New Zealand mountain legally becomes a person

The mountain is now recognised as a 'living and indivisible whole'

Mount Taranaki has been legally granted all the rights, powers, duties and responsibilities of a person as part of an agreement between New Zealand's government and the indigenous Maori tribes.

The tribes have long considered the 8,261ft mountain an ancestor, and it will now be known by its Maori name, Taranaki Maunga, Sky News reports.

The mountain now has a legal personality, called Te Kahui Tupua, which is recognised by the law as a "living and indivisible whole."

The personality includes the mountain itseld along with surrounding peaks and lands, "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 form a new entity acting as the "face and voice" of Taranaki Maunga.

The law also acknowledges the mountain's theft from the Maori of the Taranaki region during the colonisation of New Zealand, and fulfils an agreement of reparation from the country's government to indigenous people for harms perpetrated against the land since.

Most importantly, the new law gives the tribes, known as iwi, more power to maintain its health and wellbeing as tourism increases.

The politician in charge of the settlements between the government and the tribes was Paul Goldsmith. Speaking to parliament on Thursday, he said: "The mountain has long been an honoured ancestor, 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 descendant of the Taranaki tribes, said the law released the mountain from "the shackles of injustice, of ignorance, of hate".

Mount Taranaki is not the only natural feature to be given the status of person in New Zealand.

The forest of Te Urewera on the North Island and the Whanganui River are both also legally recognised as people under the country's laws.