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Lake Horowhenua is located in the Horowhenua, an area of the southern Manawatu-Wanganui region in New Zealand's North Island. It covers an area of 390 hectares.
The lake, also known as Punahau, lies on a sandy plain two kilometres to the west of Levin and five kilometres from the coast of the Tasman Sea. It is a shallow lake, only some two metres in depth, fed by various small streams, and is drained by the Hokio Stream.
The lake was once surrounded by podocarp forest as the centre of a wetland ecology. Today the trees are gone and the wetland has been substantially drained. The lake is owned by the Maori Muaupoko iwi, who, with the help of the Horowhenua Lake Trust, are actively attempting to restore the wetland system (that also contains the smaller Lake Papaitonga) to its former state as a conservation area.
External links
Waitangi Tribunal report on Lake Horowhenua (pdf file) (http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/doclibrary/researchwhanui/theme/q/white/Chapt03.pdf)
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