This is The Detail's Long Read – one in-depth story read by us every weekend.
"The small town of Tokomaru Bay has suffered a slow death. The whenua that people are laid to rest in has sustained generations but the soft grey-brown soil also makes the whole region prone to erosion." Photo: Aaron Smale / Newsroom
This week, the first in a series published on Newsroom.co.nz called Tairāwhiti's Trauma, written and read here by Newsroom's Māori issues editor Aaron Smale.
It's called The colonial cul de sac: Land loss, land use, and the devastation left behind.
He joins Alexia Russell to discuss the series and read his story himself.
Aaron Smale goes back to his grandmother’s home town and finds a community weighed down by weather disasters and decisions of the past that have a region broken.
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