A regulation under which a New Zealand mountain has obtained the same legal right as a person has become law after years of negotiations.
This means that Taranaki Maunga (Mt Taranaki) will actually have, with representatives of local tribes, Iwi, and government working together to manage it.
The agreement aims to compensate the Maori in the Taranaki region for the injustices made to them during colonization – including the generalized confiscation of land.
“We must recognize the injury caused by past wrongs, so we can turn to the future to help the IWI achieve their own aspirations and opportunities,” said Paul Goldsmith, Minister of Government responsible for negotiations .
Thursday, the Taranaki Maunga collective repair bill was adopted by the Parliament of New Zealand – giving the mountain a legal name and protecting its summits and its surrounding land.
He also recognizes the vision of the Maori world that natural characteristics, including mountains, are ancestors and living beings.
“Today, Taranaki, Taranaki Mountains, of Mountain), the obstacles of injustice, the channels of the Maori Party Party Party (the Maori Party).
Ngarewa-Packer is part of one of the eight Taranaki Iwi, on the west coast of New Zealand, to whom the mountain is sacred.
Hundreds of other Maori in the region were also presented in Parliament on Thursday to see the bill become law.
The mountain will no longer be officially known as Egmont – the named given to him by the British explorer James Cook in the 18th century – and is rather called Taranaki Maunga, while the surrounding national park will also receive its name Maori .
Aisha Campbell, who is also a Taranaki Iwi, told 1news that it was important for her to be at the event, and that the mountain “is what connects us and what binds us as a people “.
The regulation of Taranaki Maunga is the last which was reached with the Maori in an attempt to compensate the violations of the Waitangi Treaty – which established New Zealand as a country and granted to indigenous peoples certain rights on their land and their resources.
The regulations also came with apologies to the government for the confiscation of Mount Taranaki and more than a million acres of local Maori in the 1860s.
Paul Goldsmith acknowledged that “violations of the treaty meant that an immense and aggravating damage has been imposed on the Whānau (wider family), Hapū (subtriber) and Iwi de Taranaki, causing immeasurable damage during many decades “.
He added that it had been agreed that access to the mountains would not change and that “all New Zealanders could continue to visit and take advantage of this most magnificent place for generations to come”.
The mountain is not the first of the natural characteristics of New Zealand to agree with legal personality.
In 2014, the native forest of Urewera became the first to obtain such a status, followed by the Whanganui river in 2017.
