Get talking about Your Whakapapa Your Whenua

MEDIA RELEASE

21 December 2016

A new campaign, Your Whakapapa Your Whenua, aiming to get young Māori talking about Maōri land ownership was launched by Te Tumu Paeroa this week. Fronted by Hahana TVs Sonny Ngatai the campaign is a light-hearted take on a serious subject.

Today speaking about the campaign’s success, Jamie Tuuta, the Māori Trustee and head of Te Tumu Paeroa, stated that: “Māori land is taonga tuku iho, a treasure handed down, but without information about the land that they will one day inherit the process is going to be a lot harder for young Māori in the future.“

“Te Tumu Paeroa looks after 100,000 hectares of Māori land on behalf of 100,000 owners. But we only have contact details for 61%. This is not surprising when only 71% of Māori know their ancestral marae[1], but we want to see this change. We are urging young people and families over the holidays to talk about the land they own and pass on the information to the younger generation.”

By raising awareness through Your Whakapapa Your Whenua of the challenges all Māori Trusts face Te Tumu Paeroa hopes that land owners will take some time out over the holidays to update their records, and find out about how to make it easier to pass land on.

Watch the video at www.tetumupaeroa.co.nz/news/whakapapa-whenua

Make this process easy for your whānau

1. Find out who in your whanau owns land, or talk to your whānau about the land that you own.

• where it is

• what it’s called

• who looks after it, eg Te Tumu Paeroa, a trust, or a Māori incorporation

• all of the names you and members of your whanau might be known by

• all of the names of parents, brothers and sisters

• anything about others who might be entitled to inherit part of the land.

2. Find out about:

• Succession (how Māori land is passed on to the next generation);

• how to make a Will;

• how to gift land to your children while you're still alive, or

• how to set up a whānau trust to maintain ownership for the benefit of the whole whānau.

3. Help us to stay in touch

• Update your contact details on our tetumupaeroa.co.nz

• If you don’t have a personal email address set one up. It's free and easy to do, and you can check you emails on your phone. This will help us to stay in touch with you, no matter where you are.

• Check Māori Land Online to find out all the land your whānau may own.

--ENDS—

About Te Tumu Paeroa

Everything we do at Te Tumu Paeroa is focused on protecting and enhancing Māori land.

Our vision is to support land owners to use their land to its fullest potential – creating a legacy for this generation, and the generations that follow.

[1] Statistics New Zealand, (2013). Ngā huarahi ki te marae: Māori connecting to their ancestral marae – infographic, 2013 http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/maori/te-kupenga/connect-ancestral-marae-infographic.aspx. accessed 16/12/2016.

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