Crown breaches of Treaty of Waitangi kept Māori near Foxton isolated from their whenua for over 100 years

Kōpūtara Reserve. Photo / Te Tumu Paeroa

By RNZ

A new report released yesterday by the Waitangi Tribunal found breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi by the Crown kept Māori near Foxton isolated from their whenua for over 100 years.

The Kōpūtara Priority Report details failures by the Crown, dating back to the late 1800s, to grant the legal title and access to hapū within Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga to Kōpūtara Reserve, located at Lake Kōpūtara.

The Wai 1932 claim was bought on behalf of Ngāti Parewahawaha, Ngāti Pareraukawa, Ngāti Kikopiri, Ngāti Tūranga, and Ngāti Tukorehe by the Kōpūtara Trust.

The land was set aside for hapū in 1870, following the Crown purchasing 240,000 acres of land in Manawatū, known as the Rangitīkei-Manawatū purchase.

However, hapū did not gain a title until the mid-1960s and lacked physical access to their whenua until 2016.

The Crown accepted it had breached the Treaty by failing to grant title in a timely matter. It also conceded granting the land surrounding the reserve to private owners had cut off access to mana whenua.

This impacted the claimants’ economic, social and cultural wellbeing, and their ability to exercise kaitiakitanga.

Trustees also claimed the environmental quality of the lake and surrounding reserve had severely degraded over that time due to large-scale draining of the lake by private landowners and the army’s use of the reserve as a live shell range throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

These all contributed to worsening soil quality, water levels and sand drift.

The report recommends the Crown pay claimants compensation and reimburse the cost of surveying, construction and fencing for access points into the reserve.