The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended that Chatham Islands Moriori receive compensation for the loss of their land, slavery and hardship.
The report, released today, on Moriori and Ngati Mutunga claims looked closely at the period soon after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and the annexation of Chatham
Islands, or Rekohu, in 1842.
In the report, the tribunal found Moriori were entitled to at least 50 per cent of the land in the islands as the Native Land Court had adopted criteria set by the Crown that were inadequate in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The court awarded 97 per cent of the land to Ngati Mutunga and only 3 per cent to Moriori.
The Tribunal considered the awards were "patently wrong" as the ancestral right to the land was with Moriori. Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga invaders only arrived in the islands in 1835.
The Tribunal did not accept the Crown's argument that land tenure reform proposing Maori agreed to individual ownership, individual share trading, or Native Land Court control of title devolution and succession.
The Tribunal recommended that compensation is due to Ngati Mutunga for the lasting impact of the Crown's policy on tenure reform.
The tribunal also recommended Moriori be compensated for the Crown's failure to intervene after the 1835 invasion of Rekohu by Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga.
Although slavery had ended in the mainland of New Zealand by 1839, it had not in Rekohu and the Crown's failure to intervene had cost Moriori many lives, and prejudiced later land claims, the tribunal found.
Tribunal chairman Justice Edward Durie said the tribunal had looked carefully at the claim by Moriori and concluded they were Maori, of the same Polynesian stock, but unique through the development of a distinctive culture in isolation.
Justice Durie said that with hindsight the Moriori claim deserved an early hearing in the tribunal's process.
The Tribunal also recommended the Crown fund a body to promote the development of a new Maori land law specific to the Chathams.
