Speaking up on reserve turmoil

Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust founder David Wallace is preparing to speak publicly for the first time on the political movements that are putting the reserve at risk.

The reserve is a 3400 hectare area of forested extinct volcano land in the Waikato basin between Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Putaruru.


Fencing along the Maungatautari Reserve edge. Warren Charleston is one of the landowners fed up with the dispute over management of the reserve.

It is enclosed by a stainless steel fence that was built as a community project at a cost of $20 million.

This fencing is maintained by the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust to protect the thriving native birdlife there.

Shifts within the trust board have created rifts between the landowners, mostly farmers, who neighbour the reserve, and Maori.

The dispute began in October when farmer Peter Holmes was ousted from the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust board.

This came after a small Maori group, with support from Waipa District Council demanded half of all board seats on the trust. This caused a chain reaction of trustee oustings, with each trustee opposed to the move voted off.

Landowners objected by locking their gates, threats were made to override property rights, Maori threatened not to allow trans-located species onto the mountain if their demands were not met and landowner and community action groups were formed.

One such group is Save Maungatautari. It is holding the meeting where David Wallace will speak for the first time; on Tuesday, February 22 in Cambridge at the Cambridge Town Hall, corner Victoria and Queen Streets.

At this meeting, he is expected to discuss ways of decompressing the situation so that all parties can come back to the table to find a way through and will recall the original vision and goals of the project.

Also speaking at the meeting is funder representative Gareth Morgan, who will relate the views of funders from the United States and the difficulty funders will have committing to the project given its present management.

Gareth says for years the trust has worked and while there have been niggles and cash issues from time to time, generally it has been an exemplary example of what a community can do when working in good faith.

However, he says, since a new governance and management arrangement has been thrown at the trust, driven by a series of unreasonable demands by Ngati Koroki Kahukura, it has been thrown into chaos.

'Poor decisions have been made; poor leadership has inflamed the situation rather than putting effort into finding a way through,” says Gareth.

'Major funders have been insulted; landowners have been treated with disrespect and had their property rights threatened.

'Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato have acted dishonourably and have treated their own constituents with total disrespect. Now, predictably, we have a mess.”

Other speakers at Tuesday's meeting include Jack Jenkins, who is coordinating the Save Maungatautari group, a representative of the Maungatautari Landowners Council, Peter Holmes, and former trustee Fiona Judd.

Fiona says she will address the implications of actions by Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato. In her opinion, these organisations have been the dishonest brokers in this saga.

'At the event I will be speaking about the financial implications that will result from the local government meddling,” says Fiona.

'Private funders walking away, the future cost of the project must fall on ratepayers and taxpayers.

'When I was on the trust we had developed a very credible plan to take the project to financial sustainability where it would not require ratepayer funding, but through intervention by local government the project can now only survive as a cost to ratepayers unless we can reset the governance so that private funders have the confidence to come back in.”

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6 comments

Archaic attitude

Posted on 17-02-2011 12:42 | By SpeakUp

Yes, leopards don't change their spots and native ‘culture' will not change attitude of neediness and cunning contest within one generation. It takes more than 100 years for a primitive people to espouse humanistic philosophy, civilized values and ecology. The archaic competitiveness, aggressiveness and divisiveness against ‘neighbours' and well-meaning Europeans are still obvious in the struggle about supremacy and domination. This will be no different in regard to the foreshore and seabed. And the lawyers are laughing all the way.


Objectiveness

Posted on 17-02-2011 14:55 | By maggiebop

This place needs to be saved. If you've been there you'll know why. As long as emotion doesn't get in the way and sensible objectivity is maintained hopefully this "island" will be around for future genrations.


More Divisiveness

Posted on 17-02-2011 15:26 | By Rayna

Unfortunately this is another example of something in the care of one group working for the environment and community and another Maori takeover without the caring, It is all about control


more information @

Posted on 17-02-2011 17:07 | By claypole

more info can be viewed at savemaungatautari.org. The more info you source, a better understanding will result!


more info

Posted on 18-02-2011 09:32 | By SpeakUp

From the savemaungatautari.org website: "After 8 years of sweat and toil and substantial fundraising, local iwi has unilaterally declared it no longer will honour its agreement, it now seeks control of the whole project". Today maungatautari, tomorrow the foreshore & seabed.


Recognise wrong & act

Posted on 19-02-2011 19:57 | By Ratcatcher

Everyone sees the problem but few of us have the balls to speak out or do anything about it.Evil only triumphs because good people do nothing to stop it.


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