• Mount Taranaki in New Zealand was officially recognised as a legal person, following the country’s trend of granting natural features the rights, powers, duties, and responsibilities of a person. 

• It fulfills an agreement of redress from the New Zealand government to Indigenous people for harms perpetrated against the land since British colonisation.

• The often snow-capped peak of Mount Taranaki (dubbed Mount Egmont by Captain Cook) is the centerpiece of Egmont National Park. 

• At 2,518 meters (8,261 feet) tall, Taranaki is the second-highest peak on New Zealand’s North Island after Ruapehu.

• Mount Taranaki’s last volcanic eruption was over 200 years ago, and scientists give it a 30 to 50 percent chance of erupting in the next 50 years. Hazards such as mudflows, or lahars, are still present and have occurred occasionally in the past several decades.

How can a mountain be a person?

• The new law gives Mount Taranaki all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities and liabilities of a person. 

• Its legal personality has a name: Te Kāhui Tupua, which the law views as “a living and indivisible whole”.

• It includes Taranaki and its surrounding peaks and land, “incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements”.

• This move marks a significant cultural and legal step, as the mountain, known to the Māori people as Taranaki Maunga, is considered a sacred ancestor. 

• As part of the move, Māori iwi (tribes) and government officials will collaborate to manage the mountain, ensuring its preservation while maintaining public access. The mountain will also no longer carry its colonial name, Mount Egmont.

• The legal personhood granted to Mount Taranaki represents a step toward honouring the deep connection between the Māori and their land, while also ensuring its future protection.

• New Zealand was the first country in the world to recognise natural features as people when a law passed in 2014 granted personhood to Te Urewera, a vast native forest on the North Island. Government ownership ceased and the tribe Tūhoe became its guardian.

• In 2017, New Zealand recognized the Whanganui River as human.

• Mount Taranaki — now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Māori name — is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand.

• Additionally, the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill, passed alongside the recognition, acknowledges historical injustices, including land confiscations that occurred during colonisation.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)