‘Other claims equally as important as Mt Cook’

Press, 4 August 1987, Page 5

‘Other claims equally as important as Mt Cook’

By

JANE ENGLAND,

Maori affairs reporter

Aoraki (Mount Cook) is not a crucial point in the Ngai-Tahu Maori Trust Board land claims nor does the trust want control of the mountain, said the trust’s deputy chair-/ man, Mr Rakihia Tau, in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Tau was reacting to a report in the “Weekend Star” which claimed that the mountain would be the most hard fought for issue when the board presents its land claims at the Waitangi Tribunal.

While Mount Cook was important to the Ngai Tahu tribe for its spiritual values it did not represent any more significance than other claims in North Canterbury, Banks Peninsula, Kaikoura, the West Coast, Otago, Southland and Stewart Island.

Any suggestion that the trust would change the status of a national park was "ridiculous,” he said. “We do not want to own the mountain and I really don’t see how you can control a god because that is what the mountain means to us.”

Christchurch historians, researchers, and lawyers have been working round the clock in preparation for the first round of the claim hearings which will be presented to the tribunal at the Tuahiwi marae on August 17. That hearing will deal with claims in Kaikoura, North Canterbury and Banks Peninsula.

The second hearing, which is expected to deal with land in Otakou, Murihiku, and Canterbury, will be held on September 21, and the third hearing

dealing with land in the Arahura (West Coast) and Rakiura (Stewart Island) will be held on October 12.