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Kotahi Sites & Areas of Significance to Māori

What we know about sites and areas of significance to Māori

Archaeological sites, and sites of significance to Māori have often not been well protected. This has resulted in them being destroyed or damaged by economic development, land use practices, erosion, and natural progression.  

Many places are now just a marker of association to a place that once formed a pattern of pre-European migration and settlement. This is partly due to a lack of publicly available information about these sites.

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Kotahi & Sites and areas of Significance to Māori

Recognising and providing for the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions, with their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu and other taonga, is a matter of national importance under the Resource Management Act. It is appropriate to recognise the particular significance and meaning that taonga – including areas, places, landscapes and resourcescan have to tangata whenua. The relationship of tangata whenua with their ancestral rohe should be maintained or enhanced through the protection, maintenance or enhancement of Māori cultural landscapes. 

As referenced in the Historic and Cultural Values, Natural Character, Natural Features and Landscapes fact sheet, there are known issues around intellectual property rights, public use of information and identification of sites of cultural value to iwi/Māori, management of information, tikanga and kawa.  

There is an opportunity to develop specific policy in the Kotahi Plan regarding how sites and areas of significance to Māori in Te Matau-a-Māui could be identified, and protected (where appropriate and where tangata whenua wish to do so).

When reviewing other regional plans in relation to this topic it was found that the general approach taken was to include policies and objectives in the Regional Policy Statement requiring relevant city and district councils to identifysites and areas of significance to Māori and provide for their protection through rules in their own respective district plansShould a similar approach be chosen for the Kotahi Plan it would require coordination with the city and district councils in Hawke’s Bay 

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