Whangarei District Council says it intends to recover pieces of headstones that have been used as part of a seawall and return them to a local cemetery.
A Te Parawhau hapu member, Fred Tito, called on the council to remove the stones along Onerahi beach.
Simon Weston from the council says it found out about the seawall three years ago.
He says there are no records of where the stones came from but the council thinks they may have been taken from Kioreroa urupa, in the 1960s.
Mr Weston says the council aims to remove the fragments and take them back to Kioreroa.
He says the council has been working with iwi and the Historic Places Trust on how to deal with the headstones found in the seawall.
