The New Zealand government moved yesterday to settle a mounting dispute between the majority of the population and the minority indigenous Maoris over access to the country's beaches by ruling that nobody owns the coastline.
The government said all 18,000km of the foreshore and the seabed were public domain open to all New Zealanders and it would regulate access on behalf of all present and future generations.
It backed off an earlier proposal to pass a law declaring the coastline government land which provoked an outcry from Maoris, who comprise one-in-seven of the population and claim special so-called customary rights as the indigenous people.
But Maori leaders were not happy with the government's compromise, some predicting "an unhappy summer" ahead as Maoris move to consolidate their claims to priority access by fencing off some beaches and demanding admission fees from the rest of the population.
Earlier John Tamihere, an Associate Minister of Maori Affairs, said the debate alone could ignite a race relations tinderbox.
As the government announced its compromise, the ruling Labour Party's Maori Members of Parliament released a statement saying any attempt "to extinguish customary ownership of the foreshore and seabed will create huge conflict."
The debate flared in mid-June when the Court of Appeal ruled that Maori tribes could pursue a claim that the foreshore and seabed belongs exclusively to them under customary rights afforded indigenous populations when a state acquires sovereignty over another country.
The judges did not say the tribes had proved their case, only that they were entitled to argue it before the Maori Land Court.
After the government indicated it would challenge the appeal court's ruling, 1,000 Maoris in the North Island met to declare that they own the foreshore and seabed under terms of the treaty signed in 1840 when they ceded sovereignty to British colonialists. A similar gathering of tribes is planned in the South Island later this month.
In reply, more than 500 people marched through the streets of the South Island seaside town of Nelson carrying placards like "Whites have rights too" and "One law for all New Zealanders."
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