A Napier kaumatua wants people to find out what Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlements are about, as a series of long-standing grievances between the Crown and Maori in Hawke's Bay are resolved.
They include an agreement in principle (AIP) signed in December by Attorney-General and Minister of Treaty Settlements Chris Finlayson and representatives of Mana Ahuriri, formed and mandated to settle and manage settlements in the area of the 1851 Ahuriri Purchase, including Napier.
Heitia Hiha, who has argued the case for his people for most of his life and waited 20 years for remedy in the successful Wai 55 Whanganui a Orotu (Napier inner harbour) claim, believes divisiveness is based on people not understanding what the claims are about.
A central issue is the concept of land guardianship, as opposed to ownership, where Maori engaging European settlers and the Crown in settlement of their land in the mid-19th century believed they were entering agreements of shared development, not divestment of land enabling individual ownership.
From that stemmed on one hand poorly managed land leading to modern-day environmental issues, where, for example, once-abundant food resources could no longer be sustained as intended for the good of everyone. On the other, driven by the potential wealth, were "dodgy" methods by which some land was acquired, most severely "raupatu" or confiscation.