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Police have ended two Maori land occupations in Taupo, arresting 13 people for trespass and preventing 50 others from entering a property.
The first raid took place at 7am yesterday on land owned by the Taupo District Council on State Highway 1.
It involved a tense stand-off between a group of 60 police and about 50 protesters.
A Maori sovereignty group called Mataara Tiger and Barbara Wall Whanau Hapu Maori Incorporation has been illegally occupying the site, 7km south of the town and near Taupo Airport, for two months.
The group has published notices in local and national newspapers saying it does not acknowledge the Crown and is taking over "Tauhara Middle Lands", an area of nearly 300,000ha.
It has demanded the removal of all buildings from those lands.
Local police and reinforcements from Waikato and the Bay of Plenty arrested two people who were at a house on the property when they arrived.
Another 50 protesters then turned up and began hurling abuse at the unarmed officers when barred from the site.
The confrontation did not become violent but Taupo area commander Inspector Bob Burns said the protesters were "extremely abusive".
"The police showed remarkable restraint under the abuse they were receiving," he said.
A man, 38, and a woman, 31, were charged with trespass and appeared in the Taupo District Court later in the morning.
They were bailed on conditions including that they stay off the site.
Between 10 and 30 people have been occupying the land for the past two months, prompting complaints to police from the council and members of the public.
Council chief executive Rob Williams said officials had tried to negotiate with the protesters.
"We respected the right of the group to protest and have put a lot of effort into attempting to facilitate an amicable solution, but no progress was being made," he said.
"We are now at a stage where the council and the whole community - that includes the protest group - need to move forward."
A second raid ended a separate occupation on Acacia Bay Rd.
That occupation was in opposition to a multimillion-dollar residential development by the Symphony Group on land owned by Hiruharama Ponui Trust.
A splinter group of the trust opposes the development on the grounds the site covers part of a 19th-century Maori settlement.
Some members of Ngati Rauhoto hapu began occupying the land about six weeks ago when skeletal remains were found there.
Negotiations between the two sides have failed, and yesterday agents for the land owners ordered 11 people occupying the site to leave.
When they refused police arrested them and charged them with trespass.
Mr Burns said this protest group was much more peaceful than the first, but he denounced illegal land occupations, saying they were not a sound way to address grievances.
"There are a lot of avenues to address perceived grievances without involving occupations, which then involve police and inevitably end up in a court hearing."
He said protesters who tried to re-occupy either site would be arrested and charged with trespass.
