A 8,200ft mountain has now been recognised as a person in a bizarre move by New Zealand. The country’s government recognised Mount Taranaki – now known by its Maori name, Taranaki Maunga – after striking a legal deal with local Maori tribes who have long viewed the breathtaking mountain as an ancestor.
The bizarre move makes Taranaki Maunga “a living and indivisible whole” with the full right and powers of a human. The mountain, which stands at an impressive 8,261ft also has a name: Te Kahui Tupua.
The mountain joins Te Urewera, a large native forest on the North Island, and the Whanganuir River in being recognised as a person. The new law includes Taranaki and its surrounding peaks and land “incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements”.
Four members of the local Maori tribes and four others appointed by the country’s conservation minister will manage a body that acts as “the face and voice” of the mountain.
In a controversial move, the new law also acknowledges the mountain’s theft from the local Taranaki tribes after the country was colonised in the 1840s and fulfils a promise to recognise the harm caused to indigienous tribes by past governments.
The deal also gives local tribes the power to ‘maintain’ the mountain’s health and wellbeing following decades of mass tourism and snow sports. The bill, which sailed through New Zealand’s parliament effectively unopposed, says the mountain must remain accessible to the public.
New Zealand politician Paul Goldsmith, who is responsible for settlements with local tribes, told his parliament on Thursday the mountain had “long been an honoured ancestor”. He said: “[It is] a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance and a final resting place.”
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, a co-leader of the political party Te Pati Maori and a Taranaku descendant, said the law had released the mountain from “the shackles of injustice, of ignorance, of hate”.
New Zealand was rocked by protests in November last when tens of thousands of people marched on parliament for greater indigenous rights. The mountain had been captured by colonisers in the 18th and 19th century after Brit explorer Captain James Cook spotted the peak from his ship and renamed it Mount Egmont.
In 1840, Maori tribes and representatives of the British crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi, often referred to as New Zealand’s founding document. The treaty promised Maori tribes would keep the rights to their lands and resources but was quickly breached by the crown.
The mountain and its surrounding areas were confiscated in 1865 to punish rebelling Maori tribes. For a century, hunting and sports groups were able to propose how the mountain was managed while Maori tribes were not.
Traditional practices of local tribes were banned while tourism boomed. This changed in the 1970s and 1980s when a protest movement led by local tribes demanded their language, culture and rights be recognised under law.
Local tribes were handed billions of dollars in settlements under the treaty while an agreement with the eight tribes of Taranaki was signed in 2023.
