NZ Mountain to Be Declared a Person

Kiwi politicians must have rocks in their heads

At the same time Donald Trump is declaring there are only two genders, the New Zealand parliament is set to give a mountain the rights of a human being.

The proposed legislation would make Taranaki Maunga, a dormant volcano which last erupted in 1775, “and his companion peaks” a legal person.

It means that if tourists mistreat or harm New Zealand’s most climbed mountain, they will be liable as if they had harmed a tribe.

I’m not exactly sure how you mistreat or harm a mountain. Give it the side-eye? Misgender it? But I digress.

Science clearly works differently across the ditch, although this decision seems to be based on spiritism.

The legislation will officially recognise the peaks as ancestral mountains and, on that basis, will grant the mountain human status.

This is not without precedent in New Zealand, where the government has previously granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River.

Of course, everyone knows the mountain is just a pile of dirt, which is why the Department of Conservation will appoint a panel of four traditional owners 'to be the human face and voice' of the range.

How do they know the mountain’s wishes? Well that’s where spiritism comes in.

Anyway, I have questions …