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An agreement under which a mountain of New Zealand has been granted the same legal right that a person has become law after years of negotiations.
It means that Taranaki Maunga (Mt Taranaki) will effectively be possessed, with representatives of the local tribes, IWI and the government that work together to administer it.
The agreement aims to compensate for the Maori in the Taranaki region for the injustices that are made during colonization, including the generalized confiscation of the Earth.
“We must recognize the damage that has been caused by past errors, so we can look to the future to support IWI to perform their own aspirations and opportunities,” said Paul Goldsmith, the Minister of the Government responsible for negotiations.
The Parliament of New Zealand on Thursday approved the draft repair of the Taranaki Maunga collective, giving the New Zealand Parliament, giving the mountain a legal name and protecting its surrounding peaks and lands.
It also recognizes the Maori worldview that the natural characteristics, including the mountains, are ancestors and living beings.
“Today, Taranaki, Mountains Taranaki, from the mountain), the shackles of injustice, the shackles of the Maori party political party (the Maori party).
Ngarewa-Packer is among one of the eight Taranaki Iwi, on the west coast of New Zealand, whom the mountain is sacred.
Hundreds of other Maori in the area also appeared in Parliament on Thursday to see that the bill became law.
The mountain will no longer be officially known as Egmont, the one named by British explorer James Cook in the 18th century, and instead will be called Taranaki Maunga, while the surrounding National Park will also receive its name Maorí.
Aisha Campbell, who is also from a Taranaki Iwi, told 1NeWs that it was important for her to be in the event, and that the mountain “is what connects us and what unites us as people.”
The Taranaki Maunga settlement is the last one that has been achieved with the Maori in an attempt to provide compensation for the violations of the Waithi Treaty, which established New Zealand as a country and gave indigenous people certain rights to their lands and resources .
The agreement also came with a government apology for the confiscation of Mount Taranaki and more than one million land acres of local Maori in the 1860s.
Paul Goldsmith acknowledged that “the violations of the treaties mean that immense and compound damage to the Whānau (broader family), Hapū (Sub -lust) and IWI of Taranaki have been inflicted, causing immeasurable damage for many decades.”
He added that it had been agreed that access to the mountain would not change and that “all New Zealanders can continue visiting and enjoying this most magnificent place for generations to come.”
The mountain is not the first of the natural characteristics of New Zealand that will be granted the legal personality.
In 2014, the Native Forest of Urewera became the first to win such status, followed by the Whatanganui River in 2017.
