E/CN.4/2006/78/Add.3 page 11 they are to be represented in negotiations. The New Zealand Law Commission, an independent publicly funded entity devoted to legal reform, is currently designing a new form of Maori legal entity to administer communally owned assets, particularly those received from Treaty of Waitangi land and fisheries settlements. Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) is carrying out similar work on behalf of the Government. 36. Under the Resource Management Act the protection of recognized customary activities on the foreshore and seabed is considered a matter of national importance. New Zealanders also attach the highest importance to environmental issues. The Special Rapporteur received a number of complaints regarding concerns about resource management in relation to the environment. For example, in Kawerau a private paper mill was established in the 1950s which over the years not only was able to transform the local environment into a large forest plantation despite the opposition of numerous local Maori residents, but later began contaminating the local river with toxic waste disposal. The Ahu Whenua Trust lodged a complaint under the Resource Management Act and the Environment Act but has not yet received satisfaction. At the coastal site of Maketu a similar waste disposal built up in an estuary where the river had been diverted. Despite a Planning Court decision in 1990, the river has not yet been redirected. 37. Fisheries have been a major issue of concern to Maori. For over one hundred years, Maori had argued before the Crown, the Waitangi Tribunal and the courts that the guarantee of "full, exclusive possession...of their fisheries" contained in the Treaty of Waitangi had never been given effect. Both the Waitangi Tribunal and the Government agreed there was some form of redress required. After complex negotiations, the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Deed of Settlement was signed in 1992. 38. As part of the 1992 settlement, the Crown agreed to a settlement amount for the development and involvement of Maori in the New Zealand fishing industry. The Settlement Act includes provisions for the Crown to pay $150 million to enable Maori to purchase a half share in Sealord Products Ltd (New Zealand’s biggest fishing company), holding 27 of the per cent New Zealand fishing quota. Twenty per cent of any new species quota was also promised as well as greater representation of Maori on statutory bodies on fisheries management. The Maori Fisheries Commission was restructured and renamed, making it more accountable to Maori and giving it more input to fisheries management. 39. In return, Maori agreed that all their current and future claims in respect of all sea or inland commercial fishing rights and interests were fully satisfied and discharged. It was also agreed that customary fishing rights would be recognized, protected and enforced by regulations and that the Fisheries Commission would develop a procedure to determine how the assets would be distributed. 40. In 1998 the Privy Council held that the obligations of the trust imposed by the Fisheries Settlement required the benefits of the settlement to be allocated to iwi (tribes) for the benefit of all Maori. A revised model for allocation was subsequently enacted as the Maori Fisheries Act 2004. A minimum of 40 per cent of net profit of the fishing company is to be distributed, 80 per cent going to mandated iwi organizations in proportion to their populations and 20 per cent to the corporate trustee (Te Ohu Kai Moana) to fund its work on behalf of iwi.