Taranaki Maunga. Photo: Andy Jackson/ 123rf
Striking a deal over the future of Taranaki Maunga will not end the need to involve iwi and hapū in running the national park, negotiators say.
The Treaty of Waitangi settlement over Taranaki Maunga will be
initialled on Friday, setting out redress for the confiscation of the mountain.
The deed of redress and associated legislation will then go out for ratification by each of the eight iwi of Taranaki.
Co-governance of the 36,000-hectare park has been hammered out but negotiator Liana Poutu said the new arrangements would not override mana whenua rights and obligations.
"Nothing that is in this redress package diminishes, or displaces, or comes in over the top of the role that hapū and iwi already have in relation to [the mountain]."
"These arrangements aren't coming in to take over anything that the iwi and hapū are already engaging in."
Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi - a group appointed half by iwi and half by the Crown - will develop park management plans for approval by both the Minister of Conservation and Te Tōpuni Ngarahu, a group of representatives from all iwi of Taranaki.
The peaks of the park, regarded as tupuna by Māori, would jointly become a legal person named Te Kāhui Tupua with Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi acting as its face and voice, said negotiator Jamie Tuuta.
"Effectively Te Kāhui Tupua through Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi will be treated as though it is an iwi authority and a public authority for the purposes of the Resource Management Act.
"That gives Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi, on behalf of Te Kāhui Tupua, the ability to make submissions and participate in planning processes. It will also be a public body for the purposes of the Local Government Act."
Poutu said that, despite the new structure, the agreement expressly entrenched Crown obligations to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi under the Conservation Act.
"We're trying to make sure… that Te Tōpuni Ngārahu as the collective entity isn't used as a one-stop engagement shop, and that the Director-General and the department still have responsibilities to individual iwi and hapū to engage with them."
The initialling of the redress deed will take place at Ngāruahine's Aotearoa Pā on Friday, in honour of the late Tihi 'Daisy' Noble, who was a negotiator for the maunga settlement.
Noble was well known as an advocate for her hapū, iwi, and the environment.
The settlement talks stretch back seven years, and the Crown and iwi agreed in 2017 to share responsibility for the mountain.
Te Papakura o Taranaki will remain a national park and DOC retain day-to-day management, partly because iwi were wary of the liability that comes with unfettered public access, which was a Crown bottom line.
The deal will be explained at 14 in-person hui across Taranaki and at Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Wellington, the top of the South Island, Christchurch, and Dunedin plus another five online hui.
If iwi ratifies the deed there will be a formal signing event, and the bill will then go to Parliament to become law.
The mountain was taken in 1865 as part of the confiscation of Māori land for "rebellion" in the Taranaki Wars.
In 1978 the mountain was vested in the Taranaki Māori Trust Board but immediately gifted back to the nation. The Waitangi Tribunal found little evidence that hapū had agreed to the switch.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
