Depending on your perspective, the families that run these marae are either repatriating or squatting. In the mid-1980s, when proposed boundaries for Whanganui National Park encroached on native land, the Maori community established the marae as Schools of Indigenous Culture, “to bring Western conservation practices up to Maori standards.” After all, who had managed the land well enough over many generations to make it conservation-worthy today? The current situation is a skewed stalemate: If the DOC tries to cast out the families for building marae on official national park lands, it would give rise to a court case that the Maori families are likely to win, given that the New Zealand government originally seized the riverbanks for a turn-of-the-century railroad that was never built. Thus, the DOC has so far adopted a policy of tolerant inaction; it even devotes a section to Tieke Marae in its official park brochure.
Perhaps because this protest is so passive and productive, the marae receive almost no media attention, unlike noisy land controversies elsewhere in the country. The DOC has recently expressed a desire for the marae to steal some limelight as more up-market tourist attractions, but the families’ vision is to see the river live as simply as it did in times past not just with lush flora and rolling rapids, but with villages dotting the high banks, offering community cohesion for local Maori and gracious way-stations for any passing traveler.
