Day trippers blamed in Matakana Island protest

Debris blocking Matakana Island's Panepane Wharf has been removed by the Western Bay District Council. Photo/Supplied

Debris blocking Matakana Island's Panepane Wharf has been removed by the Western Bay District Council, with acting chief executive Gary Allis suspecting the protest was provoked by day trippers who lacked respect for the area.

Allis said he had not managed to talk to the person whose name was on the sign that announced the wharf was a tribal boundary.

There had been concerns raised in the past about how visitors who accessed the island at the wharf were treating the island, including leaving rubbish behind, he said.

Allis said the area was precious.

''Visitors need to treat it with respect.''

Most visitors who accessed the island through the wharf either enjoyed the immediate area including a good beach or walked around to the bay that led to the tip of Panepane Point where dotterels nested, he said. Camping was not allowed.

Allis said he was not treating the protest as being linked to negotiations taking place between the council and the island's five hapu for the return of Panepane Point to Maori.

Matakana elder Hauata Palmer said the protest did not represent all the island's five hapu and was not about the negotiations with the council.

The 180 hectares of forested land under negotiation with hapu included Panepane Wharf. However some people with whakapapa (ancestral) links to the original Maori owners of the land have claimed first rights to Panepane Point that was taken under the Public Works Act in 1923.

''The person who did this was not involved in the negotiations and from my own perspective it has jeopardised the process," Palmer said.

He said the barricade was put in place without any thought for the negotiations and the island children who used the wharf to get to school in Tauranga.

Some island people viewed the protest as a land ownership issue. ''It has happened before, it is not a new phenomenon.''

However it was one of the first times the protest had involved an older member of the island community.

''I am concerned about the ramifications. I like bragging about my island, but others don't. I like people coming to hear the stories about our island but others have opposing views.''

Palmer said he did not know exactly what the people behind the protest were thinking. He knew people were camping on the island and lighting fires. The issue was outright land ownership and ''what are you doing here''.

Speaking on the handing back of Panepane Point, he said the precedent had been that when land was handed back, it was only to the first generation of the original owners. It turned out that his family was the only one that fitted this first generation precedent and it wanted Panepane to go to the whole community - all the island's hapu.

The Bay of Plenty Times was unable to contact the elder from the island named on the sign.

A council contractor's truck and loader travelled across to Matakana yesterday and removed the debris piled up on the end of the wharf.