Birding rights face threat

Blood ties dispute could exclude 100 families from muttonbird islands

BARRY HARCOURT / 136655

GUTTED: Tommy Ashwell talking about how he lost his rights to muttonbird on Taukihepa, one of the beneficial islands. Up to 100 families may also be ousted unless they can prove a blood-link to 15 chiefs.

TOP: The Ashwell whanau house on Taukihepa, which they are unable to return to. BOTTOM: Muttonbirds feeding at Colac Bay.

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An Invercargill man is being used as a test case to strip muttonbirding rights from hundreds of Rakiura Maori.

On December 22, Tommy Ashwell and his whanau's ability to muttonbird on one of the "beneficial" Titi Islands was cancelled because he could not prove a blood tie to one of 15 original chiefs.

Beneficial owners with a direct blood link to the chiefs are pushing for about 100 families who were granted rights in 1911, 1922 and 1924 to prove they have the same link.

More than 30 years ago, Mr Ashwell made an application to the Maori Land Court for a succession order to Taukihepa, or Big South Cape, as a direct relative of Mary Newton who was descended from one of the chiefs.

The order, granted on August 12, 1976, came under scrutiny in 2005 when Invercargill woman Lowana Clearwater sought to overturn the order, questioning the land interest of a Mary Newton named in the court papers.

Mr Ashwell said the court mistakenly linked him with the wrong Mary Newton, which was acknowledged by Maori Land Court acting Chief Judge Wilson Isaac.

"...really it's the court's mistake there were two Mary Newtons they got the wrong one, but I am related to both and the right one would qualify me for an order," Mr Ashwell said.

The Ashwell family has spent the past three years wondering if their rights would be retained.

Judge Wilson Isaac's decision last year did not uphold submissions by Mr Ashwell's lawyer that he retain the rights until his death.

He can still go to the Crown islands as a Rakiura Maori but it is not the place he knows. His daughter Vicky Thompson said the decision had gutted her father.

"It's a big part of Dad's mana it's important."

Mr Ashwell's wife Evelyn, who is Pakeha, agreed.

"It nearly killed both of us ... it's ripped out a part of my soul."

Mr and Mrs Ashwell have resigned themselves to never going back to the house they built on Taukihepa. The Ashwells' case is to be used to look into the rights to the beneficial islands granted to families in 1911, 1922 and 1924.

Beneficial owners, direct relatives of the chiefs, called a meeting in Bluff on January 11 to discuss how they could stop about 100 other families descendants of those granted rights last century from going back to the islands.

The move could divide Rakiura Maori in the south with some quipping it is the new Maori Land War but few will speak out publicly.

Riki Ashwell, of Bluff, the grandson of Mr Ashwell's cousin and muttonbirding stalwart Harold Ashwell, lodged an application in August last year to get rights to the island based on another ancestor.

Riki Ashwell said even if the move to block families was successful it would cause fighting not only between different families but also within single families.

jared.morgan@stl.co.nz

 THE BENEFICIAL ISLANDS
* Taukihepa is one of 18 beneficial islands subject to the sale of Stewart Island or Rakiura to the Crown in June 1864.
* Each of the 18 beneficial islands were entrusted into the hands of a select group of Rakiura Maori descendants then, as now, of the 15 Rangitira or chiefs attached to the 1864 Rakiura Deed of Cession. 
* A further 18 islands went to the Crown for administration as no person came forward at the time to make a claim. They were returned to Ngai Tahu under the 1998 Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown. 
* To be eligible to "bird" on the now ex-Crown islands people have to be of Rakiura Maori descent. The islands are open to all Rakiura Maori.

- © Fairfax NZ News