Introduction Whakarewarewa Forest comprises approximately 3264 ha. (8065 acres), immediately south of the city of Rotorua. In the Forest Service's commissioned work, New Zealand Forest Parks, Geoffrey Chavasse introduces the park thus: Its exotic trees provide a regular harvest of timber. Nearby are four important Forest Service establishments - Waipa Sawmill, the Timber Industry Training Centre, the Forest Research Institute and the Forestry Training Centre. This was once a place of legend. It is said that the terrible bird woman, Kura Ngai tuku, chased the crafty Hatupatu through the Pareuru Pass and met her frightful death in a hot mud pool called Whangapipiro. Several historic sites are preserved within the park including Tokorangi, once an important pa, and encircled by planted trees is Lake Rotokakahi where chiefs lie buried on tapu Motutawa Island. Before 1886 the main tourist route to the famed pink and white terraces of Lake Rotomahana passed through here, but when Tarawera blew its top they were destroyed. The countryside was covered with ash and mud and Te Wairoa village lay buried. It is difficult to imagine now, that scene of desolation. During the 1870's the Premier, Sir Julius Vogel, and the noted biologist Thomas Kirk (among others) became concerned at the rapid depletion of the native forests, and, in the 1880's, an afforestation programme was started under the control of skilled nurserymen. Production of trees in Whakarewarewa Nursery, consisting of about 20 hectares, began in 1898. By 1934 the nursery had grown to 66 hectares, and in that year 22 million seedlings were produced. The nursery declined following the planting of these seedlings. In 1965 the site became a research nursery. In 1899 the planting of exotic trees began in Whakarewarewa Forest - about 170 species were tried, from Europe, the Americas, and Australia. The place was still remote; there were two prison camps and the inmates planted the trees. Many of those introductions grew well. By 1916 the original site was planted, except for small areas of native bush, which still remain. By 1939 sawlogs were being harvested .... Tens of thousands of people visit the Whakarewarewa Forest park every year ... In these green and pleasing surroundings it is sometimes difficult to believe that there is a bustling city very close at hand, a city whose rapid growth over the last 30 years has been largely due to the harvest of trees ~lanted during the years of the Great Depression." The Crown acquired most of the Whakarewarewa forest lands from the Arawa sub-tribe, Tuhourangi, in ten purchases and three compulsory acquisitions. Nearly all of the lands were included in the first eight purchases, which occurred in an eight-and-a­ half year period from August 1894 and February 1903. Apparently, all the lands were acquired specifically for forestry purposes. The Forest consists solely of parts of the old Whakarewarewa block, and parts of subdivisions 2, 4, 6A, 6L and 6S of the Rotomahana-Parekarangi block (see map, p 60 of DOSLI databank). As the claims in Wai 204 have apparently been made on behalf of Tuhourangi, and the customary title to the Whakarewarewa block is shared between Ngati Wahiao and Ngati Whakaue, we focus most closely on the Rotomahana-Parekarangi parts.2 This submission seeks to give an overview of both Tuhourangi and the Crown's involvements in these lands prior to this period of sale, in order to better understand their respective motives and interests in the sales themselves, and the consequences of the sales for each party. Overall, we aim to characterise the transactions sufficiently to enable their initial assessment in light of the Treaty of Waitangi. G. Chavasse and J. Johns, New ZeaLand Forest Parks, Wgtn:Government Print, 1983, pp 81 & 84; Databank, voLume IV, p163, 164. 2 This is not to say that Tuhourangi Lack customary interests in the Whakarewarewa part. Ngati Wahiao and Tuhourangi are cLoseLy inter-reLated. Self-management Debased The Tuhourangi tribe was the keeper of the legendary Pink and White Terraces, Otukapuarangi and Te Tarata, which the first Europeans did not lay eyes on, until the 1840s. Te Wairoa, an important Tuhourangi settlement, was the point from which the final seven mile journey to the Terraces was made. According to Te Awekotuku, "such awesome loveliness was used by the local Maori as a leprosy colon~, a place of the diseased and the scourged, a place to die." Europeans saw the Terraces from a different perspective, with early visitors such as John Johnson, Colonial Physician,4 Ferdinand von Hochstetter in 1858,5 and Joliffe6 being quick to recognize the potential of Lake Rotomahana as a tourist and health resort for visitors from not only the Australasian colonies, but from all parts of the world. Quoting Te Awekotuku again, Rotomahana, for decades the horne of Tuhourangi, for a few years perhaps a well kept secret, was about to become the "eighth natural wonder of the world" in a previously inconceivably wealthy merger of native village and tourist resort. 7 Those few early travellers who ventured to the region left with marvellous tales of this "scenic wonderland". As word spread, so too did European attempts to purchase land and exploit Rotomahana. In 1853, Abraham Warbrick, an English flax trader who married the daughter of the chief of Ngati Rangitihi, moved his whole family from coastal Matata to Rotomahana. Tuhourangi, infuriated by Warbrick' s "trespass," attempted to evict him from 3 Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia "The SociocuLturaL impact of Tourism on the Te Arawa PeopLe of Rotorua, New ZeaLand" University of Waikato 1981, unpubLished thesis, pp36 - 37. Hereafter citied as "Te Awekotuku". (No copy of this thesis submitted>. 4 Te Awekotuku, p37, citing Johnson, J: "Rotomahana wouLd be a most agreeabLe summer residence - pLeasing scenery, riding parties to the Lakes, hot and coLd bathing, and it may be anticipated at no very distant period when the true character of its waters and remediaL agents has been ascertained, and its beautifuL LocaLities and saLubrious air known, it wiLL be part of the country much resorted to by invaLids, and by those whose Leisure wilL permit them to vary their residence." 5 Te Awekotuku, p4D, citing Ferdinand von Hochstetter: "I have no doubt that, at no very distant period, this remarkabLe Lake wiLL become the centre of attraction not onLy for tourists of aLL nations, but aLso a pLace of invaLids from aLL parts of the worLd." 6 Te Awekotuku, p37, citing JoL iffe: "What a fashionabLe bathing pLace wouLd this fairy Like spot become, if it were transferred to EngLand." 7 Te Awekotuku, p4D the area and destroyed his house. 8 Apparently the tribe neither wanted nor encouraged a pakeha presence. Apart from the missionaries, the only European residing in Tuhourangi's rohe in the early 1870's was Pierre Fangerrand, a Frenchman married to a Maori woman. He ran a hostel for those few early European travellers, and even he faced hostility and attempts to drive him away.9 In the early 1870s, then, facilities at Te Wairoa, the base for the Terrace visits, were rather basic. Awekotuku suggests that "visitors were catered to by Tuhourangi themselves on a casual basis." A local Maori, Waretini, established an accommodation house at the village, advertising that visitors could be assured of "good accommodation at reasonable charges." 10 Waretini evidently did not meet pakeha standards, though, as guide books of the time were critical at what they saw as "the want of proper accommodation". The same guide book explained, "The reason of this discomfort is that the Natives [Tuhourangi] object to a proper European hotel being built. "11 Perhaps Tuhourangi, having learnt the economic value of the Terraces, wished to keep its development to themselves. However, Te Awekotuku notes another factor as to why Tuhourangi remained firmly opposed to European development: " ... they were feeling ambivalent about what was happening around them. They enjoyed the cash, gifts and tobacco; they probably even enjoyed the strangers presence in their kainga, but they also sensed impending change. 12 Increased contact with European brought about a breakdown of their traditional society. Once considered the "picked tribe of the Arawa", accounts of the early 1870s, such as Trollope's,13 8 Te Awekotuku, p 38 - 40. According to Te Awetokutu, Warbrick's settLement may have been part of a Ngati Rangitihi attempt to estabLish a cLaim to the ngawha of Rotomahana. 9 Te Awakotuku, p 49, citing an account of Fegerrand: "OnLy shoost the other day, I horsevipped a Maori woman I caught setting fire to my house. Dey want aLL the trade of this pLace, so they are going to turn me aowt." 10 Don Stafford, The Founding Years in Rotorua, Rotorua, Rotorua District Counci L & Ray Richards PubLisher, 1986, p 87. Hereafter cited as "Stafford"; DB voL IV, p207. 11 Langbridge and Edgecumbe's 'Handbook', 1875, p 13, 'The Don Stafford CoLLection,' Rotorua PubLic Library; DB voL IV, p251 12 Te Awekotuku, p 48. 13 [1872J " There was a church, a cLergyman's house, a corn-miLL and a considerabLe extent of cLeared Land Lying amid the beautifuLLy broken ground. The church was empty, and deserted. The cLergyman's house was faLLing into decay, and was occupied by a Maori woman and a Frenchman. The corn-miLL was choked up and in ruins. On the Land there was no sign and Langbridge and Edgecumbe's,14 depict a tribe falling into "chaos" and decline. What was once a carefully cultivated and well organised village, Te Wairoa, had deteriorated after its evacuation during the land wars of the 1860s. Crops were abandoned and the flour mill fell into disrepair.