A scene in Te Urewera. Co-management of the Urewera National Park would be a compromise for Tūhoe, explains Rawinia Higgins.
“Those that trespass will be relish for my food” 1
by Rawinia Higgins
Abstract
In dealing with the settlement of Te Urewera, the Crown cannot avoid the issue of the national park and Mana Motuhake. Co-management is not an expression of Mana Motuhake; it is a compromise. It is a conflict of interest.
How will iwi/Crown co-management of resources play out? Are there potential conflicts of interest in iwi being managers, guardians and also developers? And if so, how different is this to the Crown being in all three roles?
In an effort to answer the above questions, I find myself asking more questions as to how I should articulate a response. The complexities of answering the questions are not in the answers themselves. But in the position that one takes when predicting future arrangements. There is no crystal ball to gaze through and I certainly do not have the skills of a prophet to foresee future events but I feel conflicted to comment on co-management when I struggle to reconcile that with Mana Motuhake (autonomy). Rather than answer questions about conflicts of interest, will I instead be seen as interested in conflict?
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.” (Marx 1904:12)
The context from which my confliction arises is Te Urewera. This is my “social existence”. Resistance to hegemony is a part of the identity of Tūhoe people who consider Te Urewera to be a fundamental part of their existence. This is not a sentimental notion of a bygone era. It is very much a reality. Since the Tribunal Hearings in 2005 at Ruātoki (and in particular the shooting of the flag by Tame Iti), Tūhoe-Crown relations have been marred by the Ruātoki Raids in 2007 and, more recently, the announcement by John Key that Te Urewera would not be included in any Tūhoe Treaty settlement.
So will this paper be viewed as positing a Tūhoe position that is conflicted by my genealogical relationship, relegating me to the realm of my “posturing pest” (Masters 2005) Uncle Tame Iti? Or will it be viewed as a work that challenges the systems and processes we engage with when we address past grievances? Or will my opinions jeopardise any current negotiations with the Crown for the return of Te Urewera and consequently my “social existence” rendered non-existent? It will probably be the first question, because diversity of thought is not always embraced by those in power.
Treaty settlements discourse immerses itself with the historical narratives of grievance and the balance of loss with compensation, quantum, assets and redress. It relies on understanding the relationships that have played out between iwi and the Crown historically; settlement packages include how future relationships will be dealt with. Settlement is not a recent term concocted since the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975, it was very much part of the colonial land purchasing period. “Paying Maori off was a settlement” to alienate Māori from their land and natural resources (Belgrave 2005:319).
Recognition of iwi rights to natural resources is being included in settlement packages – and particularly the inclusion of co-management powers, albeit in different forms such as governance or vested titles. Utilitarianism prevents the Crown considering the notion of returning natural resources to iwi outright because Māori could build their own wealth based on those assets, and Crown economic power (and by virtue hegemonic power), could be adversely affected. The compromise today appears to be co-management. Iwi have to consider at what cost are they prepared to settle their claims when the parameters of negotiation and settlement change as quickly as the governing political parties. Michael Belgrave states:
The process of developing policy for settlements and then of negotiating them is still evolving and, while both the government and Maori appear to be looking for some final solution to the problem, the issues have been transformed so quickly that any settlement can be viewed only within the specific context in which it was negotiated (2005: 318).
The “specific context”, irrespective of time, is based on the notion of the economic and social wealth of the parties involved. Utilitarianism influences these rapidly evolving policies as Māori do not make up the majority of the population and are negotiating on sands that shift with different governments and policies. David Ritter, in his book Contesting Native Title (2009: 174), highlights the struggles around coming to agreements between indigenous people and their governments: “These relationships are developed on a stage that is constructed atop a legal, economic and political landscape determined at a more fundamental level.” It is at the fundamental level that differing cultural perspectives come into conflict.
Iwi are required to construct a legal entity known as a post-settlement governance entity that will manage and govern the details of their settlement. These legal structures do not provide iwi with the agency to create structures that are uniquely Māori beyond the bounds of the law. Iwi are forced into a dichotomy over their cultural and economic capital that appears to emphasise the latter rather than a symbiotic development of both. The trajectory of the settlements process often has iwi clashing in courts as they work through their own “mandating” processes.2 These legal structures divide iwi rather than bring them together. They have created a combat between economic and cultural capital.3 The Tūhoe example provided in the footnote around the process for mandating is only one example of the divisive nature of Treaty settlements.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, particularly when we review and identify the examples of historical negotiations that have been held between Tūhoe and the Crown over Te Urewera. The example of the negotiations around the Urewera District Native Reserve Act 1896 (UDNRA) – that has been comprehensively researched by numerous scholars, including the seminal work by the late Dame Judith Binney, Encircled Lands (2009) – only reinforces a resistance towards “co-management”. At that time – at the end of the nineteenth century – Tūhoe embarked on a relationship with the Crown that recognised Tūhoe Mana Motuhake and established Land Committees in exchange for surveying and roading. However, this compromise left Tūhoe wounded. The result was protestations such as “Hai ārai i te Pākehā me āna mahi – To keep off the white man and his works”, and Tūhoe retreated back into resisting further encroachment into Te Urewera.
History only highlights why Tūhoe are not prepared to negotiate some form of compromise for the recognition of Mana Motuhake. Even though we could be seen as dogmatic in approach, the different contexts of Mana Motuhake are reflected by Belgrave’s observation that “settlement can be viewed only within the specific context in which it was negotiated” So in 1896 when the UDNRA was proposed it was about the recognition of Mana Motuhake and establishing a nation within a nation, but eventually this soured over issues of conflicts of interest. It wasn’t perfect, but for “that specific context” it appeared to be the closest acknowledgement that the Crown could make over Mana Motuhake. Would Tūhoe want to repeat the consequences that occurred at that point in history? The short answer is NO! In any event, even in 1896 the idea of a nation within a nation was too foreign for the Crown. Sovereignty was, and certainly still is, seen as indivisible.
Today there are so many international examples of pluralistic societies, nations, states and governments that it is not as novel as it once was. How Mana Motuhake is played out will be for Tūhoe to determine within the confines of the settlement package that is negotiated. Will we have conflicts of interest? Perhaps, but will they only be seen as conflicts of interest within the confines of structures that are still determined by the Crown? If we are offered a deal of co-management I struggle to believe that Tūhoe as an iwi will accept the deal. Mana Motuhake is an ideology deeply ingrained into our identity and our lives. Despite the benefits other iwi may see in co-management, a repeat of the UDNRA cannot occur again for Tūhoe.
Our unique identity and culture as Tūhoe has endured longer than successive Crown agencies. In some form we believe in our hearts that we have Mana Motuhake over Te Urewera and in some minds we never lost it. We still live in Te Urewera, we draw our food from the forest, and we return there to be buried. Despite Te Urewera being a national park, and occupied by Crown agents such as the Department of Conservation, Tūhoe still remain and are enduring. Is this a form of passive co-management that is being practised or is this the fluid nature of Mana Motuhake? Is the co-management aspect in this case a mutual respect for a shared symbolic system or is the Department of Conservation trespassing? As Marshall Sahlins states, “The general determinations of praxis are subject to the specific formulations of culture; that is, of an order that enjoys, by its own properties as a symbolic system, a fundamental autonomy” (Sahlins 1976:57). When praxis conflicts with the idea of co-management, any Treaty settlement between Tūhoe and the Crown will forge an interesting relationship that will always be distinctive from other iwi. So when the mist rises, it will be interesting to see who still remains in Te Urewera – the owners or the trespassers?
Bibliography
- Abercrombie, Nicholas, Hill, Stephen & Turner Bryan S. 1984. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. Penguin: London.
- Belgrave, Michael 2005. Historical Frictions – Maori Claims and Reinvented Histories. Auckland University Press: Auckland.
- Binney, Judith
- 2009. Encircled Lands – Te Urewera 1820-1921. Bridget Williams Books: Wellington.
2010. Stories Without End – Essays 1975-2010. Bridget Williams Books: Wellington.
Footnotes
- Tamaikoha, rangatira of Tūhoe, added this notice to a carved boundary post in defiance and to warn off Pākehā from entering into Te Urewera (Melbourne 1987: 102). back ↩
- Judith Binney referred to this in her final chapter of her last book Stories Without End (2010: 364), where she discussed the factions between Te Kotahi a Tūhoe (TKaT) and Te Umutaoroa. Although Binney described the latter arising from the objections towards the former, she failed to highlight the process that is placed upon iwi to create “mandated large natural groupings” by the Office of Treaty Settlements. Although Te Umutaoroa took TKaT to the High Court to oppose TKaT’s mandate, the systems created around settlement often oppose traditional hapū and iwi governing structures. In commenting on Ani Hare’s despair around the issues of representation, Binney could have juxtaposed this with the actual thoughts of those hapū at the “tribal” executive levels where hapū are represented in their respective regions and which have committed to the current process, rather than discuss the “vituperative ire” of individuals of Tūhoe against Crown representatives. back ↩
- Potiki, Tahu 2010. “Waikato-Tainui clash a symptom of the evolution of iwi structures” in the Press (17 December). back ↩
About the author
Dr Rawinia Higgins is a Senior Lecturer at Te Kawa a Māui – School of Māori Studies, Victoria University. She affiliates to Te Urewera, Ngāti Rongo and Ngāti Koura hapū of Tūhoe and is currently a Trustee on Te Kotahi a Tūhoe and the Tūhoe Fisheries Charitable Trust.
What is the Tuhoe structure and tax consequences. Who are the beneficiaries?
All Tuhoe or just some. The paper by Kapea is more helpful.
Kia ora,
The Urewera District Native Reserve Act 1896 was introduced during a period of Mâori survival. Would Co-management surivive too? Perhaps John Key should go for a horse ride deep into Te Urewera?