Maungatautari landowners say the new controller of the Maungatautari Ecological Island project, Ngati Koroki Kahukura, has placed sentries at the entry gates on Tari Road, at Pukeatua in the Waikato.

The landowners say the Maori family, who owns the land at the point of entry on Tari Road, welded the entry gates closed as they were not getting reasonable responses about concerns they have from Waipa District Council and the new Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust.

The Maungatautari reserve.

The Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust, which manages the reserve, was originally set up as a three-way agreement between landowners, the community and iwi to fund and manage a vision to put a 47km pest-proof fence around Mount Maungatautari.

The governance arrangement was changed in 2010, however, when iwi Ngati Koroki Kahukura, with support from Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato, sought half the six seats on the trust. Two trustees who opposed the move were voted off.

Ngati Koroki Kahukura spokesmen Willie Te Aho says the iwi sought an injunction after the gates were welded shut.

Landowners allege members of Ngati Koroki Kahukura broke the welds.
Chairman of the Maungatautari Landowners Council Warren Charleston says this type of bullying behaviour by Ngati Koroki Kahukura is in line with what landowners have witnessed in recent times.
'There is an element involved in that group that isn't thinking about the project or the mana of their people, but about control at whatever cost.
'This incident shows we are right to be concerned and police, the councils and MEIT now have to consider whether it is safe for people to come to the mountain at the moment.”

Community and funder group advocate Gareth Morgan says the bizarre behaviour by Ngati Koroki Kahukura should be recognised as a serious concern for the community and especially for landowners.

'The family involved owns the land; it is theirs,” says Gareth.

'They are a well respected Maori family, absolutely reasonable people and have generously allowed access across their land for the benefit of the ecological island project for many years free of charge. They now have concerns and have not been listened to, treated arrogantly by Waipa DC and the new MEIT – and we know what that is like.”

'The gates are on their land and so they have opted to weld them shut, but now Ngati Koroki Kahukura has decided that private land is not private land if they are involved. What an arrogant bunch of bandits this mob is.”

He says when Ngati Koroki Kahukura first broke their agreements with landowners and community partners in the ecological island trust, there were concerns funders would walk away from the project – and that has happened.
He says there was also concern that the more than 400 volunteers who make the project work on a day-to-day basis would walk away. He says he knows they were walking before this. He 'suspects those remaining will be at full sprint now”.

Save Maungatautari Community and Funders Group coordinator Jack Jenkins says there is a need for people who can work through issues to step up in order to get the project back on track.

'We have worked well with the people of Pohara and Maungatautari marae in the past and we can again.

'I would urge local leaders to consider exploring different approaches with us. Clearly this aimlessly aggressive approach of recent times does nothing to enhance the mana of those two very important marae.”