A tiny community overstaying on Tucker Beach wildlife reserve, near Queenstown, has left the site after being served trespass notices by landowner Department of Conservation (DoC).
DoC Whakatipu acting operations manager Rebecca Teele confirms trespass notices were served on the settlement of seven, who identify as members of the Ngāi Tahu iwi.
The community had been camping on the nohoanga site on the banks of the Shotover River, past their entitlement to stay on
the land, which ran from September 1 to May 16, saying they were squeezed out of Queenstown by the housing crisis.
Mountain Scene understands the trespass notices gave the community until 4pm Tuesday to leave the site.
An eye-witness tells Scene the settlement, including a full-sized bus, cars and tents, was packed up and moved out Wednesday morning.
Under the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998, nohoanga sites are specific areas of Crown-owned land adjacent to lakeshores or riverbanks and are usually 1 hectare in size.
Ngāi Tahu Whānui — tribal members — have temporary, but exclusive rights to camp on nohoanga sites for certain months of
the year to experience the landscape as their forebears did by gathering food and other natural resources.
Outside that timeframe, jurisdiction of the site reverts to landowner DoC under the Reserves Act.
The family that lives in the bus had previously said if evicted they would ‘‘go park [the bus] up the side of the road — there’s
nowhere else for us to go’’.
A shack, made from wooden pallets and complete with a log burner, built by another member of the community, is vacated but
remains on the site.
Its builder tells Scene he wants to leave the shack as part of the nohoanga for others to use.
DoC won’t be drawn on what it’ll do with the building.
