The mountain was taken from the Māori of the Taranaki region following colonization of New Zealand, and this is acknowledged by the legal recognition.
It also fulfills the country’s government’s pledge to compensate Indigenous people for past harms to the land.
The mountain’s legal personality will be called Te Kahui Tupua, which is considered “a living and indivisible whole,” according to the law.
It encompasses Taranaki and the surrounding peaks and terrain, “incorporating all of their physical and metaphysical elements.”