Sand drawings: the beach as a protest canvas: Waikawau Bay in the Coromandel, New Zealand. See also Ship Happens regarding the Rena hitting the Astrolabe Reef off Motiti Island in the Bay of Plenty.

Building as a political act has been, historically, a legitimate means of architectural expression. blablablarchitecture recognises ‘talking through building’ as a form of media communication. Someone has built a structure, presumably a house, on the komiti minuted, CAA NZ guided, Google map recognised airstrip on Motiti Island. Granted this does not have the grandeur resonance say against the proposed planning of a third runway for Heathrow, but this simple timber frame structure is nonetheless a highly provocative protest placard. The structure, presumably a house given the skeletal timber frame seems compliant with NZS3604, has rather been deliberately been placed on the runway on Motiti Island. Yet by building this stealth structure over the course of a public holiday (Easter), planning barristers in NZ comment that they are ‘gob smacked’. The runway is now out of use. In doing so, the umbilical chord of the flight path is severed and thus some islanders are now stranded on the mainland, awaiting a clear landing path post-injunction.

A master plan for an island should be one that befits an island culture. That is a unified and holistic. Not divide and rule nor increasingly fragmented. Neither Maori vs Pakeha, neither North vs South, but a master plan that can present a sustainable future first and foremost for those that live on The Island.  Motiti sovereignty! .