a lake with a canoe baler. Still the sand came on, creeping over hills and spilling into valleys until the dunes just south of Woodhill were only half a mile away from the main road. The 1930s were hungry years in New Zealand. Not only was the sand hungry for the land but men were often hungry for food. To give men work and a little money, the Government established relief camps, placing the men in Public Works. And in 1932 men were brought to begin planting the sandhills with lupin and marram. So that this could be done, the Pakeha owners of the sandhills sold their useless acres to the Ministry of Works for a nominal sum. At first few of Te Taou found work on these sandhills in which they had once lived. But they were interested in the planting, and were pleased that the burial grounds of their people were respected by the Ministry of Works. The first camp was a little north of Woodhill, and others were built near the sand at Reweti and Muriwai. The men who lived in them slept in canvas tents and worked on foot in all weathers, doggedly continuing their battle over the years. Then in 1936 some pinus radiata were planted amongst the marram and lupin, and at last the sandhills closest to peoples' farms and homes were stopped in their advance.

A Transformation In the thirty years since this work started, a complete transformation has taken place. Where the great hills of sand once blew about for miles in ever-changing patterns—the ‘immense tracts … like a deep snow in winter’ which the Rev. Butler had described—there are now dark pine-forests, all flourishing in different stages of growth. The State Forest Service took over from the Ministry of Works in 1951, since skilled foresters were needed by this time. There is some cover now on all the dunes except for a strip still owned by Mr Durban Pairama Ngatiwhatua; there are 7,000 acres of forest, and by 1965 they should be planting 1000 acres more each year. From the slat fences, reminiscent of the pa palisades of old, which are there to make the new sand form into hills, to the dark panorama of pines beyond, there is little to remind any Te Taou of the great sea of sand they once owned. The lakes nearer Muriwai, ‘the footsteps of Kawharu’, are now obliterated. One area which was once a garden for kumara and taro is now a nursery for the young pine trees. At the same time that the scope of the planting is expanded, the older trees must be pruned and thinned. The sale of some pine products has already begun, and in the future, as the trees reach maturity, this will be greatly increased.

Work for Te Taou One of the first of the Te Taou people to work regularly in the forest was Kelvin Povey, who began there in 1952. Mr Povey, who traces his descent from Renata Aperehama, soon put his skill with machinery to good use. Together with Mr M. Jonas and Mr I. Lloyd, he invented a planting machine for the marram grass. This small machine, mounted on a Ferguson tractor enables two operators to plant five acres of marram a day. Mr Povey later helped to perfect a larger machine, a multiple of three machines on one frame, which is towed by a D.7 and plants eighteen to twenty acres of marram a day. Six men, many of them of Te Taou lineage, sit under cover in this large planter. Today, many people of Te Taou work in the forests. Every day more of them are tending the pines for eventual milling, while others drive gang and supply trucks, and Durban Pairama is an all-round driver of note, handling at various times the