Disappearing act
Four years on from New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster, salvage and clean-up projects around the MV Rena near their end. The wreck demanded one of the world’s most complex and expensive recovery operations, but the hulk of the container ship, and some of its cargo, still lingers on Astrolabe Reef/Ōtāiti. How much more can human intervention correct this mistake—and how much can be left to nature to set right?