After almost a century uniting Taranaki’s eight iwi, the Taranaki Māori Trust Board is handing the reins to a new body set up under the region’s Maunga Treaty agreement.
The Trust Board began in 1930, after the Sim Commission found confiscation of half a million hectares of Māori land in the Taranaki wars was unjust and excessive.
Its mantle will be picked up by Te Tōpuni Ngārahu, a body founded by the 2025 Taranaki Maunga Redress Act.
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu kaiwhakahaere Wharehoka Wano said the Trust Board’s purpose had been to bring together iwi to consider a broad range of social, cultural, commercial and environmental activities.
Wano said the 96-year-old trust never had the resources to deliver in all those fields but helped collectivise tribal leadership.
“We’ll bring forward a lot of that into the new Te Tōpuni Ngārahu.”
“A lot of the purpose remains intact, which is … looking at opportunities for the eight iwi to work together,” Wano said.
“That’s the legacy that we will lean into.”
From 1944, the Government paid Taranaki Māori Trust Board an annuity of £5000, which rose over time to $15,000.
Wano said talks to wind up the trust began alongside the Maunga settlement discussions in 2017.
In 2019, a buyout of the annuity was negotiated, with $20.8 million distributed to iwi in 2022.
The establishment of Te Tōpuni Ngārahu enabled the trust’s closure as it shared the same mission and was again made up of representatives from the eight iwi.
“Its purpose is to work on kaupapa that each of the iwi agree to work on collectively around cultural, commercial, social, and taiao opportunities.”
Wano said the trust board had to follow rules dictated by government and go “cap in hand” to the Crown to get things done.
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu and the eight iwi Post Settlement Governance Entities could act with more independence as they were much better resourced following Treaty settlements.
On Friday evening the leadership of Taranaki Māori Trust Board would be honoured at Devon Hotel with speakers from across the iwi and an exhibition of memorabilia and historic photographs.
Whānau of trustees throughout the decades had been invited.
“It’s a night of acknowledgement and celebration of the Trust Board that really did guide us through some very, very difficult periods in our colonised past.”
LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
