The Forests
The 28 forests, some with land areas reaching 13 000 ha, are situated throughout the rohe (refer to map). The area assessed covered more than 172 000 hectares. Some of the forestry blocks are located within the takiwā of a single Papatipu Rūnanga, other areas are of shared interest to a number of rūnanga.
Hui and interviews were held with members of the kaitiaki Rūnanga. Rūnanga identified all known values and the location of those they wanted to visit on the hīkoi. They also discussed protection mechanisms for the values.
Various people assisted Rūnanga members on the hīkoi e.g., archaeological expertise, forest managers, ecologists and Te Rūnanga staff helped out with mahinga kai interests.
Hīkoi
Hīkoi enabled Ngāi Tahu whānui from kaitiaki Rūnanga to visit sites, talk about their significance, monitor their condition, and discuss protection mechanisms. It was also an opportunity to develop relationships with forest managers.
For example, the Herbert Forest hīkoi highlighted many of the issues affecting the identification and protection of sites significant to Ngāi Tahu in forestry areas. Herbert Forest has been surveyed by archaeologists (Jill Hamel and Brian Allingham) and is information rich compared with some of the other forest areas.
Many of the forests have not been archaeologically surveyed. Rūnanga have knowledge of some areas but there is a general lack of recorded information available, which means sites are at risk. A lack of baseline information available to forest managers, and inadequate protection mechanisms for sites e.g., caves with rock art, often results in vandalism.
Forest Reports
After the hīkoi a draft report on the forest values and recommended protection mechanisms was compiled and returned to Papatipu Rūnanga for comment. Once finalised the report became a resource for the Rūnanga. It also became the basis for discussions between Ngāi Tahu and the forestry companies on protection requirements.
The project team were aware of the costs and benefits associated with the range of regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms and the team worked with Papatipu Rūnanga to identify the most appropriate means of protecting the values that Papatipu Rūnanga identified.
A range of protective mechanisms (including existing available legal protections e.g., registration of a wāhi tapu site with the Historic Places Trust, provisions in District or Regional Plans) were assessed before the need for any other measures (e.g.Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu leasing land from or paying compensation to forestry companies) were confirmed.