The Federation of Maori Authorities is preparing a Waitangi Tribunal challenge to two key planks of the Government's controversial forestry policy.
It says the plan to impose a cost on landowners who switch land from forestry to another use breaches the Treaty of Waitangi, as does the Government's
refusal to pass on to forest owners any of the value of the "sink credits" generated under the Kyoto climate change treaty by forests established since 1990 on land not previously forested.
Article Two of the Treaty gives Maori undisturbed possession of fisheries, forests and other land.
"Undisturbed possession means the ownership of all the rights pertaining to the forests and the right to economically develop the forestry estate and other land," federation chief executive Paul Morgan said.
He said a majority of the 1.1 million hectares planted in commercial forests before 1990 is owned by Maori either outright or presumptively in the forest held by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust pending Treaty settlements.
"I would expect there is 400,000ha of good-quality Maori land whose best use is for purposes other than forestry," Mr Morgan said.
Under proposals the Government is consulting on, owners of pre-1990 forested land face a cost, still undetermined but likely to be thousands of dollars a hectare, if they switch to another use such as dairying after the trees are harvested. Landowners say measures which would effectively lock that land into forestry devalue it.
Mr Morgan said that while it appreciated the Government had yet to finalise its plans, the federation wanted to be in a position to lodge a claim as soon as possible if the Government confirmed its policies, and had instructed its lawyers accordingly.
Forestry Minister Jim Anderton said Maori land was subject to the same laws and commercial risks, including changes to Government policy, as any other assets.
The Government says it is prepared for taxpayers to bear some of the Kyoto liability when land is deforested, but not all of it. And it insists there are no property rights to the forest sink credits and talk of confiscation is groundless.
But the owners say they are entitled to some of the value - over $1 billion over the next five years - that would not exist without their trees.
