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<h1 id="reader-title">Maori Win 160-Year Campaign to Grant
Sacred River Legal Rights</h1>
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<p> 16 March 2017 <br>
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<p>On Wednesday, the New Zealand Parliament passed a new
treaty law which recognizes that the Whanganui River has
the same legal rights and protections as a person.</p>
<p>The Whanganui River Claims Settlement is the
culmination of a 160-year campaign by the Whanganui iwi,
a Maori nation on the north island, to have the river
recognized as one of its sacred ancestors.</p>
<p>"The reason we have taken this approach is because we
consider the river an ancestor and always have," said
Gerrard Albert, the lead treaty negotiator for the
Whanganui iwi.</p>
<p>"We have fought to find an approximation in law so that
all others can understand that from our perspective
treating the river as a living entity is the correct way
to approach it, as in indivisible whole, instead of the
traditional model for the last 100 years of treating it
from a perspective of ownership and management."</p>
<p>The treaty requires that two guardians be appointed to
act on behalf of the Whanganui river, one from the
government and one from the Whanganui iwi.The guardians
will ensure that if the river is harmed or abused in any
way, as with a person, it can be defended in court.</p>
<p>Chris Finlayson, the minister responsible for the
treaty negotiations, noted that while some might think
it strange that a river could have legal rights
equivalent to personhood, it’s no different than the
legal recognition granted to corporations and other
trusts.</p>
<p>Albert told reporters that he hopes the treaty — which
includes an US$80 million payment to the Whanganui iwi
as and another US$1 million to create the legal identity
of the river — will serve as a model for other Maori
communities in the country.</p>
<p>"We can trace our genealogy to the origins of the
universe," said Albert. "And therefore rather than us
being masters of the natural world, we are part of it.
We want to live like that as our starting point. And
that is not an anti-development, or anti-economic use of
the river but to begin with the view that it is a living
being, and then consider its future from that central
belief."</p>
<p>While many noted that this is the first time a specific
river has been granted legal personhood, both Ecuador
and Bolivia have been on the cutting edge of granting
legal rights to nature.</p>
<p>In 2008, Ecuador made history by enshrining the Rights
of Nature — to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate —
in its constitution and in 2011 Bolivia passed its own
Law of Mother Earth, which granted legal personhood
rights to all natural biosystems in the country.</p>
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