February 16, 2011

A new organisation set up to stop the madness that has come with the new board structure of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust will have a public meeting on the evening of February 22 in Cambridge at the Cambridge Town Hall, corner Victoria and Queen Streets.

Speakers will include Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust founder David Wallace who will for the first time publicly make comment on what he sees has caused the problems at the Trust and how he sees it can be put back together. He will discuss ways of decompressing the situation so that all parties can come back to the table to find a way through.
He will also recall the original vision and goals of the project.

The Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust was set up to fund and manage a vision to put a 47 kilometre pest proof fence around Maungatautari Mountain in the Waikato near Cambridge. Twenty million dollars was raised to put the fence in place and then eradicate pests inside the fence allowing native flora and fauna to be restored.

Troubles began when a small Maori group with support from Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato demanded half of all board seats on the Trust. That caused a chain reaction of chaos as trustees who were opposed to the move were voted off the trust in a questionable manoeuvre, landowners objected by locking their gates, threats were made to override property rights, Maori threatened not to allow translocated species onto the mountain if their demands were not met, and landowner and community action groups were formed.

Funder representative Gareth Morgan will also speak at the event. He will relate the views of funders from the United States and the difficulty funders will have committing to the project under the new structure.

Morgan says for years the Trust has been moving along with everyone getting on with each other. There have been niggles and cash issues from time to time but generally it has been an exemplary example of what a community can do by working together in good faith.

However, he says, since a new governance and management arrangement has been thrown at the Trust driven by a series of unreasonable demands by Ngati Koroki Kahukura, the Trust has been thrown into chaos.

“Poor decisions have been made; poor leadership has inflamed the situation rather than putting effort into finding a way through. Major funders have been insulted; landowners have been treated with disrespect and had their property rights threatened.

“Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato have acted dishonourably and have treated their own constituents with total disrespect. Now, predictably, we have a mess.”

Other speakers will include Jack Jenkins who is coordinating the Save Maungatautari group, a representative of the Maungatautari Landowners Council Peter Holmes and former MEIT trustee Fiona Judd.

Fiona Judd says she will directly address the implications of actions by Waipa District Council and Environment Waikato. In her opinion, these organisations have been the dishonest brokers in this saga.

“At the event I will be speaking about the financial implications that will result from the local government meddling. With private funders walking away, the future cost of the project must fall on ratepayers and taxpayers.

“When I was on the Trust we had developed a very credible plan to take the project to financial sustainability where it would not require ratepayer funding but through intervention by local government the project can now only survive as a cost to ratepayers unless we can reset the governance so that private funders have the confidence to come back in.”

Landowner Council representative, Peter Holmes, says he has concerns people who are now on the Trust have not grasped that the landowners have a reasonable argument.

He says present MEIT trustees are also rather clumsily stating that there are only four landowners involved in the Landowners Council but there are a lot more than that involved including disgruntled Maori landowners who are not appreciating the Trust’s new direction.

“We have landowners that represent over half of the total fence who are with our actions although not all choose to be out in front of the fight.

“But in reality it will only take one landowner to be disaffected to end the project so we need to be talking to ensure everyone can find a way back to seeing that their interests will be protected and they can feel safe to become part of a very unique project again.

“What is important is that the project returns to being about everyone respecting each other and focusing on a purpose that is exciting and potentially world class. We want iwi fully involved, we want the community fully involved and excited by the project and we need landowners believing they will not be disadvantaged by the project so they can become full supporters again.”

Everyone with an interest in what the Save Maungatautari organisation will be doing is invited to come along to the meeting in the Cambridge Town Hall on Tuesday February 22 at 7pm to hear for themselves.

ENDS

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