SYDNEY: When Jake Aitken (Ngāti Ruapani, Ngai Tūhoe) returned to Aotearoa last week from a trip to Australia, which he does about two or three times each year, he was met with a shock.
Six years ago, for his 18th birthday, Aitken had been gifted a taonga made of whale bone, carved into a design that represents his two older brothers who passed away as children. The taonga is dear to his heart and he’s worn the double manaia figure with immense pride. It’s precious to his whānau, he said.
He’s been told that the whale the bone came from had washed up north of Wellington and been gifted to the local iwi, Te Atiawa. His stepfather is a descendant and the family commissioned the carving.
After waiting in line at Customs in Wellington Airport when he arrived in the country he was asked specifically about the taonga – and was then referred to the biosecurity line with “whale bone” written across his arrival card. On previous trips he had been told by biosecurity staff that he didn’t need to declare the taonga as it had been professionally carved. But this time was different.
He was met by two Ministry for Primary Industries biosecurity officers, he said. “They asked me to remove it from my around my neck so they could have a look at it. Meanwhile, another one of the officers started filling out some paperwork, which I later learned was to allow them to seize my taonga under section 27 of the Trade in Endangered Species Act, as they believed it was from an endangered species.”
Aitken said neither of them explained section 27 of the Act in which they were seizing it under, and when asked to read it, he said he was told to google it as it changed too often. He said he was then told he wasn’t going to be given it back and that there was a chance it could be destroyed.
“I was shaking as I walked out of the airport, as I started googling and searching how I was going to get it back.”
After many calls and emails to the Department of Conservation, he was told to get a sworn affidavit stating where the bone carving was from and post it to DoC. This wasn’t good enough for Aitken, so he went to the local court got the affidavit signed and drove it straight to their offices to get the taonga back.
They didn’t have the taonga so they organised him to pick it up from the airport. His taonga is now back with him.
