New Hope for Pārengarenga
- admin637754
- Jul 26, 1988
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 26, 2023
Article Source: The Northern Advocate
The 5500ha of Far Northland returned to its Maori owners after 30 years of alienation could provide a new economic base for the Aupouri people.
The Paua and Te Rangi sheep and cattle stations, developed by the Department of Lands and Survey for Maori Affairs, has been handed back to its 1400 owners.
Chairman of the committee of management for what is known as the Pārengarenga B3B Trust, Mr Brown, has returned home to the place where he began his farming career as a shepherd in 1960.
After 10 years shepherding on the block he was appointed manager for another Maori Affairs farm at Tapuwae in the Hokiana.
Nine years later he transferred to the Te Horo block at Pipiwai where he was manager until June 30 this year when that block too was handed back to its Ngatihine owners.
After almost 20 years on the committee of management, Mr Brown has the satisfaction of knowing his people now have real input into the management of the blocks.
"We are very pleased to have the land returned."
"Our outlook at present is to carry on with the status quo but a lot of our people are unemployed so I hope that in the near future we could use the farms as an economic base to create more employment for the owners." he said.
Mr Brown remembers what it was like as he surveys the blocks which stretch as far as the eye can see north of Te Kao and from the Pārengarenga Harbour on the east to Ninety Mile Beach on the west coast.
"Thirty-five years ago this was all covered with scrub and titree." he said.
The land then was 15,973ha known as Pārengarenga Topu which was divided three ways to form Pārengarenga A and B and 48ha of roads.
By this time shares worth less than $50 were lost by compulsory sale to the Crown or the Maori Trustee.
This automatically wiped about 1400 shares.
Maori Affairs Department district field officer, Mr Chris Fox, said up to 1963 the Maori Trustee bought shares in several blocks under the conversation provisions of the Maori Affairs Act of 1953.
Mr Fox said the area was subject to a number of alienations but he was now totally confident of the management committee's ability to administer the blocks.
Under Lands and Survey administration the land was cleared, pastured and today supports 15 families: Two managers, two head shepherds, a senior shepherd and 10 shepherds and general farm workers.
Together the stations comprise 4,437ha of pasture supporting 16,000 ewes, 2,400 beef cows with lambing percentages between 100 and 110 and calving percentages of 93%.
Last year 95,000kg of wool was clipped from the backs of the Pārengarenga sheep.
Mr Brown and his committee have plans to amalgamate the 15,783ha known individually at the Pārengarenga Incorporation, B3C and B3B.
Committee member, Mr Winiata Brown of Te Kao said two forestry companies and a farm with that type of total area had a lot of potential in an area of high unemployment.
He owns the country's northern-most diary farm at Te Kao and is looking forward to pasture renovation, increasing stock rates and diversification of the Paua and Te Rangi blocks.
Like the other owners, he is pleased with the management structures already in place and grateful for the development that has taken place.
The present managers, Mr Neil Dempster and Mr Paul White, who have been on the blocks for several years, are being retained by the owners.
John Brown is aware also of the wishes of at least two generations of his people who repeatedly asked that the land be returned.
He feels happy that the wishes of those people, some now dead, were at last fulfilled in July 1988.
Secretary, Miss Anne Herbert said that return of the land was a huge morale booster for her people who had previously had no input in the administration of their greatest asset.
