Ngai Tuhoe iwi have a solution to help ensure illegal campsites and the effects these have on the shores of Lake Waikaremoana do not happen again. The campsites were set up during Labour Weekend. Native bush was cut down, home-made showers and toilets were set up, “a beer bottle wall” was erected in a kiwi sanctuary and rubbish was left behind.   “Being ‘tangata whenua’ (people of the land) is...

Press Release: New Zealand Walking Access Commission People have a duty to care for the land and its kaitiaki when they visit it, says Walking Access Commission Ara Hīkoi Aotearoa Chief Executive Ric Cullinane. Cullinane says news that freedom campers and visitors are dumping rubbish and felling trees at Lake Waikaremoana is deeply saddening. "Te Urewera is a unique and beautiful place. It now holds its own legal personhood...

Rubbish-strewn campsites, home-made toilets and illegal felling of native trees by "arrogant and disrespectful" freedom campers at Lake Waikaremoana have shocked and saddened Ngāi Tūhoe.     Several rubbished-strewn campsites were found over Labour Weekend on the lake shore, under the Panekire Ranges, included large fire sites near native bush, lots of ground cleared and native bush cut down for...

How Tūhoe is rethinking the future of Lake Waikaremoana – and asking trampers for patience while they do it. As a young dad, Tūhoe’s Tamati Kruger spent months living off-grid with his family deep in Te Urewera. They lived in a rough slab hut and foraged and hunted off the land. He even delivered his son there. Years later, when Kruger tussled with former prime minister John Key on the need to include the care and management of Te...

Te Uru Taumatua chairman Tamati Kruger said yesterday that Ngai Tūhoe were interested in improving the special purpose road, SH38, but from Minginui to Wairoa - not just parcels of it.  "That was our starting point and still is". Mr Kruger said they had not had any engagement from the Mayor of Wairoa, in contrast to the Whakatane District Council who were collaborating, co-operating and contributing as much as possible. Read...

Visitor numbers at Te Urewera for the summer period were low due to partial closures of the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk track over summer. From December 2018 to February 2019 the park received 11,120 manuhiri (visitors) — 8360 New Zealanders and 2760 from other countries. This was a drop from last summer due to a partial closure of the Great Walk. Summer occupation of huts in Te Urewera was 37 percent, with 10 percent of...