Ngai Tahu has today gifted around 33 thousand hectares of South Island high country to the people of New Zealand at a special ceremony at the mouth of the Greenstone River.

The land is known as Ka Whenua Roimata, or Land of Tears.

It is part of three High Country stations inland from Lake Wakatipu which Ngai Tahu bought from the crown as part of its Waitangi Treaty Deed of Settlement.

Runanga spokesman Mark Solomon says the land is being gifted back as a memorial to the suffering of the Ngai Tahu people and because of its high conservation value.