The Return of Tūtaepatu Lagoon

Abstract

Tūtaepatu lagoon has been an important Ngāi Tahu mahinga kai/food gathering site for over 300 years. Following the formal colonisation that began in 1840, Ngāi Tahu meant to reserve the lagoon from the 1848 Kemp’s Deed purchase but this was not done. This article sets out the ways in which control of this mahinga kai was wrested from the control of Ngāi Tūāhuriri hapū in the mid-nineteenth century and managed by Pākehā local and central government authorities throughout the twentieth century until it was finally returned as a part of the Ngāi Tahu Treaty settlement in the 1990s. The importance of political power at both the local and central government level was fundamental to its eventual return.