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PHOTO: FACEBOOK Whakaari/White Island owner Peter Buttle.
Whakaari/White Island boat tours generate $4.5m a year for iwi
Before this week’s tragedy at Whakaari/White Island, the Buttle family and Ngāti Awa were hardly household names.
However, as some of the main players in the disaster at Whakaari/White Island, they now have a public profile that extends to mentions on the BBC and the New York Times.
The Ngāti Awa iwi, centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty, is made up of about 15,000 people who claim affiliation to 22 hapu in the area. Ngāti Awa people tend to live in Whakatane and Kawerau and have two urban hapu in Auckland and Wellington.
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