A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Ngati Porou representatives confirmed to the New Zealand Geographic Board in May this year that either Ruatoria or Ruatorea spellings are acceptable.
“They further advised that the board should use Ruatoria with the macron in the instances of the two undersea features, Ruatoria Re-entrant and Ruatoria Scarp,” said Wendy Shaw,secretary of Nga Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa New Zealand Geographic Board.
“The board has not received any proposal to officially name the town,” she said. “Despite the board having consulted with mana whenua on the three other names, if the board agrees with other iwi that the name of the town should be spelled differently, then the three other names can be corrected to match,” Ms Shaw said.
The land-based Ruatoria Forest was processed at the same time because of its association. “The town's name was excluded because it needs to go through a process that includes public consultation.
She said the board welcomed all feedback on official place names.
Due to the large number of unofficial place names, NZGB has a fast track process to make existing names official. This process includes standardising the orthography (or spelling) of Maori names with macrons where appropriate.
“Although the process does not include public notification, it does include consultation with mana whenua and councils,” Ms Shaw said.
NZGB welcomes feedback on these decisions via nzgbenquiries@linz.govt.nz. If iwi, or any other person, wishes to make a place name proposal, the details can be found at https://bit.ly/32Ne4EI.
