TE TAKINGA MARAE
1984 Waitangi Tribunal Kaituna Claim
In 1984, Ngāti Te Takinga and Pikiao elders took a claim
against a Council plan to discharge sewage into the
Ohau channel and the Kaituna. This was the first Tribunal
claim to be heard on a marae. The claim is a landmark
case because it was one of the first successful Tribunal
environmental claims. In addition, the elders gave
evidence on the meaning of “kaitiakitanga”, a term later
inserted into the Resource Management Act 1991.
The following is the submission made to the Waitangi
Tribunal by the late Stanley Newton, a leading and
greatly respected kaumatua of Ngāti Te Takinga and
Te Arawa, in strong objection to a proposal which
intended to discharge Rotorua city’s effluent directly
into the Kaituna River. It is widely regarded as being
most influential in the decision to abort the proposal. The
Tribunal sat at Mourea in Te Tākinga Meeting House in
July and October of 1984 to hear the complaint against
the discharge of effluent into its sacred river, Kaituna.
“ l, Stanley Tetekura Newton, JP QSM, of Mourea, and
Chairman of Te Arawa Māori Trust Board wish to express
our deepest concern and our strongest objection to the
granting of this water right. My Board was established
by Parliament in 1922 to represent the interests of
the Te Arawa Confederation of Tribes. Subsequent
consolidation of the law pertaining to Māori Trust Boards
is contained in the Māori Trust Boards Act 1955 and
Section 4 (3), provides that ‘the beneficiaries of the Board
are hereby declared to be the members of the Te Arawa
tribe and their descendants’. I am here on behalf of and
with full authority of my Board.
The Water Right Application 904/1 seeks to discharge
treated sewage effluent into the Kaituna River at a point
which is described as Section 14, Recreation Reserve,
Gazette Notice 1975 p. 16, Block VI Rotoiti SD I define
this area on the Kaituna River with its Māori place name
as Pareraurekau.
I am convinced and together with the whole of my Te
Arawa people, that a right given to the Rotorua District
Council by the Regional Water Board to discharge
treated sewage effluent into the Kaituna River would be
a complete disregard and an absolute desecration of
the historical and environmental significance which we
have for this sacred river. The river downstream from
Pareraurekau flows through deep gorges with precipitous
cliffs on both sides and for many miles from this point.
Down to the level country of Paengaroa, one would
find a succession of waterfalls, cataracts and turbulent
waters flowing between serene and majestic walls of rock
completely clothed in indigenous flora, predominantly of
kiekie vines and ferns with a tremendous variety of trees
and native shrubs, including our fondest of all the trees,
the tanekaha.
Along the sheer cliffs of the river are many caverns and
these caverns have been used by my ancestors in pre-
European times as burial grounds for their dead. The
more accessible of these have been declared as Māori
Reserves or urupā, but there are many more unidentified
on our modern maps of which nature has secreted into her
fold of vine, fern and tree. It is interesting to mention here
that one of these huge caverns contains a lake of warm
water with an island in the centre forming a hallowed
depository for the numerous remains of our ancestors;
and there are many more of these caves and secret places
along the river from Pareraurekau to Parihaua; to Te Akau
reservation; to Kohangakaeaea urupā; to the ancient
settlement and pā of Pakotore; to the headlands of that
very prominent fortress pa of Rangitihi over-looking the
Paengaroa plains which stretch from Maunganui in the
west to Maketu; Whakatane in the north and to the East
Cape in the distant east.
For generations the Ngāti Pikiao people, sub-tribe of the
Te Arawa Tribe, have gathered and used the kiekie flax
from the cliffs of this river for weaving tukutuku and turapa
panels to adorn most of the 52 meeting houses which my
Board is proud to administer and care for in its area. The
Ngāti Pikiao tribe own most of the land from Okere to
Paengaroa along both sides of the river. This land is used
for farming by the Okere and the Taheke Incorporations.
Other areas along both sides of the river are unsuitable
and too difficult for ordinary farming and these have been
used for exotic afforestation by several Trusts.
And it is into these forests and farms that the effluent
should go and we make this plea with all sincerity.
The Kaituna River has been and will always be the food
bowl of the Arawa people and of the Nation. Eels
abound in great numbers and the harvest is continuous.
At Maketu where the whole river used to flow into the
sea, but which is now partly diverted to another outlet,
we have the almost inexhaustible supply of shell-fish
in cockle, pipi and mussel. The Maketu Estuary is a
playground and a food bowl for all New Zealanders;
why pollute and despoil it with our own human waste?
The idea is completely abhorrent.
The Māori concept of such a thing is catastrophic and
the resultant impact would be almost indescribable.
Historically it is damnable to our mana and prestige.
Culturally it would be a curse upon my tribe, the Ngāti
Pikiao, for ever and ever. Of the traditional chants, in
Waiata, Pokeka and Oriori and the songs of this most
enchanted of all sacred rivers, I shudder in lament:-
My grief is likened to tear-drops over the dead; my
speech is incoherent, my mana, my rangatiratanga has
been shattered. I am not able to parry this onslaught
with taiaha or mere; with a koare or a koikoi. My only
weapon is the pakeha pen, which I am using to express
the torture which is within me; ea9ng at the very root
of my conscience, my hinengaro; and now I turn to my
God in heaven and to the spirits of my ancestors to give
me peace and rest and to console my inner being, my
hinengaro.
Don’t do it! Put this menace where nature needs it.
Kia hiwi ra! Kia hiwi ra! Awake! Awake!