Te Takutai Moana Act 2011, ss 51, 52
“Protected customary rights” basically means rights to activities and uses that are conducted according to tikanga – for example, launching waka or gathering stones for hāngi. The activity or use must have a physical component involving a natural or physical resource – the right can’t just be based on a spiritual connection on its own. However, in general these protected customary rights don’t include fishing and commercial aquaculture.
Once those customary rights have been legally recognised for your group, then you can do those things without needing to get any resource consent from local councils. Local councils also can’t give resource consents to someone else for any activities that would affect your protected activities in any significant way, unless your group agrees.
To show that it has customary rights that should be protected, a Māori group would need to show that the particular uses and activities have existed continuously since 1840.
Protected customary rights don’t have to be exclusive to your group to be recognised: more than one group may have carried out the same activities in that area, or different activities in that area, and these activities can all be recognised.