WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A mountain in New Zealand considered an ancestor by Indigenous people was recognized as a legal person on Thursday after a new law granted it all the rights and responsibilities of a human being.
Mount Taranaki, also known as Taranaki Maunga, is the second-highest peak on New Zealand’s North Island and a popular spot for tourism, hiking, and snow sports. The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain’s confiscation from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized.
The law passed Thursday gives Taranaki Maunga all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of a person, with a name: Te Kāhui Tupua, which is considered “a living and indivisible whole.” It includes the mountain and its surrounding peaks and land, incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements.
The law also establishes a newly created entity as “the face and voice” of the mountain, with four members from local Māori iwi, or tribes, and four members appointed by the country’s Conservation Minister.
The recognition is part of a long-standing redress agreement with the New Zealand government to address harms perpetrated against the land since colonization. The Māori people of the Taranaki region had their land confiscated in the 19th century, and many traditional practices associated with the mountain were banned while tourism was promoted.
The decision is a significant milestone in New Zealand’s journey of reconciliation with its Indigenous people. New Zealand was the first country in the world to recognize natural features as people when a law passed in 2014 granted personhood to Te Urewera, a vast native forest on the North Island. In 2017, the country recognized the Whanganui River as human, as part of a settlement with its local iwi.
The bill recognizing the mountain’s personhood was affirmed unanimously by Parliament’s 123 lawmakers, who were greeted by a Maori song from the public gallery packed with dozens of people from the Taranaki region. The vote was seen as a rare moment of unity in a period of tension in New Zealand’s race relations.