On
7
April2003
the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga chairperson Dame Anne Salmond, convened a Heritage Landscapes Think Tank at the Museum of Aotearoa New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. A large number of key personnel from across the culture and heritage sector, iwi and hapu leaders, academics, researchers, local and regional council and other Ministry representatives converged at Te Papa to discuss and investigate particular cultural landscapes issues with heritage significance to iwi, hapu, communities, and the nation in New Zealand. As offered at the Think Tank landscapes are where important historic events occurred as part of New Zealand's emerging national identity. However, many of these heritage sites are unacknowledged or ignored. While heri tage is well presented in archives, cenotaphs, libraries and museums it is rarely considered in the places where it happened. With appropriate care, promotion and interpretation,25 Relevant Waitangi Tribunal Claims and reports that recognise tino-rangatiratanga. They include the Motonui- Waitara Claim 1982, Manakau Claim 1985, Mangonui Sewerage Claim 1988, Te Roroa Report 1992, Rekohu Report 2001 and the Report on the Crown's Foreshore and Seabed Policy 2004 -just to name a few.
26 I nformation sourced from Draft Brief to Minister of Maori Affairs, Crown Law Opinion on the Role of Government in Maori Culture and Heritage, as part ofTaonga Maori Review, 16 June 2000.
C HA P T E R F I V E 155
such places could contribute significantly to local economic development through cultural tourism, as well as to national, regional and local pride.27 Heritage landscapes are therefore not fixated on the 'artefactual' or heritage buildings alone. They cover large geographic areas that may have multiple owners and represent a convergence of many experiences and interests. They reveal dynamic systems undergoing constant change. They do not fit neatly into a single historical period, but have composite layers of human interaction and ongoing narratives of significance associated with each place.28
As affiliated hapu to Tukorehe are linked to ancestral land through continuous land and repurchased land holdings at the coast, they represent existing and ongoing connection with place. Enhanced iwi and hapu responsibilities to protect cultural landscape, also reiterates contexts of tribal identity in the present. With accumulating pressures facing the region the Think Tank concept of 'heritage landscapes' is not easy to embrace. While the definition attempts to encompass both iwi and hapu views and develop Maori cultural heritage significance, it aims to simultaneously capture other historical relationships to land. The concept of braided cultural landscape raised in Chapter
4
refers to the notion of knowing place and peoples' place within it, as informed by both Maori and non-Maori recollections of encounter and change within lands and peoples. The braided approach recognises other groups' inter-generational use of land. As particular landholders in Kuku they interacted with knowledgeable Maori and respected the significance of place as pointed out to them within the agricultural landscape they farmed. In this way they came to respect aspects of special place, particularly burial grounds, fresh water springs and middens. Former farming families also did not want to jeopardise resident Maori relationships to these regions. While it is true that the parents or grandparents of some non-Maori informants may have disregarded key Maori understandings and context, there was certainly trepidation not to transgress the request of those key elders.This important intertwining of stories can offer ways of appreciating landscape from bicultural or multicultural perspective as relevant in the present.Mana whenua relationships to lands, resources and waterways however, possess a priority of time requiring greater respect for long-term Maori occupation and use of these specific territories. There may also be the need to consider how lands were alienated from collective tenure. In contemporary times tensions have increased between private property rights and the collective interests and rights of iwi and hapu. In order to realise the most effective cultural landscape protection, intricacies and complex relationships to lands should be reconciled with iwi and hapu.
27 New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga, 2003, Heritage Landscapes 1hink Tank, Report on Proceedings, 2. 28 ibid, 4.
1 5 6 H EI W H E NUA O RA
Despite the Resource Management Act
1991
(RMA) and the New Zealand Historic Places Act1993
(HPA) being the two most important laws in Aotearoa New Zealand that recognise culturally valued areas, they are relatively unconvincing when it comes to actually protecting wider or inter-related areas of Maori cultural and spiritual significance. This is due to the lack of linkages between the laws. The over-riding purpose of the Resource Management Act199I
has been to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. Within its provisions, the law recognises and provides for the relationship Maori and their culture and traditions have with their ancestral lands, waters, sites, wahi tapu and other taonga [s6(e)]; the particular regard taken for kaitiakitanga [s7(a)], and the principles of the Treaty ofWaitangi (s8).The act 3.1ms to protect historic heritage from inappropriate subdivision, use and development as a matter of national importance. The HPA provides some protection of archaeological sites, defined as places associated with human activity, which occurred before
1900.
It is through archaeological investigation that such sites within areas provide evidence that relates to the history of New Zealand.29 Section4
HPA recognises the relationship Maori and their culture and traditions have with ancestral lands, water, sites and other taonga. Some heritage landscapes may fit into the categories of historic areas and wahi tapu areas provided for in the HPA, where others may not. For archaeological areas, the HPA states that it is unlawful for anyone, to damage, modifY or destroy a site or any part thereof.3o In HPA sectionIO (1)
this certainly applies when there is even reasonable causeto even suspect
that there is an archaeological site present. Despite these provisions, the HPA site registration process does not automatically protect them or any other inter-related areas of cultural significance within landscape.The heritage landscape concept may be present in law within the HPA and the RMA, but the interpretation is limited as it does not fully encompass a holistic, interconnected landscape perspective. There is no specific recognition of how whakapapa or genealogical reference systems inter-link peoples, lands, waterways, ecosystems or areas of spiritual importance. If the heritage landscape concept did recognise such intricacies then it would
29 Gerard O'Regan, 1997, Bicultural Developments in Museums ofAotearoa: what is the current status? Ki te Whakamana i te Kaupapa Tikanga-a-rua ki roto i nga Whare Taonga 0 te Motu: kei hea e tu ana? National Services Te Paerangi, Museum of Aotearoa New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 33.
Janet Davidson, 2003, Uiihi Tapu and portable taonga o(Ngati Hinewaka: Desecration and loss; protection and management, A report prepared for the Ngati Hinewaka Claims Committee. February 2003.
30 The Historic Places Act 1993 regulates the modification of archaeological sites on all land. The Act makes it unlawful for any person to destroy, damage or modify the whole or any part of an archaeological site without the prior authority of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga. This is the case regardless of whether:
the site is registered or recorded
the land on which the site is located is designated, or the activity is permitted under the D istrict or Regional Plan a resource or building consent has been granted.
C H APT E R F I V E 157
better reflect and respect the multiple associated narratives of place, its natural resources, its peoples and other influential Maori events embedded in landscape.
The terms 'cultural landscapes' and 'ancestral landscapes'were included in the definition of 'historic heritage' in the Resource Management Amendment Bill [No. 2].31 They offered holistic definitions that reunited and revitalised core bio-cultural values32 within landscape. They encompassed protection and maintenance of interrelatedness that exists between all entities. A later Supplementary Order Paper however deleted both terms and included an explanatory note to the effect that these terms were already covered by enhancement of amenity values, and the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the environment.33 Despite the positive conclusions that cultural and historic heritage of iwi and hapu is an essential component of New Zealand's national identity, the cultural and ancestral attributes were minimalised. The system has ultimately been unable to actively support or advise Maori in the real work of protecting cultural landscape, as recognised within the principles of the Treaty ofWaitangi.