See June 26th 2008 for background to this news.

On Saturday, eight Maori iwi celebrated the “Treelord” settlement in Turangi near Lake Taupo. It is called “Treelord” because the fishing settlement with another iwi was called “Sealord”. The celebrations at Turangi began with a traditional powhiri and then a number of important people made speeches. After that, food was served in big tents because there were too many people to go inside the marae building.

These eight iwi, of about 110,000 Maori in total, now own the Kaingaroa forest. This is in the centre of the North Island. It is on 176,000 hectares of land. The forest is worth around $200 million and the group received another $280 million in cash from rentals of the land in the last 10 years.

The group plan to have a forestry company to provide jobs for their people but this area also has quite a lot of thermal activity – hot steam from the ground. They hope in the future they can use this thermal activity to generate electricity. This could bring them more money.

This Treaty settlement is the largest one in New Zealand. The Treaty Minister, Chris Finlayson, said that it was a good idea for groups of iwi to join together when they make their Treaty claims. This could make settlements happen more quickly.

Listen to November 22nd 2008 for more information about geo-thermal activity.