Matakana Island

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Location of Matakana Island

Matakana Island is located in the western Bay of Plenty in New Zealand's North Island. A long, flat island, it is 20 kilometres in length but rarely more than three kilometres wide. The island has been continuously populated for centuries by a number Maori tribes that are mostly associated with Ngai Te Rangi. The island is divided two parts: 5,000 acres (20 km²) of farm and orchard land on the inner harbour, where most of the population lives, is connected to 10,000 acres (40 km²) of forest-covered coastal land.

As of the 2006 census, the island had a population of 225 people, and is the least populated area of the Western Bay of Plenty. There are only 90 inhabited dwellings^[1].

The island protects the entrance to the Tauranga harbour and stretches from Athenree to Mount Maunganui. It is largely covered by pine forests.

The island's long, white sandy beach is popular with surfers. Surfers can either catch a water taxi from Mount Maunganui or paddle to the island across the mouth of Tauranga Harbour (depending on weather conditions).

Matakana's surf side is a nesting site for a large number of sea birds, including the endangered New Zealand dotterel.

Between 1993 and 1999 the ownership of Matakana Island's 10,000 acres (40 km²) forest and freehold land was in dispute. The case Arklow vs MacLean went all the way from the New Zealand High Court to the Privy Council in London.

In 2007 the New Zealand Fisheries Management Research Database recorded and estimated that there were 325 sting rays inhabiting the estuarial waters between Matakana Island and Rangiwaea Island.