When the new net went fishing

Doco brings life and clarity to historic treaty settlement story.

- BY RUSSELL BROWN

Mana Moana Mana Tangata begins on the beach. In a beautifully shot sequence, members of local iwi approach a huge sperm whale that has washed up on the Taranaki coast. They are there to pay their respects and begin a modern version of the traditional process of butchering the carcass to take and use what it offers.

It's not the only time the film turns from the talk (there is a lot of talking) to simply gaze at the ocean or follow the bucking of a fishing vessel, anchoring a strikingly complex story to its essential core. Even most of its interviews are shot with the ocean as a backdrop.

The Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement of 1992, better known then and now as "the Sealord deal", was not the first treaty settlement - technically, that was the transfer of land around Waitomo Caves to two hapū in 1989 - but it is undoubtedly the most consequential. It represented a full and final settlement of Māori fishing rights that essentially created the foundation of a new Māori economy.