HUIA PACEY
Sitting on a blue couch in the offices of the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management's (IIIRM), Huia Pacey described her circuitous route from Kawerau, a small town on the north island of New Zealand to Denver Colorado. It is a journey that was started by her tribe's efforts to validate its claims to land that was confiscated by the British crown in the late 1800's.
Pacey is a member of the Tuwharetoa tribe. "A loose translation is 'House of the God of War," she says. "We were a warrior tribe that had over 87,000 acres of land confiscated by the British crown in 1864." Today her tribe has about 8,000 members and they are now trying to get back some of the thousands of acres they lost over a century ago.
In 1994 the New Zealand government established the Waitangi Tribunal to help settle land and other disputes it had with various indigenous tribes that inhabited the island nation before British colonization. In order to present their claims, the tribes had to organize committees and a structure so they could develop the cases for claims to present to the tribunal. They also had do research to validate their tribal history.
"In 1994, we (the tribe) decided to create a tribal authority and I was asked to help create it. I was also asked to work on research we needed to validate our tribal history. "We went through diaries, pictures and oral histories to prove the crown breached the treaty with us."
The tribe also held hearings over a three year period to gather information about its history and that of neighboring tribes. "Other tribes had geothermal resources to keep track of, fresh water and salt water fishing, forestry, and indigenous versus exotic forestry. We had to be aware of what was happening nationally just in case they affected our case," Pacey said.
All of the information was compiled into the tribe's presentation for the tribunal. That case is now in the last stages of negotiations.
How did all this lead to the Institute and Denver? It was a family connection. "Mike, my cousin, has been involved in indigenous issues and when he was in the U. S. he went to the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) and met Merv Tano and they became friends. When Merv formed the Institute, they talked about exchanging people back and forth. I am the first of the exchange people.
During her internship at the Institute, Pacey has been looking at the issue of federal facilities clean up at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Specifically, she is looking at cleaning up unexploded ordnance at the Badlands Bombing Range on the reservation. While doing her research, she visited the reservation, "it was so much like back home and I felt comfortable there and with tribal life in general."
"The good thing for me is I can see the issues we are dealing with back home are really similar to issues here and some of the solutions they have come up with here I can take back to New Zealand. We can perhaps become a little bit more innovative in terms of cooperative arrangements."
Pacey had been working on watershed issues in New Zealand before coming to the U.S. in which two paper companies were dumping chemicals into rivers on tribal land.
Pacey says the experience she is gaining here will be invaluable back home. "My tribe knows I am going home with a greater sense of strength when dealing with industry. Just because our tribe is little we don't have to give in so much. We can take our time to be firm and not so naïve."
"The tolerance I have seen between indigenous people, government agencies and industry is something I can take back and use."
Huia Pacey can be contacted via email at huiapacey@hotmail.com.