Te Awa Tupua

Te Awa Tupua — The Whanganui River — is one of the longest rivers in the country. It stretches 290 kilometres, from the mountains in the central North Island, to the sea, near the eponymously named town of Whanganui. In Māori legend, the riverbed was formed when the male mountains in the middle of the island quarrelled over the love of a female mountain nearby, and, after a mighty battle, one of them, Taranaki, angrily wrenched his roots from the ground and left to find a new location towards the setting sun. The gorge left by Taranaki filled with water to become the Whanganui River.

Early stories of the river tell of the adventurer Tamatea, one of the leaders of the great migration, using the river to explore the vast inland regions. For centuries, the river was an important part of life for Māori in the area – a communications and transport route, a source of water and food, and of spiritual sustenance. The river region was well populated with kainga (villages), and marae (meeting places). The town of Whanganui (the name means ‘big harbour’) was a bustling trading area, and with the coming of the European settlers in the 1800s became established as a garrison town. Steamboats were used on the river for trading and tourism.

As with much of Aotearoa New Zealand, after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the commitments made by the Crown were not kept, and there was ambiguity, disagreement and controversy about the ‘ownership’ of the river. Māori saw it as a special taonga (treasure) and had a deep spiritual connection with the river.

The local iwi (tribes) began to petition the government in 1870 for special protection to be given to ‘Te Awa Tupua’ as they called it (the name could be translated as ‘the supernatural river’).

The claims and debates took 148 years – New Zealand’s longest-running legal case – to come to a conclusion. Firstly, with a Deed of Settlement in 2014, signed with great ceremony, where the Crown admitted wrongdoing, and agreed to the new legal status of Te Awa Tupua, and payment of reparations, including a fund to assist with clearing the river. In 2017, the Government of New Zealand signed into law an Act recognising the river as Te Awa Tupua, a living and indivisible whole.

While this might sound strange, the concept of legal personhood for non-humans has been around for centuries – company law relies on the ability of the company as an entity to exist separate from the humans who own, govern, or work in it.

However, taking this approach for a natural object was unique, although there had been incremental advances in this area before. A region of the central North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, Te Urewera, home of the Tūhoe people, was declared to ‘own itself ’ previously, and in other countries there had been some early explorations of the idea, but the Whanganui River was the first river to be recognised as such. The River Ganges in India is one that has subsequently been treated in the same way, and other movements around the world now reference Te Awa Tupua, the Whanganui River settlement, for the legal precedent it has created.

The rights of the river are upheld by Te Pou Tupua (‘the support posts of the supernatural’), who act in a similar way to a board of directors – the two people appointed to the role speak for the river, protect, and promote its health and wellbeing.

If you are lucky enough to visit this region, and this special river, take a moment to reflect on the significant change to how we think about humanity’s interaction with nature that Te Awa Tupua represents, and, perhaps, on the meaning of the special whakataukī (or saying) about the river.

E rere kau mai te awa nui nei
Mai i te kāhui maunga ki Tangaroa
Ko au te awa,
ko te awa ko au.
The river flows
from the mountains to the sea
I am the river,
and the river is me.