Assurance on Maori land gifted to Crown

Press, 29 April 1987, Page 2

Assurance on Maori land gifted to Crown

Wellington reporter

An assurance that “under no circumstances will land gifted to the Crown by\ the, Maori people for national parks or protected areas be traded off,” has been given by the Minister of Conservation, Mr Marshall.

He was responding to suggestions at a hui last week-end at Ngaruawahia that such lands could be affected by Government decisions on the allocation of land to the new Stateowned enterprises. “I want to assure the Maori people and all other New Zealanders that under no . circumstances will these lands be affected by the process of land allocation," Mr Marshall said. New Zealand was indebted to those who had given such lands to the Crown and there had never been any suggestion that it would be” sold off or otherwise disposed of out of public ownership. The Crown held these lands in trust for New Zealand.

It was the gift of the volcanic peaks of Tongariro, Ngaruohoe and Ruapehu by the Ngati Tuwharetoa chief, Te Heuheu IV, in 1887, which had led to the creation of New Zealand’s national parks system, he said.

Another notable land gift had been Mount Egmont or Taranaki which had formed the basis of the Egmont National Park.