Guarding the ancestral relics

BY GEOFF COLLETT

Tasman boasts a rich collection of archaeological sites, but there has been growing concern about how well protected they have been. GEOFF COLLETT reports.

The temptation is to suggest that the Tasman District Council's attempt to come up with rules to protect the district's numerous archaeological sites has itself been at risk of becoming an archaeological specimen.

It has become the longest-running chapter in the protracted saga of the council's resource management plan, and is still to be finally resolved almost 15 years since it was first tackled.

Along the way the council has spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to pin down the mass of archaeological and other cultural heritage sites known to be scattered all across its district. Now it is facing stiff criticism and the threat of legal action from Maori groups whose patience has finally run out, complaining that the tardiness has allowed continued desecrations of the region's historic legacy.

Still, the council is confident that it has finally found the way forward, and says it is only a couple of months away from introducing its new rules to protect the sites.

It has long since abandoned the "sledgehammer" approach it originally threatened; instead, it is hailing the fact that for the first time, it will be able to offer a comprehensive guide to the 1000-plus known sites which contain some evidence of human endeavours and exploits of centuries past.

The story behind the council's handling of the cultural heritage rules is a long, tortuous and not always happy one. Council policy manager Steve Markham who has been at the forefront of the issue since its earliest days says that even now, the botched approach to the issue back in the 1990s is "a difficult episode to relate, because we [the council staff] were in the position of giving advice to the council, and the council was determined to follow a course of action that was not in accordance with our advice".

The short version is that when the original resource management plan was produced a mass of new rules were sprung on the public without warning, by a council determined to launch into the formal process of submission-making and hearings.

All manner of fish-hooks and explosives were detected, both imagined and real, and prominent among those was the proposed strict and far-reaching conditions on the heritage sites. The council was flooded with protests and the formal submission process was overwhelmed. Substantial parts of the plan including the cultural heritage rules were shelved to try to make some headway on other areas.

That, in turn, triggered another grievance from heritage advocates principally Maori groups who feared the council was going to neglect its responsibilities for protecting archaeological sites and areas of historic significance to Maori. They objected to the Environment Court, and things have trundled backwards and forward between there and the drawing board in the years since.

With hindsight, Markham is confident that the decade or so since has allowed for a better model to be created. The council has worked closely with Maori interests (working through a collective body, Tiakina te Taiao, representing various iwi) to address their grievances.

But in the saga's latest twist, the iwi grouping has run out of patience with the council, after it missed the May 30 deadline agreed in the court for it to release its new set of rules to manage the historic sites. The council says it is pushing that date back to September, because it first wants to give the affected land-owners a heads-up, to avoid anything like the firestorm of protest it encountered back in the 90s. The court has accepted it is making progress but has now imposed a deadline of the end of September, Markham says.

Barney Thomas, who chairs Tiakina te Taiao, says: "The whole issue has been a long, drawn-out scenario, and then all of a sudden the council come back to us and say, `We have to consult now it's going to take us longer'. We're saying, `You've had 12 or 13 years to do this. To us, it's a matter of utmost importance to ensure that these sites are looked after, and if you're not going to do it then we're going to force your arm."'

Tasman's archaeological legacy should not be under-estimated. Robert McClean, acting general manager for the Historic Places Trust's central region, describes it as very significant nationally, particularly along the Tasman coastline, which has been a popular and busy site of human occupation for centuries.

A big problem has been the uncertainty of information about where the sites bearing evidence of that occupation actually are. The council's principal record has been a register established by the New Zealand Archaeological Association from numerous reports down the years, featuring about 1000 known or suspected sites. Trouble was, it was often vague, even suspect; the location of many sites only roughly recorded, their true significance unclear.

That uncertainty helped to defeat the council's first attempt at imposing rules to protect the sites without specific sites, it went for a blanket approach, a "sledgehammer to crack a rather uncertain nut", as Markham puts it, and one that proved overwhelmingly unpopular.

Its lesson learned, it employed archaeologists to review and improve the archaeological association's register; then it contracted with iwi groups to undertake a further review, given misgivings about Maori sites that had been overlooked or had particular cultural significance to Maori despite the lack of any archaeological remnants. Nelson-based researchers John and Hilary Mitchell undertook that project, noting that even in its updated form, the archaeological record contained numerous shortcomings.

Those various reviews now form the basis of the new set of rules, which, Markham says, is anchored around the fact that all the known sites will be recorded on the council's planning maps. The council thinks that is significant. Given that the law doesn't actually require anyone to be notified if a heritage site exists on their land, the council considers that it is "providing a service to property owners to alert them to a potential duty for them, should they wish to carry out some development activity", Markham argues.

The issue only becomes significant if they do want to develop it and so disturb the site in question; then, they will likely have to bring in an archaeologist and seek Historic Places Trust permission to proceed; or, if it is something of significance to Maori, iwi monitors will be involved.

What nobody knows is how many unknown sites might still be awaiting discovery by future development. The Mitchells' research said that the recorded sites "represent a tiny minority" of all the finds of archaeological evidence made down the years.

Barney Thomas, whose role as pou kura taiao (iwi issues adviser) with the Department of Conservation sees him regularly called out when sites are unearthed, observes that "I'd love a dollar for every time I'm called out along the coastline with human remains coming out".

He sees that as reflecting the council's failure to bring in rules before now and to apply them, including to its own activities. "With nothing in that (resource management plan), the only ones who are really protecting the sites are iwi we've just got to keep a vigilant eye out on what's going on."

He adds: "We've had issues in the past where the council has gone and dug up lands and there have been human remains there. We knew they were there, they knew they were there, but because there was nothing in the plan [they have gone ahead] ... so we have had to step in and put an end to those works."

He points to a subdivision in Takaka's Selwyn St, where the council approved the development despite iwi advice that it was a burial site: human remains have been commonly unearthed by the works since.

Thomas makes clear his beef is with the council: "How do you ask the private landowners not to develop those sites when in the first instance there should never have been a subdivision in those areas?"

Indeed, iwi think private landowners whose development options are hampered by the presence of heritage sites should be compensated the same argument flagged by Federated Farmers.

The federation's Golden Bay president, Graham Ball, and its Nelson president, Edwin Newport, both raise their concern that farmers end up carrying the cost if sites are uncovered on their properties. Without any incentive offered to do the right thing, a farmer is just as likely to say, `This is going to cost me money, I won't tell anyone'," Ball says.

Newport tells of a case he heard of, "where some people built a shed at Pakawau and they had to pay iwi to be there to see the holes dug for the poles in case there was something there that's an extra cost that's put on to an operation".

Markham says that in recent years, actual cases of unknown sites being discovered and burdening landowners with constraints or costs have not really arisen although he admits that it could become more common as pressure builds to develop areas of the coastline which are known to have been heavily used by early Maori. Questions of compensation are, he says, the responsibility of the Historic Places Trust, and the threshold is quite high.

Those niggles aside, the farmers are cautiously approving of the council's approach at least it's talking with them, they point out. "The affected farms are basically the de facto gatekeepers of those cultural and heritage sites," Ball says. "We need to understand the process around this and early consultation is paramount to a good document being written."

And whatever complaints Maori have with the council, he argues that there is "no reason why iwi shouldn't go to landowners and explain the significance of a site if they're concerned about losing any ... If no-one tells us, we don't know what it is or how to respect it, or that it's even there in a lot of cases."

MANY SITES IN THE TASMAN REGION

Archaeologists have identified about 1000 different cultural heritage sites scattered around the Tasman region overwhelmingly near the coast, or in old goldfield areas. A high proportion of those sites remain only vaguely identified.

They range from the unusual and historically significant (such as New Zealand's earliest coal mine at Motupipi) to the more commonplace (places where Maori fashioned tools or gardened), or even just places where an artefact has been found with no evidence of any wider significance.

Investigations have revealed 25 "precincts" across the Tasman District most in Golden Bay to Kaiteriteri which include 296 identified sites but are likely to contain a much wider spread of material from past human occupation. Some of the larger precincts bearing remnants of Maori occupation are at Pohara, Parapara and Marahau.

The presence of an archaeological site does not necessarily bar development; the Historic Places Trust frequently grants permission for sites to be developed (its approval is required under the law). Under the Tasman District Council's planned new rules, people wanting to do work which might disturb a site can still seek a resource consent if the trust refuses that permission.

The law also requires the protection of wahi tapu sites, which are culturally significant to Maori but may not have physical evidence of that significance. A major study by Mitchell Research, completed last year, pointed out the potential enormity of places around the district which bear evidence of Maori activity. The Tasman council is hoping to have an arrangement with iwi where monitors can be sent to keep an eye on works when they are taking place in sensitive areas.

While it is widely accepted that substantial archaeological areas are still undiscovered, there are also known areas which have been intensively developed, such as around Tata in Golden Bay; and while landowners do not have to be told if a known site exists on their property, farming groups say they expect most rural landowners would know if that was the case.

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