At daybreak, sunset, any time of day, Wairarapa hills weave magic, hold history, exert charm. Unsettled claims before the Waitangi Tribunal detail disputes between Rangitane and Ngati Kahungunu. European settlers trekked from Wellington to farm these hills. Artists captured their lush colours in summer and their parched beauty in dreaded droughts.

One such range, seven kilometres from Martinborough, defines the village. Nga Waka a Kupe, three upturned canoes of Kupe. Haami Te Whaiti, Ngati Kahungunu spokesman told local historian Roberta McIntyre these canoes “are our earliest traditions. They are associated with a real person, they associate us with the land.”

Now these hills are again in dispute. Meridian Energy, a taxpayer-owned company is building New Zealand’s largest windfarm on Nga Waka a Kupe – 50 turbines, 140 metres  or 40 stories  high, twice the height of the Auckland harbour bridge – right next to the first canoe.

But Martinborough residents won’t allow their historic landscape to be industrialised. They don’t mind windfarms in the Wairarapa (Genesis Energy owns Hau Nui, 21 kilometres south of Martinborough) but they object to the size, proximity to town, and the ridge chosen, which is clearly visible from nearly everywhere in and around Martinborough.

It’s not just the visual pollution. At a packed public meeting in the town hall in late 2009, disgruntled residents from Makara and Ohariu Valley talked of noise from Meridian’s West Wind farm making them ill, penetrating double-glazed windows, and dramatically reducing their property values to the point they are unable to sell. Wellington City Council now receives more than 1000 noise complaints per month, many between 2am and 3am, about the thump, thump of the wind turbines.

Then there’s the heavy traffic. More than 600 cubic metres of cement per turbine will be trucked through the village, at around 157 tonnes per truck, or some 7000 truckloads.

And is wind energy really so green and good?

It’s a myth the windfarm will lead to cheaper power bills for Wairarapa residents, as Meridian has hinted. Wind energy cannot be stored – that technology has not been developed anywhere in the world. Instead it will feed into the national grid. In fact, power prices will rise, not decline, as returns on wind energy are nearly half as much as what it costs to generate. The cost of electricity produced from wind is of the order of 11.6 cents per KWhr. The average price received for wind power is just 6.6 cents per KWhr.

Denmark, with all its windfarms, has the dearest electricity in the Western world. Germany, held up as a leading light in renewable energy with windfarms and solar energy, has not saved one gram of carbon emissions.

Martinborough has developed a solid reputation as a quality tourist destination, but a survey commissioned by the Scottish Government showed windfarms can have a negative effect on tourism. Stirling, Perth, Kinross and the Borders were estimated to lose between 1.7 million pounds and 6.3 million pounds, and could lose about 400 jobs in total.

All Martinborough objectors are asking is for Meridian to find a more appropriate site. This site is our history. Here in the 1880s, Wiremu Mahupuku, who controlled a large area of Nga Waka a Kupe, commissioned a meeting house, named Takitimu, after the hapu’s ancestral canoe when Wiremu died, Tamahau Mahupuku took over as paramount chief. A personal friend of Premier Richard Seddon, Tamahau hosted thousands at the meeting house, including Seddon, his wife Louisa, and Governor Lord Ranfurly before travelling to Greytown’s Papawai Marae to open the Aotea-Te-Waipounamu building for the Maori Parliament.

In 1911 Takitimu burned down. Now all that remains, just below the windfarm site, are the graves of the Ngati Hikawera and Kehemene wahi tapu.

There’s another interesting historical link to Nga Waka a Kupe. Maata Mahupuku, great niece of Tamahau, also known as Martha Grace, was a great friend of Katherine Mansfield, and featured in several of Mansfield’s short stories.

If it’s good enough for city people to object to their lifestyle, history or environment being threatened by corporates, then isn’t it fair enough for country folk to do the same?