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Maungatautari is the sacred mountain of the Ngāti Koroki Kahukura and Ngāti Hauā people. Ngāti Koroki Kahukura’s two marae, Maungatautari and Pōhara are on its flanks.
We acknowledge that others also have interests in the maunga, including Waikato, Ngaati Hauā, Ngaati Wairere, Ngaati Māhanga, Ngaati Maniapoto, Ngaati Ruru, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Werohiko, Ngāti Kauwhata and Panehākua. This is not an exhaustive list of groups that claim interests in Maungatautari. The many groups that connect to the maunga illustrate the iconic and spiritual importance that it has to our people. Maungatautari is the tuupuna maunga and living taonga to the Ngaati Korokii-Kahukura people. His forests offered shelter to the people in hard times and provided foods such as birdlife and native flora and fauna. Maungatautari is a symbol of mana for Ngaati Korokii-Kahukura.
Our people continue to live on and around the maunga. We continue to play an integral part in the restoration of the native flora and fauna, achieving notable milestones such as re-establishing populations of native birds and insects.
Maungatautari has a rich human history. The mountain was named by Rakataura, a tohunga of the Tainui waka, who saw the mountain appearing to float above the fog and asked ‘ko wai te maunga e tautari ana?’, ‘who is the mountain floating there?’ It was the people of the Tainui waka who first lived in and around the mountain. Ethical responsibilities such as those encompassed in the concept and practice of kaitiakitanga regulated the use of natural resources for food and medicine. Rangatira had authority to control the rights of members to
use certain resources in certain ways, ensuring that the mauri and mana of those resources was maintained, and that future generations would be provided for. Incantations were recited and permission sought from spiritual guardians of the forests before felling trees to build canoes. Maungatautari is viewed as an ancestor and a living treasure with its own life-force and vitality.
The speed and magnitude of the influx of humans into this environment has caused the extinction of much natural heritage and endangered an alarming proportion of what remains. New Zealand has a high percentage of indigenous species that are endemic. Our ecosystems are highly distinctive. Yet, we have one of the worst records in the world of indigenous biodiversity loss. In the words of the authors of Vanishing Nature,
‘the responsibility for safeguarding what is left falls to New Zealanders, because there is nowhere else that our indigenous species can be conserved. Anything lost here is also lost to the world.’
New Zealand’s national biodiversity strategy established under the Conservation Act 1987 calls biodiversity a living treasure for future generations. It is an example of how concepts from a Maaori worldview and the commitment to future generations are being incorporated into law and policy. The Conservation Act requires that decision makers give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi which are said to include active protection and partnership between the Crown and Maaori.
During the parliamentary debates on the Ngaati Koroki Kahukura Settlement, Hon. Nanaia Mahuta, recognized that:
“There has been a very gracious acknowledgment made by Ngaati Koroki Kahukura to the people of the Waipaa District and, in fact, to New Zealand for the future management of the Maungatautari maunga. I want to put on the record that that is huge and significant.”