A new pan-tribal body established under the Taranaki Maunga Treaty settlement is spreading the word of its wider role helping Taranaki iwi work together.
The Maunga redress law set up Te Tōpuni Ngārahu as a combined trust of the region’s eight iwi to care for the mountain and recognise tribal relationships with the ancestral peaks.
But the pou whakahaere of Te Tōpuni Ngārahu says negotiators deliberately shaped the redress so the governance trust could meet a wider purpose.
“The Maunga is a very important part,” said Wharehoka Wano.
“It’s probably our main priority in terms of our strategy – but we’re also looking at other things where we can come together collectively.”
For example, Te Tōpuni Ngārahu is currently campaigning to boost voting in November’s election – especially by rangatahi.
Wano said the eight iwi had called for a consistent campaign to promote enrolment and voting.
“It’s primarily about encouraging our people to vote, but you know we’re also encouraging them to think about the impacts [of politics] on us in a tribal sense.”
That collective outlook has recent roots in the Covid-19 crisis, when Te Aranga was quickly set up to assist iwi responses on the ground.
When the pandemic eased, Te Aranga morphed into Ngā Iwi o Taranaki, again focused on collective iwi purposes – most notably hosting Te Matatini kapa haka festival in New Plymouth in 2025.
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu has a deeper origin in the Taranaki Māori Trust Board, which began in 1930 to coordinate iwi around social, cultural, commercial and environmental ambitions.
The group’s delegations to Wellington over land confiscations eventually led to the iwi settlements, which cleared the way for the Maunga negotiations.
Wano said Taranaki Māori Trust Board had to follow dictates of government, with its decisions and activities needing sign-off by Crown ministers.
That brought a clear focus during Maunga redress negotiations.
“We were purposeful in terms of the Maunga arrangements to establish a trust that could bring us together.”
Taranaki Māori Trust Board was finally wound up this year once the new Maunga trust was ready to replace it.
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu is made up of the chairs of the eight iwi Post-Settlement Governance Entities (PSGE).
Wano said the new trust body would be careful not to step into the PSGE’s lane.
He said hapū and marae could come directly to Te Tōpuni Ngārahu but were encouraged to work through their iwi leadership.
“A lot of my work at the moment is moving around my tribal community, talking about who we are and what our role is.”
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu, which is a public body under the Local Government Act and an iwi and public authority under the Resource Management Act, had worked behind the scenes getting set up but now “we’re a little bit more visible”.
One duty is to appoint half of the eight-member Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi, with another four appointed by the conservation minister.
Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi is the “face and voice” of the Maunga, with a more operational focus on Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki national park.
Te Tōpuni Ngārahu also recommends a member for the Taranaki Whanganui Conservation Board.
LDR is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
