Representing owners' voice as an advisory trustee
Working alongside Te Tumu Paeroa kaimahi are more than 2,000 advisory trustees, most of them owners, who act as a voice for the aspirations of the collective.
Until last year, whenua Māori owner Nepia Winiata wasn’t even aware there were meetings of owners held, let alone advisory roles for owners. But when he attended his first meeting early this year, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer for the job.
“I wanted to take a proactive role, as an owner – I didn’t even know there were advisory trustees until the meeting. We’ve got an obligation as landowners to be involved, it’s as simple as that. We’ve got a taonga that’s been gifted, passed down, I don’t think we should just discard that.”
Nepia is one of the newest of more than 2,000 advisory trustees for land administered by Te Tumu Paeroa. While the advisory trustees don’t have any legal obligations, their role as a representative voice for owners is an important one.
One of the first things he would like to do as an advisory trustee, says Nepia, is connect with other owners of Ohau 3A2 Sec 6 – and get a few more showing up to the meetings.
“I was quite shocked to see only a few owners there – one of which was my cousin, but the others I didn’t know. I would be keen to explore with other owners what else we could do with the land.”
Often owners are happy to just keep doing what they are doing – holding on to it, he says.
“What I’ve discovered is most people want to hang on to the land because of the whakapapa link, it’s their whānau land, regardless of how big or small,” says Nepia.
Nepia says he has always known about the whenua, and his father had been clear he would be leaving it to him and only him to reduce fragmentation of the shares. But for a variety of reasons, he hasn’t been involved until now.
For one, he was 400km away in Te Awamutu leading Te Wānanga o Aotearoa as its Kaiwhakatere Chief Executive until February.
Now in retirement, he’s already working on getting his own sons involved with the block. One even visited the block to see for himself the wetland fencing and solar powered water reticulation systems installed on the block thanks to Te Ringa Hāpai Whenua Fund.
“Owners need to talk to their children. First, about the land if they don’t already know – how much it is, where it is – and then what their vision is for the land. Each landowner has their own autonomous voice when they depart this world, but my view is don’t fragment the shares anymore, because it just erodes your voice over the next generations.”