This article is an edited excerpt from Standing for Nature: Legal Strategies for Environmental Justice, published on 3rd April 2025 by Island Press.
The mountain dominates the western coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Its peak is like the center point of a sundial, the shadows on its slopes telling time. The cloud formations drift in and out, shaping the weather.
There are several Māori stories relating the creation of this geography. One tells of four mountain warriors who lived in the interior of the North Island: Tongariro, Taranaki, Tauhara, and Pūtauaki. Tongariro and Taranaki were in love with a maiden mountain, and they fought a mighty battle over her affections. Taranaki was defeated and, in his shame and sadness, left the center of the island. He dragged his club along behind him as he left, carving a deep gouge out of the land, which filled with his tears. This tear-filled ravine became the Whanganui River.
When Taranaki reached the sea, he turned north and saw the beautiful Pouākai mountain range and settled there. The offspring of Taranaki and Pouākai became the plants, trees, animals, rocks, and rivers that flow over the slope of Taranaki maunga (Mount Taranaki).
Today, Aotearoa New Zealand is often seen as the pinnacle of efforts to develop laws recognising the rights—or, to put it another way, the legal personhood—of natural entities. This began with the Te Urewera Act of 2014, granting the Te Urewera Forest legal personhood and the Tūhoe people guardianship. Most recently – on the 31st January 2025 – the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua 2025 (Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill 2025) was signed into law recognising the rights of Taranaki maunga as a legal person. But the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017, recognising the values and legal personhood of the Whanganui River, is probably the most famous.
The passage of Te Awa Tupua reflects Aotearoa New Zealand’s gradual development into a pluralist legal tradition that brings together both Indigenous and common law principles. At the root of this legal tradition is the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed in 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is a seminal yet controversial document in the history of the country that was drafted to delineate the relationship between the Māori and the Pākehā and determine sovereignty over the land and resources of Aotearoa.
The treaty was heralded for decades by the government as an example of positive Indigenous–settler relationships. In reality, the treaty was used as a mechanism to divest the Māori of their lands, rights, and spiritual and cultural connection to the natural ecosystems of Aotearoa. In the years after the enactment of the Treaty of Waitangi, thousands of Māori were displaced from their traditional lands.
The treaty was drafted in response to the increasing number of Europeans who began arriving in New Zealand in the 1830s, raising tensions over land between new settlers and Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, the British Crown was also anxious to firmly establish its control over the territory amid concerns that France, which had a small group of settlers on the South Island, wanted to expand its foothold in the region.
The treaty was intended to solidify British sovereignty over the islands and was created very quickly. The document was written, translated, and opened for debate among the Māori over the course of only a few days in early February 1840. At the signing ceremony on February 6, a missionary named William Colenso questioned William Hobson, then-governor of New Zealand and co-author of the treaty, about whether the Māori leaders’ understanding of the terms of the treaty were the same as that of the Crown.
Hobson admitted that they were not but did nothing to address the misunderstandings. Māori and Pākehā histories of the time may differ, but it is clear that the English version of the document and the te reo Māori version of the document did not use the same concepts for key facets of the treaty such as sovereignty and ownership over the land.
Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi has been a particular point of contention in the more than 180 years of debate and protest that have followed its ratification. In the English version, Article 2 states that the Crown guaranteed “to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive possession of their Lands and Estates, Forests, Fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession.”
To the English, this granting of possession was not the same as sovereignty – or ownership – of the land, which was retained by the Crown. In the translation to te reo Māori, however, the word possession was translated into the Māori word rangatiratanga, which is a complex word without an exact English equivalent. At the time of the Treaty of Waitangi, the concept encompassed Māori authority and autonomy, leading the Māori chiefs to believe “that the mana of the land—the chiefs’ authority over its resources and their allocation—would be retained.”
Over time the provisions in the Treaty of Waitangi marginalised the Māori population and disconnected them from their traditional lands, culture, and practices in Aotearoa New Zealand, a legal pattern that European settlers used to take land all over the world.
The Māori soon began to protest the terms of the treaty and the corresponding impacts of Crown policies on their use of, and connection to, their lands. Māori petitions to the New Zealand Parliament to regain rangatiratanga over the land began as early as the 1870s and continued until a slow shift in policies by the government emerged in the last third of the twentieth century. This persistence led to the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal to hear complaints by the Māori for their treatment under the treaty and has resulted in a series of settlements, apologies, and reparations by the government.
For the Whanganui iwi, their efforts to recognise the values and independent life of the Whanganui River continued until Parliament finalised the Deed of Settlement in 2014 and passed the Te Awa Tupua legislation in 2017. During this 140-plus-year period, the efforts of the iwi along the Whanganui River included the pursuit, from 1938 to 1962, of one of the longest-running cases in New Zealand legal history concerning the ownership of the bed of the river; litigation over the operation of a power plant and its diversion of waters from the Whanganui and its tributaries by the Tongariro Power Scheme; claims to the Waitangi Tribunal; and extensive efforts in negotiation with the Crown for reconciliation and reparations.
Recognition of the Māori’s relationship with the land and environment was also the impetus for one of the longest protests in New Zealand’s history. In February 1995, members of many local hapū (Māori clans) seeking to regain control over their traditional spaces, including the river, began a seventy-nine-day occupation of Pākaitore (Moutoa Gardens) in Whanganui. The Māori claimed that the gardens were the site of Pākaitore pā, a traditional place for trade, and should be returned to the community. Although the protests were largely peaceful, the long occupation catalysed negotiations between Māori communities and the Crown. Discussions about the rights of the Whanganui were part of this process and led to, after decades of protests and social movements, the creation of Te Awa Tupua.
Te Awa Tupua is both the common name used for the Whanganui River Settlement Agreement legislation and “the spiritual and physical entity that sustains the life within the Whanganui River and the health and wellbeing of the iwi, standing for nature hapū, and other communities of the river.” When used to refer to the river and its surrounding environment, Te Awa Tupua covers the entirety of the physical and spiritual essences of the river, its beds, banks, and all other surrounding living parts.
Te Awa Tupua is arguably the most famous example of a rights of Nature law in the world, and for good reason. It is a very detailed and illustrative piece of legislation incorporating Indigenous worldviews into a state legal tradition. But it is also a recognition of a complex living being; the Whanganui is the third longest river in Aotearoa New Zealand, wends its way through a third of the North Island, and is used by many people for a variety of reasons.
It is a little early to herald Te Awa Tupua as effectively implemented when it comes to protecting the integrity and values of the Whanganui River. The law’s mechanisms to address potentially harmful activities or other disruptions to the river are slowly being engaged and tested. Regardless, advocates can admire the thought and detail that went into drafting Te Awa Tupua and the way in which the legislation draws on the legal culture and institutional processes in Aotearoa New Zealand to produce something connected to the community in a way that makes its effectiveness more likely.
This article is an edited extract from ‘Standing for Nature: Legal Strategies for Environmental Justice‘ by Dana Zartner, Fabian Cardenas, and Mohammed Golam Sarwar. Copyright © 2025 by the authors. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Dana Zartner is a professor in the International Studies Department and the School of Law at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of Courts, Codes, and Custom: Legal Tradition and State Policy toward International Human Rights and Environmental Law
Fabian Cardenas is a professor of international law at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and director of the Centre of Studies on Law and Sustainability. He has worked with the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Mohammad Golam Sarwar is an assistant professor of law at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and a doctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London. He has served as a legal consultant to the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UN Development Programme, and International Labour Organization.
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