On July 5, emergency services were notified that Jock David Grant Davies, 21, had been shot by a member of his own party while hunting in the remote Lords River area.
Davies grew up in Tapanui.
A Search and Rescue team was deployed to the island via helicopter but Mr Davies was found dead at the scene.
A police spokeswoman today said officers had arrested and charged the Ashburton man with careless use of a firearm causing death.
The man is due to appear in Invercargill District Court on December 16.
Mr Davies was from a well-known Tapanui family and had survived two battles with leukaemia.
He was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2013, and the cancer relapsed in 2018.
When the cancer recurred, the then 14-year-old stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for three months and received a bone marrow transplant.
After his death, Clutha district councillor John Herbert said Mr Davies was a ‘‘bloody good guy’’, and it was an ‘‘especially cruel’’ death after all he had endured.
‘‘It’s just bloody horrible. No family should go through that. What he’s been through, what they’ve been through. It’s not fair.’’
