Rights to possess and/or use the foreshore of New Zealand are not clear, and are even cloudier in relation to Maori freehold land that is on the coast. This thesis investigates the law pertaining to rights in the foreshore, and the facts pertaining specifically to the use of the Otakou Maori Reserve foreshore. In particular, the research question is this: what does aboriginal title mean in 1996 for Otago Maori? Examining the legal issues, searching individual titles and gathering oral history are the methods used to answer this question. First, the law. In New Zealand the Crown is prima facie the absolute owner of the foreshore. This can be displaced by proof to the contrary. The doctrine of aboriginal title recognises the legal continuity of tribal property rights upon the Crown�s acquisition of sovereignty over their territory. Aboriginal title can be divided into two categories - territorial and non-territorial. Territorial title represents a tribal claim to full ownership, and non-territorial title to rights that are less than absolute ownership, such as the right to cross land, to fish and to collect flora and fauna. It is this doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the foreshore that can displace the Crown�s absolute ownership of the foreshore. Second, the facts. 99% of the coastal land parcels of Otakou Maori Reserve are described in written documentation as to the line of mean high water. This 99% is made up 17% Maori freehold land, 49% general land and 33% vested in the Crown or the Dunedin City Council. The remaining 1% is Maori freehold land that does not have its boundary at mean high water, but has a fixed upland boundary. Oral history facts from the takatawhenua identify that the foreshore continues to be used for access, travel, and the collection of kai moana and sea resources. The findings reveal that Kai Tahu ki Otakou have never extinguised their territorial and non-territorial aboriginal title to the foreshore of Otakou Maori Reserve. Suggested areas for future research include an investigation of other Maori reserves in Otago, and examining the doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the beds of watercourses.

Rights to possess and/or use the foreshore of New Zealand are not clear, and are even cloudier in relation to Maori freehold land that is on the coast. This thesis investigates the law pertaining to rights in the foreshore, and the facts pertaining specifically to the use of the Otakou Maori Reserve foreshore. In particular, the research question is this: what does aboriginal title mean in 1996 for Otago Maori? Examining the legal issues, searching individual titles and gathering oral history are the methods used to answer this question. First, the law. In New Zealand the Crown is prima facie the absolute owner of the foreshore. This can be displaced by proof to the contrary. The doctrine of aboriginal title recognises the legal continuity of tribal property rights upon the Crown�s acquisition of sovereignty over their territory. Aboriginal title can be divided into two categories - territorial and non-territorial. Territorial title represents a tribal claim to full ownership, and non-territorial title to rights that are less than absolute ownership, such as the right to cross land, to fish and to collect flora and fauna. It is this doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the foreshore that can displace the Crown�s absolute ownership of the foreshore. Second, the facts. 99% of the coastal land parcels of Otakou Maori Reserve are described in written documentation as to the line of mean high water. This 99% is made up 17% Maori freehold land, 49% general land and 33% vested in the Crown or the Dunedin City Council. The remaining 1% is Maori freehold land that does not have its boundary at mean high water, but has a fixed upland boundary. Oral history facts from the takatawhenua identify that the foreshore continues to be used for access, travel, and the collection of kai moana and sea resources. The findings reveal that Kai Tahu ki Otakou have never extinguised their territorial and non-territorial aboriginal title to the foreshore of Otakou Maori Reserve. Suggested areas for future research include an investigation of other Maori reserves in Otago, and examining the doctrine of aboriginal title as it relates to the beds of watercourses.

O Pontal do Paranapanema é um território em disputa. Assim foi desde sua ocupação baseada na expropriação indígena, na grilagem de terras e no desmatamento. Na atualidade a disputa está na luta entre as classes sociais envolvidas na região. Por um lado têm-se as terras historicamente tomadas indevidamente e ilegalmente, que estão sob o domínio dos fazendeiros; por outro as terras que foram retomadas por um processo de luta e que estão sob o domínio dos camponeses, territorializadas através dos assentamentos rurais. Há ainda uma grande parcela de terras em disputa judicial, movida principalmente pela pressão dos movimentos camponeses para que o Estado cumpra as determinações que a lei lhe compete, ou seja, discriminar e retomar as terras que são de patrimônio público. Somente com as ações dos movimentos sociais através das ocupações de terras, principalmente em meados da década de 90 do século XX, que o Estado procurou redefinir a destinação das terras públicas. Os acordos realizados entre Estado e fazendeiros, permitiu tanto a (re)produção do campesinato, na forma de assentamentos rurais, como dos fazendeiros ao indenizar benfeitorias que se converteram em valores próximos ao preço de mercado, possibilitando assim a compra de terras para outras regiões brasileiras. Na tese, revelamos o lento processo discriminatório e os entraves jurídicos na obtenção e julgamento dessas áreas griladas por fazendeiros e hoje questionadas pelos inúmeros movimentos camponeses existentes no Pontal do Paranapanema. / The Pontal do Paranapanema is a disputed territory. It has been this way through processes of indigenous expropriation, the falsification of land titles and aggressive deforestation. At present, the dispute is centered on struggle between social classes involved in the region. On the one hand, there is the historically traceable and unquestionably illegal process of falsifying titles to take land, lands which are clearly under the control of the landlord class. On the other, there are lands that have been retaken through a process of struggle, lands now under peasant control, territorialized as agrarian reform settlements. In the meantime, large numbers of tracts remain mired in judicial proceedings, disputed for by peasant movements, pressuring the State to honor the law it is charge to fulfill by retaking lands that are part of the public patrimony. It has only been through the direct action of social movements, principally the occupation of lands during the middle period of the 1990s that the State sought to redefine the final use of public lands. Accords reached between the State and landlords contributed to (re)producing both the peasantry, through the establishment of agrarian reform settlements, and landlords, through near-market indemnity payments made for improvements on falsely titled public lands, enabling them to buy land in other regions of Brazil. This dissertation examines the slow land title discrimination process and the legal barriers encountered in the struggle to adjudicate and obtain areas falsely claimed by landlords and today questioned by the innumerous peasant movements active in the Pontal do Paranapanema.

O Pontal do Paranapanema é um território em disputa. Assim foi desde sua ocupação baseada na expropriação indígena, na grilagem de terras e no desmatamento. Na atualidade a disputa está na luta entre as classes sociais envolvidas na região. Por um lado têm-se as terras historicamente tomadas indevidamente e ilegalmente, que estão sob o domínio dos fazendeiros; por outro as terras que foram retomadas por um processo de luta e que estão sob o domínio dos camponeses, territorializadas através dos assentamentos rurais. Há ainda uma grande parcela de terras em disputa judicial, movida principalmente pela pressão dos movimentos camponeses para que o Estado cumpra as determinações que a lei lhe compete, ou seja, discriminar e retomar as terras que são de patrimônio público. Somente com as ações dos movimentos sociais através das ocupações de terras, principalmente em meados da década de 90 do século XX, que o Estado procurou redefinir a destinação das terras públicas. Os acordos realizados entre Estado e fazendeiros, permitiu tanto a (re)produção do campesinato, na forma de assentamentos rurais, como dos fazendeiros ao indenizar benfeitorias que se converteram em valores próximos ao preço de mercado, possibilitando assim a compra de terras para outras regiões brasileiras. Na tese, revelamos o lento processo discriminatório e os entraves jurídicos na obtenção e julgamento dessas áreas griladas por fazendeiros e hoje questionadas pelos inúmeros movimentos camponeses existentes no Pontal do Paranapanema. / The Pontal do Paranapanema is a disputed territory. It has been this way through processes of indigenous expropriation, the falsification of land titles and aggressive deforestation. At present, the dispute is centered on struggle between social classes involved in the region. On the one hand, there is the historically traceable and unquestionably illegal process of falsifying titles to take land, lands which are clearly under the control of the landlord class. On the other, there are lands that have been retaken through a process of struggle, lands now under peasant control, territorialized as agrarian reform settlements. In the meantime, large numbers of tracts remain mired in judicial proceedings, disputed for by peasant movements, pressuring the State to honor the law it is charge to fulfill by retaking lands that are part of the public patrimony. It has only been through the direct action of social movements, principally the occupation of lands during the middle period of the 1990s that the State sought to redefine the final use of public lands. Accords reached between the State and landlords contributed to (re)producing both the peasantry, through the establishment of agrarian reform settlements, and landlords, through near-market indemnity payments made for improvements on falsely titled public lands, enabling them to buy land in other regions of Brazil. This dissertation examines the slow land title discrimination process and the legal barriers encountered in the struggle to adjudicate and obtain areas falsely claimed by landlords and today questioned by the innumerous peasant movements active in the Pontal do Paranapanema.