New Zealand’s Mount Taranaki is now legally a person

First a sacred forest, then a river, and now a mountain.

Mount Taranaki, a towering 8,261-foot stratovolcano popular among skiers and snowboarders, was recognized as a legal person in New Zealand on Thursday.

Known by its Māori name Taranaki Maunga, the mountain is the latest natural feature in the country to be granted the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities and liabilities of a person.

The government has effectively ceased ownership of the mountain, which the indigenous Māori people consider among their ancestors.

Its legal name is Te Kāhui Tupua, and is viewed by the law as “a living and indivisible whole.” It includes Taranaki and its surrounding peaks and land, “incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements.”

Now, members from the local Māori iwi, or tribe, and government officials will work together to manage it. The mountain will also no longer be called by its colonial name, Mount Egmont.

New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant living rights to natural features in 2014 when it recognized the personhood of Te Urewera sacred forest in North Island, with guardianship handed to the Tūhoe tribe. 

Then in 2017, the Whanganui river was deemed human and turned over to the care of its local iwi.

The Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passed Thursday also acknowledges the injustices and land confiscations against the Māori in the Taranaki region.

“The mountain has long been an honored ancestor, a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance and a final resting place,” Paul Goldsmith, a government official involved in the negotiations, told Parliament in a speech on Thursday.

New Zealand’s colonizers first took the name, then the mountain itself, which the bills states was in breach of a treaty the Crown signed with Māori representatives.

“The Crown failed to create most of the reserves it had promised,” the bill reads. “After further protest by Māori in Taranaki, the Crown eventually returned some reserves, but refused to include most of the mountains in those reserves, instead proclaiming them as a forest reserve, and later a national park.”

The legal rights provided to the mountain are meant to be used for its preservation and the protection of its wildlife, and public access will continue.

“I look forward very much to visiting Taranaki to deliver the Crown apology in the near future,” Goldsmith said.