In New Zealand, a mountain is now regarded as a human being by the government.
Indigenous people view the mountain as an ancestor, and on Thursday, a new legislation gave it all the rights and obligations of a human being, making it a legal person. Indigenous people view Mount Taranaki, currently known by its Māori name, Taranaki Maunga, as an ancestor.
At 2,518 meters (8,261 feet), the snow-capped dormant volcano is the second-highest peak on the North Island of New Zealand and a well-liked destination for tourists, hikers, and snow enthusiasts.
A new law gave it all the rights and obligations of a human being, and on Thursday, it was acknowledged as a legal person.
In New Zealand, which has already declared that a river and a portion of holy land are people, it is the most recent natural feature to be given personhood.
The official acknowledgement recognises the mountain's theft from the Taranaki region's Māori following colonisation of New Zealand. It satisfies a deal that the government made to compensate Indigenous people for damages done to the land over the years.
Taranaki Maunga now has all of a person's rights, authority, obligations, and liabilities according to the statute that was enacted on Thursday. Te Kāhui Tupua is the name given to its legal personality, which the law considers to be "a living and indivisible whole." It encompasses "all their physical and metaphysical elements", including Taranaki and the surrounding plains and peaks.
According to the law, a newly established organisation will serve as "the face and voice" of the mountain. It will consist of four members chosen by the country's conservation minister and four members from nearby Māori iwi, or tribes.
Paul Goldsmith, the politician in charge of the agreements between the government and Māori tribes, told Parliament on Thursday that "the mountain has long been an honoured ancestor, a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance and a final resting place".
However, the 18th and 19th century colonists of New Zealand first took the mountain's name Taranaki and then the mountain itself. Captain James Cook, a British explorer, named the mountain Mount Egmont after he spotted it from his ship in 1770.
Mount Taranaki, now called Taranaki Maunga
The Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand, was signed in 1840 by Māori tribes and British Crown representatives. The Crown agreed that Māori would continue to have rights to their land and resources. However, there were differences between the Māori and English copies of the treaty, and Crown violations of both started right once.
To punish Māori for rebelling against the Crown, a large portion of Taranaki territory, including the mountain, was taken away in 1865. Māori had no influence in how the mountain was managed during the following century, though hunting and sports organisations did.
"Traditional Māori practices associated with the mountain were banned while tourism was promoted," Goldsmith stated. However, a Māori protest movement in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in a spike in New Zealand law's acknowledgement of the Māori language, culture, and rights.
Treaty of Waitangi settlements, like the 2023 agreement with the eight Taranaki tribes, have involved billions of dollars in reparations.
How's the mountain going to exercise its rights?
As a descendant of the Taranaki tribes and a co-leader of the political party Te Pāti Māori, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer used the statement: "Today, Taranaki, our maunga, our maunga tupuna, is released from the shackles, the shackles of injustice, of ignorance, of hate."
She continued, "We grew up knowing there was nothing anyone could do to make us any less connected."
The purpose of the mountain's legal rights is to protect its health and welfare. They will be used to prevent forced sales, return it to its historical uses, and permit conservation efforts to save the local fauna that thrives there. The public will continue to have access.
A statute approved in 2014 gave Te Urewera, a large native forest on the North Island, personhood, making New Zealand the first nation in the world to acknowledge natural features as people. After the government stopped owning it, the Tūhoe tribe took guardianship.
Before explaining its spiritual significance to Māori, the statute states that Te Urewera is "is ancient and enduring, a fortress of nature, alive with history; its scenery is abundant with mystery, adventure, and remote beauty". As part of an agreement with its indigenous iwi, New Zealand acknowledged the Whanganui River as human in 2017.
Members of Parliament unanimously approved the bill acknowledging the mountain's personhood. In the public gallery, which was filled with dozens of people who had come from Taranaki to Wellington, the capital, the vote was welcomed with a ringing waiata, a Māori song.
In a time when racial relations in New Zealand were fraught, the togetherness offered a little reprieve. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated against a bill that would have changed the Treaty of Waitangi by giving each provision strict legal definitions in November by marching to Parliament. Critics claim that the proposal, which is unlikely to pass, would drastically undo the gains made over the previous 50 years and deprive Māori of their legal rights.
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