New Zealand has formally granted a mountain legal personhood for the first time, recognizing not only its importance to Māori tribes but also paving the way for its future environmental protection.
The law, passed in January, notes that the mountain, located in Taranaki on New Zealand’s North Island, will be called by its Māori name Taranaki Maunga (maunga meaning mountain) instead of its colonial name Mount Egmont. Egmont National Park will be called Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki. The law also recognizes Taranaki Maunga and the surrounding peaks as a legal person named “Te Kāhui Tupua,” with “all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of a legal person.”
New Zealand over the past decade has granted legal personhood to a rainforest and a river as well as whales and dolphins.
Environmental and ecological economist Viktoria Kahui from the University of Otago, New Zealand, told Mongabay by email that other mountains globally have received special legal status: Mauna Kea in Hawaii has been awarded stewardship authority and Mount Zizuma in Colombia was declared a sacred site. Both designations recognize the mountains’ cultural importance to Indigenous communities. But that is not the same as being granted legal personhood, Kahui said.
The Māori in Taranaki consider Taranaki Maunga to be their ancestor, “a source of physical, cultural, and spiritual sustenance, and a final resting place.” In the 19th century, the British Crown purchased and even confiscated land in Taranaki without the consent or despite the objections of Māori leaders. The Māori people, whose traditional practices were banned in some areas, have since tried to reclaim and reconnect with their ancestral land.
Kahui said the law is “a real testament to Māori in Taranaki who resisted and struggled against the wrongdoing of the Crown for well over [a] hundred years.”
Besides providing a “blueprint” on how environmental protection can be achieved by empowering Indigenous communities, she said it “acknowledges the special relationship between the Indigenous people of Taranaki and the Maunga.”
The mountain’s legal personality Te Kāhui Tupua, while technically nonhuman, is similar to how an organization can be considered a legal person. Although such legal persons can own property, enter contracts and sue, “they do not have the same rights as human beings,” Kahui said.
The bill also states that a legal entity named Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi, composed of four members of local Māori iwi (tribes) and four minister of conservation-appointed individuals, will act on behalf of Te Kāhui Tupua.
Through the members, the mountain “has a voice” and its interests are legally represented, Kahui said. “That’s unique.”
Kahui said that with biodiversity loss globally, mostly due to economic pressure on the environment, the concept of environmental legal personhood has enabled Indigenous tribes and local communities in countries such as New Zealand and Colombia to have greater decision-making powers in terms of environmental protection.
Banner image of Taranaki Maunga by Robin van Mourik via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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