ROTORUA, New Zealand — “It’s the 21st century and they’re still confiscating Maori land,” said Morris Meha, one of 250 people who marched in this central North Island city June 24. Marchers were heading for a meeting of the Rotorua District Council’s Standing Committee for Te Arawa — the local iwi (tribe) — to protest plans for a new highway through Maori-owned land on the outskirts of the city.

The protest, organized by the Positive Rotorua Environmental Society, was made up mainly of members of three Te Arawa subtribes whose lands would be taken for the road.

The group stepped up its fight in April when the New Zealand Transport Agency announced the route for a new highway would cut through a geothermal area alongside the city’s lake and require demolition of 12 houses.

“We still use the hot pools to bathe and for cooking,” Karleena Wineera told the Militant. Native birds and other wildlife would be affected, and the road would cut through an urupa (cemetery), she said.

—FELICITY COGGAN  
 
 
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