Bayden Bateman speaking during a land occupation at Mapuna Atea farm.
Bayden Bateman speaking during a land occupation at Mapuna Atea farm.
Ngati Kahungunu protesters winning their battle to reclaim a South Wairarapa dairy farm, informally and historically gifted to the iwi, resonated strongly with readers. The story was viewed over 5000 times, and shared 21 times.
The 320ha Kahutara dairy property called Mapuna Atea, which has a capital value of $8.1million, was in 1963 gifted by the late Edward Holmes to an organisation today known as the Maori Education Trust. Now the land will be negotiated as part of the Tiriti o Waitangi settlement for Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tamaki-nui-a Rua.
Pete Hawaikirangi Te Tau said it was a good outcome "for the hapus and iwi and a good thing for Wairarapa also".
James Page thought it would make an ideal training farm for the younger generation "to learn how to earn a living, that is a far better solution than just thinking of the quick cash like our stupid government has done with other farms being sold to foreign buyers throughout NZ lately".
But one poster on Facebook, simply called Iraia, said an iwi called Ngai Tahumakakanui was also claiming those lands back "unto their extended super-tribal authority and its authority over those lands still ... that which none of you can at all erase".
