September 2,
2026
Rotorua
Te Arawa
Lakes Trust, the organisation responsible for most of
Rotorua’s lakebeds, will cut staff as it scales back
operations after warning it is on the brink of exhausting
its operating funds.
The trust has blamed what
it described as nearly two decades of systemic underfunding.
Trust general manager Tame Malcolm said 15 staff will lose
their jobs in the reset.
He confirmed all field
operations will be impacted, with freshwater gold clam
monitoring, boat-user education, wetland work and the
trust’s research unit being scrapped.
Catfish
control and lakeweed management will continue, but at a
reduced level, while some surplus assets will be
sold.
Settlement assets, including Te Arawa’s
lakebed titles, taonga and archives, will remain protected
and will not be sold.
The move will reduce
annual operating costs from about $3.8 million to
$1.38m.
Trust chairman Wallace Haumaha said in a
statement the changes were necessary or the trust would have
run out of operating funds by early
September.
“This is not a story of financial
mismanagement, nor is it about blaming the people sitting
around the table today,” he said.
“It is
about fixing a system that has not adequately resourced Te
Arawa to carry the responsibilities placed upon
us.”
Established under the Te Arawa Lakes
Settlement Act 2006, it owns 13 of the region’s 14
lakebeds.
It shares responsibility for lake
management through the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Strategy Group
alongside Rotorua Lakes Council and Bay of Plenty Regional
Council.
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Haumaha said the initial settlement to
return ownership of the lakebeds was “hugely
significant” but failed to provide an enduring source of
supporting income.
“Te Arawa cannot be
expected to carry the responsibilities of ownership and
kaitiakitanga while having insufficient influence over the
resources required to protect those
taonga.”
The announcement came less than a
month after a dispute over a proposed $2m reallocation of
Crown lake restoration funding.
The trust wanted
the money redirected towards Te Arawa-led restoration
projects and argued the existing funding framework was no
longer fit for purpose.
The proposal required
support from both councils and ministerial
approval.
Rotorua Lakes Council backed it, but
the regional council did not.
The matter is due
to return to regional councillors this month, with the trust
invited to address the meeting.
Haumaha said the
dispute exposed longer-term concerns about the trust’s
role, arguing it had spent years operating largely as a
“cultural adviser”.
Meanwhile, the councils
retained control of significant funding and operational
priorities.
Councils and Crown respond Rotorua
Mayor Tania Tapsell agreed the trust had been
under-resourced.
Tapsell said Te Arawa had
entered the arrangement as a Treaty of Waitangi settlement
partner but ended up losing that status.
She
said her council had “strongly supported” reallocating
the $2m and questioned the regional council’s
opposition.
“It just bewilders me that they
could not see the logic in supporting the Treaty settlement
partners themselves to take on $2m of what is only $5m
remaining.”
Tapsell also expressed concern
about the impact the cuts could have on lake restoration
work.
The regional council took a different
view.
Regional council Rotorua catchments
manager Helen Creagh said the trust had been an “active
participant” in funding decisions through the strategy
group and had approved annual work programmes under the
funding deed.
Creagh said the council opposed
the recent $2m proposal because it would redirect funds from
long-term nitrogen reduction work in Lake
Rotorua.
“This has been a core programme of
work for the regional council and the strategy group for the
last two decades,” she said.
She said the
council empathised with staff losing their jobs, but that
council-funded wetland restoration, biosecurity and lake
protection programmes would continue either through the
trust where possible or through alternative
providers.
Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama
Potaka acknowledged the trust’s environmental work in
“restoring the health of native freshwater ecology” in
the region.
He said the Te Arawa Lakes Treaty
Settlement had included $10m in financial redress but,
“unlike the Waikato River Settlement, no annuity payment
was negotiated” between the Crown and the
trust.
He said the $144m Rotorua lakes
restoration fund was established separately from the Treaty
settlement process and was provided to the Rotorua Lakes
Protection and Restoration Programme.
He said
the Ministry of Māori Development was engaging with the
trust at a regional level where appropriate but was “not
in a position to provide ad hoc, ongoing funding to
post-settlement trusts”.
The trust is due to
lead a review of the Crown funding deed and report back by
February 2027.
The review will examine whether
the roughly $5m of remaining Crown funding can still achieve
its intended outcomes and whether changes to the funding
arrangements are needed.
– LDR is local body
journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On
Air.
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