International environmental law and the rights of nature
The Migrating Rocks project sits within a much broader international context of legal debates and discussions regarding the legal status of the natural world. At the time of writing, there is “no general obligation in international law to protect the environment”[1]. International environmental law is fragmented, with no cohesive approach and no single organisation managing environmental issues on a global scale[2].
Existing legal frameworks tend to understand land and nature as ‘property’ that can be owned and controlled, bought and sold. Within these frameworks, nature is perceived as having no agency.
“Legal understandings of the environment (…) not only uphold problematic value hierarchies but also deny the reality that environments, humans, and non-humans are interconnected and interdependent.”[3]
The rights of nature movement has emerged in response to the increasing need for legal systems that account for the environment.
“When we talk about the rights of nature, it means recognising that ecosystems and natural communities are not mere property that can be owned. Rather, they are entities that have an independent and inalienable right to exist and flourish.”[4]
At the time of writing nature has been recognised as having rights in some domestic contexts including Aotearoa, India, Ecuador, and parts of North America (see a map of locations at the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature). At this stage nothing has been adopted in international law, although pressure is mounting to do so.
Te Urewera National Park, image: https://tinyurl.com/55rrzkvu
The rights of nature in Aotearoa
“Nature is the creator’s idea of wealth. We choose to not renounce our kinship with nature.” Tamati Kruger, Tūhoe leader from Aotearoa [5]
“Often translated as ‘kinship’, whanaungatanga does not refer only to family ties between living people, but rather to a much broader web of relationships between people (living and dead), land, water, flora and fauna, and the spiritual world of atua (gods) – all bound together through whakapapa [genealogy]. In this system of thought, a person’s mauri or inner life force is intimately linked to the mauri of all others (human and non-human) to whom he or she is related. This explains why iwi [tribes] refer to mountains, rivers, and lakes in the same way as they refer to other humans, and why elders feel comfortable speaking directly to them” [6]
The Treaty of Waitangi, Aotearoa’s founding document, has helped place it at the heart of contemporary groundbreaking actions related to the rights of nature. Signed in 1840 the Treaty is an agreement, which is written in both Māori and English, made between the British Crown and approximately 540 Māori rangatira (chiefs)[7]. The Treaty has played a vital role because it legally recognises the rights of Māori iwi (tribes). This has meant that the iwi have been able to negotiate new legal mechanisms and frameworks to protect and nourish the environment.
Legal personhood: Te Urewera, Whanganui River
In 2014 the New Zealand government passed a new, groundbreaking piece of legislation: the Te Urewera Act. This act removed the national park status of the Urewera Forest, located on Aotearoa’s North Island. Instead, it granted the forest legal personhood, giving it the same rights, powers, duties and liabilities as any New Zealand citizen.
The Te Urewera Act “completely changes the presumption of human sovereignty over the environment and embraces the Māori perspective – that the landscape is personified, and that the earth is the earth mother Papatuanuku.” [8]
In the same year, Māori iwi and the New Zealand government signed Tutohu Whakatupua Treaty Agreement, which grants the Whanganui River legal status and personhood under the name Te Awa Tupua. Te Awa Tupua is now recognised as “an indivisible and living whole”[9]. Under the Māori worldview that ‘I am the River and the River is me’, this agreement “recognises the spirit of the river system and acknowledges that it is owned by no-one”[10].
In both the Te Urewera Act and the Tutohu Whakatupua Treaty Agreement, the New Zealand government has given up ownership of the land. Decision making around the management of Te Urewera and Te Awa Tupua must now take place collaboratively with the iwi, following a model of guardianship to protect the interests of the land and its Indigenous communities.
Core to the monumental significance of these agreements is the recognition that the health and wellbeing of the natural world – in this case forests and rivers – is inseparable from the health and wellbeing of people. The rights of nature movement recognises that people and their nonhuman surroundings are intrinsically interconnected. While Aotearoa has not formally adopted the Rights of Nature into constitutional law, “the nation has acknowledged the inherent rights of nature by granting legal personhood to lands and rivers”[11].
Two further agreements are currently in process – those of Taranaki Maunga and Tongariro. Taranaki Maunga is a dormant volcano and often-climbed mountain. Spread throughout its region are eight Crown-recognised iwi who call Maunga their common ancestor[12]. Tongariro is the country’s oldest National Park. While these cases are as yet unresolved, it is clear that Aotearoa has set a strong precedent for legal personhood.
Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River), image: https://tinyurl.com/jsdubyzz
Summary: migrating rocks
The rights of nature movement casts a new light over the samples of rock and sediment from Aotearoa’s North Island that occupy boxes in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. These rocks – the key figures in the Migrating Rocks project – were collected with permission from the local iwi, and it was also promised that they would be returned.
Tarawera volcanic crater – the Migrating Rocks sample was collected from this region, image: https://tinyurl.com/232tncbp
While the area of Mount Tarawera where the rocks were collected is not currently granted legal personhood, volcanoes themselves do carry gendered personhood for Māori communities. Of the three domes of Tarawera that were created in an eruption in the 1300’s, two are known to be male and one female, with the iwi carrying a story about the relationships between them (Kilgour, pers. comm.). The rights of nature movement underlines the need to build on such existing understandings and start engaging with landscapes and materials like rock in a way that presupposes interconnection and mutual respect.
Migrating Rocks is concerned with how best to enact this return: How do we package, transport, deliver, or reunite rocks with their landscape and iwi? How can this process reflect an understanding of the interconnectedness of people and the natural world?
References
[1] [2] [3] Jones, E. (2021) Posthuman international law and the rights of nature. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 12 Special Issue, December 2021, pp. 76–102. Available at http://files.harmonywithnatureun.org/uploads/upload1167.pdf [Accessed 12/06/24]
[4] International Joint Commission (2019), Rights of Nature FAQ https://www.ijc.org/system/files/commentfiles/2019-10-Nicolette%20Slagle/FAQ.pdf [Accessed 12/06/24]
[5] https://www.garn.org/rights-of-nature-symposium/ [Accessed 12/06/24]
[6] [7] [8] www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz [Accessed 12/06/24]
[9] https://www.earthlawcenter.org/international-law/2016/8/new-zealand [Accessed 12/06/24]
[10] [11] https://www.earthlaws.org.au/aelc/rights-of-nature/new-zealand/ [Accessed 12/06/24]
[12] Hurley, L. (2023) Making Nature Governable: A Genealogy of Rights of Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand, Masters Thesis, University of Auckland. https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/64539 [Accessed 12/06/24]