Te reo o te hunga kainga e karanga ake nei, tuia, tuia, tui tuia
Acknowledgements:
We wish to thank all of you who took the time to fill out the registration forms with your current address, a necessary exercise to update our database. There are still many who have not done so. We urge you to take this opportunity to update your address and register other members of your whanau. . Should you require extra forms please ring 0800 003 020 and we will send you the necessary forms by return mail.
To reduce costs we have sent only one copy of this publication to each address, therefore we would be pleased if you could share this panui with other members of your whanau.
If you are on email, and do not receive mail by this method, could you advise us by sending a message to our address and we will record your electronic address for the next mailout.
Changes of address:
There are quite a number of returned mail which is creating a concern in that the information is not being received by all the people of Te Aitanga a Mahaki. If members of your whanau have changed their address could you please advise us by email or by telephoning 0800 003 020.
As we get closer to negotiation and settlement it is important that everyone of Te Aitanga a Mahaki is kept informed on the progress of the claim and when we have to make decisions, those decisions will be made from accurate and current information.
Therefore it is most important that we have current addresses for all of your whanau.
Current activities:
• We continue to meet with marae of Te Aitanga a Mahaki, to explain the next step in the Waitangi Tribunal process (highlighted in our last newsletter), and so far there has not been any opposition to Te Aitanga a Mahaki Trust being the organisation to administer the negotiation process. An operating structure and organisational chart are included in this publication. We are currently seeking representatives to become part of the reference group who will in turn appoint a negotiating team.
• In our last newsletter we stated that Te Aitanga a Mahaki Trust was pursuing the settlement and allocation of our fisheries assets. The following section documents the background to the pre-settlement assets – PRESA.
BACKGROUND TO THE FISHERIES SETTLEMENT
Maori claims for recognition of fishing rights go back a long way but took on more energy in 1985 when the powers of the Waitangi Tribunal were widened to allow it to examine claims dating back to 1840.
The first major fisheries claim to be heard was the Muriwhenua claim which commenced in 1986.
During this same period, the Government was working to extend the Quota Management System so as to manage and conserve New Zealand 's commercial fisheries.
However, the initial concept of the QMS did not take into account Maori fishing rights. It was also in direct conflict with the evidence being presented to the Waitangi Tribunal by the various Iwi of Muriwhenua and Ngai Tahu of pre-existing and unextinguished collective tribal fishing rights which were protected by section 88 (2) of the Fisheries Act 1983.
Representatives of four Maori parties ¾ Ngai Tahu, Muriwhenua, Tainui and the New Zealand Maori Council ¾ sought and won on behalf of Iwi a High Court injunction preventing the Crown from allocating quota. At this point, negotiations commenced between Maori negotiators and the Crown, which led to an Interim Settlement and the Maori Fisheries Act 1989.
In its Muriwhenua Report dated June 1988, the Tribunal said:
“… the Treaty guaranteed to Maori the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries for so long as they wished to keep them. Their fisheries means their business and activity in fishing, including the places where they fished and their property right in fishing . ” (WAI 22: Muriwhenua 11.3.7 (n) p 220)
The Tribunal also reported on the extent and nature of Maori fishing rights, “development” rights, or the right to use new technology in commercial fishing, and the significance of tikanga Maori in relation to fishing rights.
Again, in its Muriwhenua Report, the Tribunal stated:
“O n the evidence, the fishing activities of the Muriwhenua people involved the whole of the adjacent continental shelf. Those activities were capable of being developed as a commercial industry, and in fact had been developed on commercial lines.” (WAI 22: Muriwhenua 12.1.3, p 239)
In reporting on the Ngai Tahu claim in 1992, the Tribunal said Ngai Tahu have …
“(a) an exclusive Treaty right to the sea fisheries surrounding the whole of their rohe to a distance of 12 miles or so there being no waiver or agreement by them to surrender such right.
(b) a Treaty development right to a reasonable share of the sea fisheries off their rohe extending beyond 12 miles out to and beyond the continental shelf into the deepwater fisheries within the limit of the 200 mile exclusive economic zone, such right being exclusive to Ngai Tahu .” (WAI 27: Ngai Tahu, 13.14, p 303, and 14.3.1, p 306)
The Maori Fisheries Act 1989
In December 1989, the Maori Fisheries Act was passed by Parliament. It was the outcome of the Interim Fisheries Settlement between the four Maori litigant parties and the Crown. At its heart was a two year adjournment of the fisheries litigation in return for a phased delivery of 10% of the Total Allowable Commercial Catch for each fishstock of each species in the Quota Management System at that time. The Act further provided for $10 million in cash to be transferred to a Maori Fisheries Commission and for the establishment of Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd. These assets, together with further quota and other assets acquired in the market were later to become known as the Pre Settlement Assets (PRESA).
THE PRE-SETTLEMENT ASSETS
In 1989, the Crown and Maori agreed to an interim settlement in which the ownership of a significant portion of New Zealand 's fisheries was returned to Maori. Te Ohu Kai Moana has managed these assets and maximised their value. These assets now include:
• 60,182 tonnes of quota at 1 October 1999
• shares in Te Ohu Kai Moana Ltd, which owns 68 % of Moana Pacific Fisheries Ltd
• an 18.6% share in Te Kupenga Ltd, which owns 32 % of Moana Pacific Fisheries Ltd
• approximately $50 million in cash.
It was agreed between the four litigant Maori parties and the Crown that negotiations on a final outcome would continue during the adjournment and that in the meantime the Te Ohu Kai Moana would progressively accumulate the assets and set about the re-establishment of the tribes in the fishing industry.
By the time the next phase of the fisheries settlement was arrived at in 1992 the Te Ohu Kai Moana held some 16% of New Zealand 's quota and had acquired control of the nation's largest specialist inshore fishing business, Moana Pacific Fisheries Ltd.
The Deed of Settlement 1992
When Sealord Products Ltd was offered for sale in 1992, the opportunity to settle the claims was seized by both the Maori Fisheries Negotiators and the Crown. A memorandum of understanding was signed on 27 August 1992, and a Deed of Settlement signed on 23 September 1992.
Under the Deed of Settlement the Crown provided the Maori Fisheries Commission with $150 million to buy a half share in Sealord Products Ltd in a joint venture with Brierley Investments Ltd who bought the other half. Also, 20 % of all new species brought into the Quota Management System were to be handed to Maori. Provisions relating to customary fisheries and Maori involvement in fisheries statutory bodies were also contained in the Deed of Settlement.
The assets that were transferred as a consequence of the 1992 Deed of Settlement are called Post-Settlement Assets or POSA. The 1992 Settlement is commonly referred to as the Sealord Deal.
In Clause 5 of the Deed of Settlement, Maori agreed that all current and future claims in respect of commercial fishing rights had been fully satisfied and discharged. Clause 5 also states customary fishing rights were not extinguished by the Deed and the Settlement.
The Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act 1992
The 1992 Deed of Settlement was given effect to by the enactment of the Treaty of Waitangi (Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act 1992. That Act saw the Maori Fisheries Commission reconstituted as the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission.
The 1992 Act also clarified the power of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission to allocate the Pre-Settlement Assets to Iwi.
The Waitangi Tribunal identified certain values associated with Maori fishing. It found the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed to Maori full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their fisheries, that Iwi and hapu held collective fishing rights in the waters adjacent to their rohe and that such rights included the right to use new technology to develop commercial fishing.
The Quota Management System (QMS) was introduced in 1986 to manage and conserve New Zealand 's major commercial fisheries in a way that would rebuild fishstocks and ensure that annual catches were limited to levels that could be sustained over time. The Quota Management System is consistent with the principle of kaitiakitanga.
The QMS is now operated under the Fisheries Act 1996 and provides for the utilisation of fisheries resources while ensuring sustainability.
Under the QMS, New Zealand 's 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is divided into 10 Fisheries Management Areas, known as FMAs. FMA 10, around the Kermadec Islands , is currently a special area in which no commercial fishing is permitted.
Each species of fish in the QMS is managed as one or more fishstocks and each fishstock is managed within its own Quota Management Area.
Each Quota Management Area is a grouping of one or more FMAs. For some species there are two fishstock QMAs (eg, Hoki) whereas there may be as many as ten fishstock QMAs for other species. Red Cod, for instance has five fishstock QMAs.
Each year, the Minister for Fisheries sets an overall catch limit for each fishstock (QMA). This catch limit is in tonnes and is called the Total Allowable Catch (TAC). The TAC is divided into:
• Maori customary fishing,
• recreational fishing,
• commercial fishing.
The catch limit set for commercial fishing is known as the Total Allowable Commercial Catch or TACC and is divided into separate parcels of Individual Transferable Quota commonly called "quota" or "ITQ".
Quotas are established for each fishstock in the QMS. Quota is the right to harvest a specified quantity of a fishstock each year within a QMA. Quota is valuable property and quota owners have the right to catch fish, have fish caught for them and sell or lease their quota.
Targeted commercial fishing of quota species can only be carried out by quota holders i.e. those who own or lease quota.
The Pre-Settlement Assets consist of quota in 32 species managed in 178 separate fishstocks.
Fishing quota has been divided into Inshore and Deepwater quota.
In the Muriwhenua and Ngai Tahu sea fisheries hearings, the Waitangi Tribunal was presented with extensive historical evidence about fishing activities on the continental shelf. The Tribunal found on the basis of this evidence that Iwi and hapu had exclusive rights to inshore fisheries and a lesser status of interest in deep water fisheries which were not fished traditionally.
Inshore Quota
Inshore quota is generally defined as fishstocks caught at depths down to 300 metres.
The 300 metre rule is aimed at clearly distinguishing species which occur on the continental shelf and were therefore accessible traditionally, from those which are found in deep water beyond the continental shelf.
The edge of the continental shelf is a well defined geographic feature and the adoption of a shallower depth as its indicator destroys the correlation between depth and this natural undersea feature. For instance, sometimes the 200 metre contour line is proximate to the shelf edge, sometimes it may be many kilometres away.
300 metres is generally found just over the edge of the continental shelf which gives confidence that species in the deepwater category are being harvested beyond the shelf edge.
Inshore quota will be allocated on a coastline basis. This concept arises from the underlying accepted principle that Iwi and hapu held collective fishing rights to the fish in the waters adjacent to their rohe.
Thus, if the coastline of an Iwi, including its constituent hapu, equals 24 % of the shoreline in a Quota Management Area, that Iwi will receive 24 % of the Inshore quota in that Quota Management Area. If the coastline of an Iwi straddles two Quota Management Areas, that Iwi will receive Inshore quota from the two Quota Management Areas. (see diagram)
The measurement of coastline is subject to necessary conventions relating to the inclusion and/or exclusion of harbours, bays and islands. In addition, in respect of some inshore fishstocks that are caught in certain harbours a portion of the quota of these fishstocks will be set aside for allocation to those Iwi whose rohe is adjacent to those harbours. Full details of these aspects of the Optimum Method for Allocation are available from Te Ohu Kai Moana.
Deepwater Quota
Deepwater quota is generally defined as fishstocks caught at depths greater than 300 metres. Half of the deepwater quota will be allocated on a coastline basis ¾ the same as for Inshore quota.
The other half is to be allocated on a population basis. If an Iwi makes up 10 % of the entire Iwi affiliate population of Aotearoa, it will receive 10 % of this half of the deepwater quota. The affiliate population of each Iwi is to be determined from the 1996 Census data. Te Ohu Kai Moana considers that Iwi affiliation data provides the best information for determining the relative size of Iwi populations.
This Deepwater allocation method takes into account the Waitangi Tribunal finding that modern rights to the deepwater fisheries are to an extent developmental, and that all Maori are entitled to share in that development.
Fisheries Allocation Readiness Project
Once the final fisheries assets allocation model has been decided, Te Ohu Kaimoana (TOKM) will allocate a mixture of cash, shares and fishing quota to iwi. If all goes smoothly and litigation is avoided allocation of these assets will begin in October 2003.
TOKM stipulates that in order to receive these assets each iwi must comply with a number of requirements. These requirements are to ensure that each iwi operates with a measure of accountability, transparency and fair representation to all beneficiaries.
Te Aitanga a Mahaki Trust has agreed to the importance of meeting all requirements because of the economic benefits to iwi.
Ian Ruru will manage the Project that that aims to ensure that by October 2003, Te Aitanga a Mahaki complies with all requirements for Fisheries Asset Allocation. At the next Trustees Meeting a paper outlining a detailed project and communications plan and skill requirements for a working group. A number of workshops will held to explain important issues around fisheries management.
For further information about the Fisheries Allocation Readiness Project or interest in fisheries workshops please direct enquiries to: Ian Ruru email: ian@mahaki.com
Mahaki Exhibition: Te Kura o Mahaki
• In July 2001 a focus group of Te Aitanga a Mahaki Trust was formed to design a strategy to exhibit Te Aitanga a Mahaki taonga here in Turanganui a Kiwa.
• The target date for holding the exhibition is June 2003, but this date is still to be confirmed.
• The committee would like to involve as many people and organizations as possible to share in this initiative, locally and nationally.
• A task identified by the committee is the need to identify and create a database of taonga held in private and public collections. To this end the committee are asking if you or your whanau know of any Mahaki taonga held in museum, galleries or private collections, in your area that may be placed on our iwi database and possibly used in our exhibition here in Turanga. We would appreciate an early response to this request.
• The Claims Committee have agreed that you may use their contacts at Phone 0800 003 020 or email: research@mahaki.com • The development of Te Kura o Mahaki will be a feature of future newsletters.