Call for peak to be legal entity

A cultural report on Te Mata Peak has recommended that several parts of it be closed to public access and that an application be made to consider the peak a legal entity with the equivalent status of a person.

The report was prepared for the Hastings District Council by local iwi organisation Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga.

It was commissioned after concerns around protections on the peak came to light when a track was cut up the peak’s east face by Craggy Range winery late last year. The 99-page document traverses local iwi and hapu connections to the sacred peak, or maunga tapu, and calls for ‘‘the use of every available planning, policy and community contribution to assist local Ma¯ ori communities to reclaim, reframe and reinstate the mana and mauri of wha¯ nau Ma¯ ori’’.

For 800 to 1000 years, local hapu have identified with the 399-metre peak and its surrounds.

‘‘Its soils contain the blood of our tı¯puna [ancestors] and taonga [cultural artefacts] that constitute a vitally important cultural heritage for the marae hapu¯ of Heretaunga,’’ it says.

The report makes a raft of recommendations, starting with removing the Craggy Range track up the eastern face, which is under way.

It also recommended that an application be made to give the peak full recognition as a legal entity equivalent to a legal person.

The report calls for statutory recognition of eight specific wa¯ hi tapu sites on the peak that will ideally be prohibited to the public, and 17 wa¯hi taonga zones where public access may be permissible, but which should be fenced off from stock.

Last week it was revealed that Hastings ratepayers would end up paying $650,000 to remediate the track after the council decided to spend about $200,000 to remediate the remaining 1700 metres of the 2.2-kilometre track.

The council has already spent $62,000 filling in the top 500 metres of the track, after it was deemed to be unsafe.

Excluding these costs, the total cost of the remediation project to date for the council is estimated at $450,000.

About $360,000 of that included research, including the cultural report.