New Zealand’s famous Mt. Taranaki has been granted similar legal rights to a person, sans the right to pay taxes or drive.
In a unanimous vote by the New Zealand Parliament on Jan. 30, the government agreed to compensate eight tribes around Taranaki for illegal land seizures in the 1800s, following almost a decade of negotiations between the Crown and representatives.
“The land in the national park owned by the Crown is to be vested in the legal personality. The land will also be inalienable (not able to be sold or otherwise disposed of), except in a very narrow set of circumstances,” according to the Taranaki Maunga [mountain] Collective Redress Bill.
Similar legal personalities were already developed for two other landmarks in New Zealand.
“In each case, the legal personality requires an entity to act on its behalf,” the Bill’s Explanatory Note said.
“The land to be vested in the legal personality will continue to be a national park administered under the National Parks Act 1980 as amended by this Bill,” it said, while maintaining public access.
The latest deal marks the 100th settlement agreed under the Treaty of Waitangi.
Around 400 descendants of the eight tribes were at Parliament to witness the Bill’s passage and the country’s Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith formally acknowledging the “immeasurable harm” done in the past.
Goldsmith explained that after the signing of the Treaty in 1840, the government of the day began buying land from individuals or groups, often without the consent or knowledge of Māori leaders or the wider community. At the time, Māori land at the time was typically communally owned, sometimes by hundreds of people.
War between the British Crown and local tribe Te Ātiawa began on March 17, 1860. They were soon joined by other tribes, both from, and outside of, Taranaki.
Peace was agreed in April 1861, but it lasted only until mid-1863 when renewed fighting began.
The settlement acknowledges that the Crown unfairly punished Māori, using the New Zealand Settlement Act, passed on Jan. 30, 1865, to confiscate 1.2 million acres (485,623 hectares), including the mountain. Currently, that land is worth an estimated $29.9 billion.
The mountain used to be called Mount Egmont, but this was changed to Mount Taranaki in 2019.
However the surrounding national park has retained the Egmont name. Under the settlement terms it will now be called Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki (meaning the “highly regarded and treasured lands of Taranaki”) and the mountain will have its name changed again, to Taranaki Maunga.
Māori Party co-leader and descendant of one of the affected tribes, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, said this meant “Taranaki is freed from the shackles, is freed from the shackles of muru raupatu [confiscation].”
The mountain is of considerable cultural significance to Taranaki Māori and according it legal personhood is a long-awaited acknowledgment of the fact they consider it an ancestor.
Taranaki Maunga is the second-highest in New Zealand’s North Island and is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. It is a popular climbing destination for tourists and locals alike.