Photo of Kapiti Island, courtesy of Matthew Fraser. Retrieved from teaonews.co.nz
Porirua-based iwi Ngāti Toa Rangatira has retaken ownership of Kāpiti and Mana Islands, 10 years after its Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown.
The islands lie off the southwest coast of the lower North Island and were acquired by the Crown last century.
December 31, 2024 marks the return of both islands to Ngāti Toa, in what the iwi described as an historic day.
It said the redress for Kāpiti and Mana Islands is reflective of the critical role the islands, Kāpiti in particular, played in establishing Ngāti Toa’s mana on both sides of Te Moana o Raukawa (Cook Strait).
“The vesting simply acknowledges what we already know; Ngāti Toa holds the mana of Kāpiti and Mana Islands and has done so since shortly after our ancestors arrived in the region, in the early nineteenth century”, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira Board Chair, Callum Katene, said.