Taputeranga is one of our more recent marine reserves, opened a year after I moved into the suburb in 2007, and still one of the most urban. Its constantly swirling waters mark the northern and southern limits of many species.
The controversy that was still swirling around and unpacked was typical for the marine reserves. Whenever a part of the coast within easy access of a population centre came up for declaration, recreational fishers and others denounced greenies and bureaucrats and predicted the end of the Kiwi way of life.
Taranaki-based writer Janet Hunt specialises in natural history. Her 2008 book Wetlands was a category winner in the old Montana Book Awards. She is a perfect match for the topic: she uses scientific names for species where required, but the book is jargon-free and easy to read.
Hundreds of big colourful photographs, maps and other items add to the book's attractiveness. It is a handsome mid-format flexi-bound volume of about 300 pages.
The book opens with a brief introduction to our waters, highlighting the underwater seamounts and basins, all part of our largely submerged continent of Zealandia, before explaining the currents that influence sea life (and swimming conditions).
After that, Our Big Blue Backyard offers a brief overview of the reserves, starting with the first, Goat Island, or Leigh. We had opened our first national park in 1894 but underwater reserves were out of sight and out of mind in the pre-scuba days.
So Bill Ballantyne had a real challenge when he took over the tiny Leigh Marine Laboratory. Recreational fishers opposed any suggestion of conservation but, as the book shows, the recovery in snapper (and other fish) numbers restored the ecological balance and had a spill-over benefit to fishers in open waters near the reserves.
Our Big Blue Backyard then looks at the rest of the reserves, north to south and in logical clusters, everywhere from Northland to the subantarctic islands.
By necessity, it has to be a once-over-lightly voyage, just a few pages per reserve, but Hunt strikes a balance between nature and people, from activists such as Wade Doak to the school parties that explore these ''wet libraries''. That enables it to cover a lot more than the six-part TV series.
Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian.
