Apologies issued, cultural sites vested in 'long overdue' $11-million settlement with Bay of Plenty iwi Ngāti Rangitihi

Sunday, 6 December 2020

The Saturday signing of a deed of settlement was a significant milestone for Ngāti Rangitihi, Te Mana o Ngāti Rangitihi chairman and lead negotiator Leith Comer said. He's pictured with Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Hon Andrew Little.

The Crown has made a“long overdue' apology to a Bay of Plenty iwi as part of an $11-million treaty settlement.

Ngāti Rangitihi is a Te Arawa iwi based in and around Rotorua, Kaingaroa and Matatā.

Among the reasons for the Crown's apology were aggressive land purchases, failure to protect the “defiled, degraded and polluted” Tarawera River, and failing to stop Ngāti Rangitihi from becoming virtually landless by 1900.

The deed of settlement of the iwi's historical Treaty of Waitangi claims was signed at Rangitihi Marae in Matatā on Saturday.

* Ngāti Maru one step closer to land, $30m treaty settlement

* Iwi group accepts $300k from Minister after agreeing to hold election, then reneges

It was a significant milestone for Ngāti Rangitihi, Te Mana o Ngāti Rangitihi Trust chair Leith Comer told Sunlive.

“No settlement will ever be able to compensate for the mamae – hurt - our people suffered, but today represents the beginning of a new era,” Comer said.

“It is our time, Ngāti Rangitihi – let’s keep the momentum going to ensure Ngāti Rangitihi can flourish.”

The settlement acknowledged the iwi as rightful owners of its whenua (land) and awa (rivers), he said.

While the trust had negotiated directly with the Crown since 2015, the journey started well before that.

Settlement documents refer to the iwi’s “arduous journey in pursuit of justice' and describe the Crown apology as long overdue.

“It is an incredible honour today to be able to gather here to sign our Deed of Settlement,' Comer said. “A settlement that is for our tamariki and mokopuna, but also for those who started this haerenga (journey) before us.”

Ngāti Rangitihi will get financial and commercial redress valued over $11 million, a statement from Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little said.

That includes $4 million financial redress and more than $7 million through of the Central North Island Forests Collective Settlement.

Nineteen sites of cultural significance will be vested in the iwi, including the Waimangu Volcanic Valley.

Historically, Ngāti Rangitihi was one of the key iwi in its region, due to its strategic location, but that changed “following confiscation and the following decades of Native Land Court activity and Crown land purchasing', settlement documents say.

Members of the iwi had fought alongside Crown soldiers at various points, but land linked to the iwi was still seized in an 1866 bid to punish those the Crown saw as rebels.

And the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886 also had a further effect, destroying crops and displacing Ngāti Rangitihi people.

The Crown provided limited help and has admitted “taking advantage of the state of poverty Ngāti Rangitihi suffered after the recent Tarawera eruption to purchase land that the iwi may otherwise have not wanted to sell”.

Nowadays, Ngāti Rangitihi has approximately 5,300 registered members.

“Crown actions and omissions against Ngāti Rangitihi have resulted in loss of most of their ancestral lands and the dispersal and displacement of their people,” Little said.

The settlement can't fully compensate for the loss and distress suffered, Little said, but it “provides a base for a strong economic and cultural future for Ngāti Rangitihi”.

It was also the start of restoring the iwi’s relationship with the Crown.

Another issue addressed in the settlement was the pollution of the Tarawera River by the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company.

Legislation promoted by the Crown in 1954 minimised oversight of what was being discharged into the river, and it took years for action to be taken once it became of pollution, settlement documents say.

“The Crown’s failure to protect the Tarawera River, a taonga of immense economic, cultural and spiritual significance to Ngāti Rangitihi, left the river defiled, degraded and polluted,” settlement documents say.

The settlement provides for the establishment of a group to restore the river's mauri (wellbeing) : the Tarawera Awa Restoration Strategy Group, including iwi and local government representatives.