Ownership, a pakeha Kiwi perspective

So it's a red herring eh, or is that a diminishing supply of Kina?  Water Rights and Wind Rights - Maori claims and a modern perspective.

But to be a modern perspective we first need to identify past happenings.  Take for example Hugh Cokely-Ross, lawyer who shot another lawyer, failed landowner in Tasmania, and defended a Maori chief on a murder charge successfully and was gifted 60,000 acres for his onerous task in the Rangitikei region.  Yes, 60,000 acres.  Maori clearly had no identity with land ownership and the size of the land holdings they used by right of Iwi or through battles with neighbours.  All one has to do is troll the internet to find many more examples of onerous land deals between ignorant Maori and greedy pakeha.  But when doing that research, one will never find any dealings in Water or Wind ownership.  It just never existed.

But what about that ownership?  If you use Maori Lore as a basis for ownership, then Maori may have a just cause, not for ownership, but for rights to have access to all that entails.  You'll find Wai and Moana littered throughout the country in place names and in Te Reo.  Water was a lifeline, Koura, Inanga, Eel, Puha, and many other subsistence dietary requirements from time immemorial.  It's a given that pre European, the waterways of this country were a lifeline for many Iwi and Hapu, and since Pakeha intervention, still a lifeline for some.  Certainly the European and other cultures introduced a dietary subsistence that meant there was less and less reliance on those waterways to provide kai.  Does this then mean that the Water Rights claim is in fact that red herring?

But what of Tawhiri (the wind)?  What has this element provided to Maori in the past?  Historically there is very little, with maybe the exception of the Ocean Going Waka that first brought Maori to Aotearoa.  Research seems to point out that the wind has very little to play in Maori life and development.  The only history I know personally was from the local Rangitaane iwi who used to place some warriors at Whakarongo (The listening place) east of Te Papaioea (Palmerston North) to hear the sound of the warriors of Kahungungu coming through the Manawatu Gorge in their waka, on the wind.  I therefore determine that any claim to Tawhiri is inherently flawed as neither reference has any culturally respective need these days.

I do have sympathy for the Water Rights claim, only in the aspect as it relates to the gathering of Kai, be it native or introduced.  Claiming to have sole rights to access and productivity related costs is fraught with danger.  As with the wind.  I do clearly remember back in the 80's, Maori tried to claim the airwaves!!  I don't have issues with either, as long as they relate directly to modern living.  But they also have to be sensible claims, like land claims.  As stated, the land, sea and river were Maori lifelines that had no sense of ownership (I often am reminded by many Maori that we are all custodians, not owners.)  European instilled the ownership model with Maori having no idea what it was about.  Now Maori want to adopt that ownership model.  Good or bad, who knows?