Website now displays Māori land information nationwide

MEDIA RELEASE

Auckland/Tāmaki-makaurau

24 August / 24 Here-turi-kōkā 2018

Māori Maps website now displays Māori land information nationwide

Exanple: Maori Maps Land blocks.

A data layer displaying nationwide Māori land information is officially live from today on Māori Maps (www.maorimaps.com), the website portal to ancestral marae across Aotearoa New Zealand that is administered by Te Potiki National Trust.

Navigating via the website’s map, users can now select a field that shows Māori landholdings via links to Māori Land Online and Landcare Research.

“Displaying landholdings in relation to marae reveals the Māori presence in different rohe (regions), and is a powerful indication of the economic base for iwi and hapū,” commented Professor Paora Tapsell, Chair of Te Potiki National Trust.

“People are increasingly using Māori Maps to help trace whakapapa, so the lists of beneficiaries that are provided with land block data also provide an important avenue to establishing whānau links,” Tapsell added.

Other data fields include block names and area, total owners, management name details, soil information and land suitability.

The nationwide rollout of data follows a successful launch and testing of a pilot project for the Waitangi Catchment Area in the Bay of Islands/Peowhairangi.

Paora Tapsell acknowledged Te Tumu, University of Otago for backing the project through its National Science Challenge project Mauri Whenua Ora.

The Ministry of Justice, the Māori Land Court and Landcare Research made data freely available, he noted, while developers Zest IT integrated it into the website.

Māori Maps seeks to encourage connections between marae and their descendants — something that nationwide land information now makes even easier.

ENDS

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