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Supplied / Sunlive
The signing of a resolution deed on Saturday was an important milestone for Ngāti Rangitihi, said Te Mana or Ngāti Rangitihi President and Chief Negotiator Leith Comer. Pictured with Waitangi Treaty Negotiations Minister 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 living in and around Rotorua, Kaingaroa and Matatā.
Among the reasons for the Crown’s apologies were aggressive land purchases, the inability to protect the “desecrated, degraded and polluted” Tarawera River, and the inability to prevent Ngāti Rangitihi from becoming virtually landless in 1900.
The settlement deed for iwi’s Waitangi Treaty historical claims was signed at Rangitihi Marae in Matatā on Saturday.
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It was a significant milestone for Ngāti Rangitihi, Leith Comer, president of Te Mana or Ngāti Rangitihi Trust, told Sunlive.
“No settlement will ever be able to compensate for the mamae pain our people suffered, but today represents the beginning of a new era,” Comer said.
“It is our time, Ngāti Rangitihi, let’s keep up the momentum to ensure that Ngāti Rangitihi can flourish.”
The agreement recognized the iwi as the rightful owners of their whenua (land) and awa (rivers), he said.
While the trust had negotiated directly with the Crown since 2015, the journey began much earlier.
The settlement documents refer to iwi’s “arduous journey in search of justice” and describe the Crown’s apology as long overdue.
“It is an incredible honor today to be able to meet 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 obtain financial and commercial compensation valued at more than $ 11 million, said a statement from Waitangi Negotiations Treaty Minister Andrew Little.
That includes $ 4 million in financial compensation and more than $ 7 million through the North Central Island Forest Collective Agreement.
Nineteen sites of cultural significance will be invested in the iwi, including the Waimangu Volcanic Valley.
Historically, Ngāti Rangitihi was one of the key iwi in her region, due to its strategic location, but that changed “after the confiscation and subsequent decades of Native land court activity and Crown land purchases,” say the settlement documents.
Members of the iwi had fought alongside Crown soldiers at various points, but lands linked to the iwi were still seized in an 1866 attempt to punish those whom the Crown viewed as rebels.
And the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886 also had an additional effect, destroying crops and displacing the Ngāti Rangitihi people.
The Crown provided limited assistance and has admitted that it “took advantage of Ngāti Rangitihi’s state of poverty after the recent Tarawera eruption to buy land that the iwi would not have otherwise wanted to sell.”
Today, Ngāti Rangitihi has approximately 5,300 registered members.
“The actions and omissions of the Crown against Ngāti Rangitihi have resulted in the loss of most of their ancestral lands and the dispersal and displacement of their people,” said Little.
The settlement cannot fully compensate for the loss and heartbreak suffered, Little said, but “provides a basis for a strong economic and cultural future for Ngāti Rangitihi.”
It was also the beginning of the restoration of the iwi relationship with the Crown.
Another issue addressed in the settlement was the contamination of the Tarawera River by the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company.
Legislation promoted by the Crown in 1954 minimized oversight of what was being discharged into the river, and it took years to take action once it turned into pollution, settlement documents say.
“The failure of the Crown to protect the Tarawera River, a taonga of immense economic, cultural and spiritual significance to Ngāti Rangitihi, left the river polluted, degraded and polluted,” the settlement documents say.
The settlement envisages the establishment of a group to restore the river’s mauri (well-being): the Tarawera Awa Restoration Strategy Group, which includes representatives from iwi and the local government.
