Nelson Tenths, never heard of it: NZ Company's "agreements" still not fully honoured (pn690)

Rore Stafford with mokopuna

 I know about the Wellington Tenths. They include a gorse-filled  hillside off Aro Street and another hilly area, what was once Athletic Park and is now a rest home, on the way to Island Bay.   And I've recently written about Waiwhetū in Lower Hutt where one kaumātua is still trying to get back some of the land promised (pn687).  I'd also heard of the Palmerston North Tenths, an area west of the Square that was once swamp that was "exchanged"

 (sic!) for Oriental Bay. 

I also vaguely recall various Te Ata Awa blocks in New Plymouth and Taranaki. ("By 1990 at least ninety percent of the land reserved from the pre-1860 purchases of Te Ati Awa lands was alienated.") but I'd never heard of the Nelson Tenths.   

  What they all have in common is that they are  the one-tenth of the land the New Zealand Company purchased from Māori that was to be reserved for the "on-going and future prosperity of its Māori vendors."   The other thing they have in common is that in each case 20th century litigation has been necessary to fulfil the NZ Company's "agreement" — and it is not over yet. 

"In the 1840s, Māori owners of land used to settle Nelson, Tasman and Golden Bay sold it to be developed on the agreement 10 per cent was reserved for their benefit. They would also keep customary areas, like urupā (grave sites) and gardens.  In 2017, after long-running litigation, the Supreme Court ruled the Crown had a duty to reserve 6111 hectares (15,100 acres) of land for the benefit of these owners. Additionally, it should have excluded customary land from development.

"With Crown duty established, the case was sent to the High Court to work out matters of “liability, loss and remedy. 

" The Crown and a single kaumātua, Rore Stafford, are the final players in a long-running legal fight that decides the future of thousands of hectares of Nelson land. He wants to sit down with the Crown – but the High Court beckons.

"Negotiations over the return of thousands of hectares of Nelson land have hit a wall with local Māori asking for a little understanding from a Labour government they thought was dedicated to “kindness”.

  Read the full article by clicking here.