🌅 Today’s stat: 8,261 feet

SOURCE

Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill (2024) (N.Z.)

WHAT TO KNOW

• The law passed by the New Zealand legislature grants Taranaki Maunga (its legal personality is named Te Kāhui Tupua) all of the “rights, powers, duties, responsibilities, and liabilities” of a legal person in the country. The bill is intended to allow the mountain—through its eight-member half-Indigenous custodial entity—to uphold and defend its health and well-being, empowering its custodians to go after environmental offenders, block forced sales of land, and improve conservation to protect the mountain’s native wildlife.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Granting legal personhood to nature essentially means governments are legally bound to protect it, safeguarding it from deforestation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and the effects of climate change. As of May 2024, 495 “rights of nature” initiatives are underway worldwide, mostly in the Americas, where just over two-thirds (67%) of the initiatives are located.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Making nature a legal person indeed comes with complications, like ensuring the custodians act with the protected environment’s best interest in mind, not just those of a small group, and determining what happens to the concept of property ownership for things related to nature, like land and resources, if the land itself is considered a person. Nonetheless, granting personhood to entities is far from a new concept, as corporations have long been considered “legal persons” under American law, enjoying the ability to sue, own property, enter into contracts, and engage in protected speech, among other things.