Wetlands became the ‘in’ word for swamps and marshes about 15 years ago, see the book The New Gobbledygook: a New Zealand Dictionary and Guidebook.

The picture shows such an area in the rural land that the Waikanae North developers bought — our hunch is that it will be left as it is, as the cost of draining and filling it would be relatively uneconomic.

In the background are the Tararua Range foothills.