In 2017, the Whanganui River in New Zealand gained legal personality, a potentially norm-breaking legislation that could challenge society to view nature differently. It is thus important to understand the reasons and justifications behind such a decision. This is an explorative case study that aims to examine the interplay between different philosophies on legal rights of nature and minority rights within the context of a political discourse by investigating how the implementation of the Te Awa Tupua Bill in 2017 in New Zealand was justified. The arguments were identified in the three parliamentary readings of the bill through argument analysis and analyzed through ideational critique. The Te Awa Tupua Bill was justified through anthropocentric, animistic and ecocentric arguments. A majority of the arguments related to protecting the indigenous Māori culture. Further, the results from the ideational critique suggests that the argumentation at times was rather weak and that many arguments were not fully developed. This study shows how the practical political debate on legal rights of nature relates to the theoretical one. It also provides insights on how big part protecting minority rights play when implementing legal personality for natural objects. This study contributes to an emerging field of research with many open doors for future studies.

In March of 2017, New Zealand passed the Te Awa Tupua Act, a law that established the river Whanganui as a legal entity, with the same rights and obligations as a person. This commitment from the New Zealand government gave rise to the possibilities of protecting the ecosystem surrounding the river, but also strengthen the rights of the indigenous people, the Māori's, which consider Whanganui a part of their ancestry and heritage. The aim of this research is to study the ethical argumentation that motivates the recognition of the Whanganui River as a legal entity and connect that with the theoretical approach presented by Mikael Stenmark in Miljöetik och Miljövård: Miljöfrågornas Värderingsmässiga Dimension. The study will also seek to observe how the argumentation is influenced by a minority perspective, more specifically the Māori, and the oppression of their people since the colonization of New Zealand. The theoretical foundations for this study is the environmental ethics framework presented by Stenmark, which can be summed up in three main approaches: anthropocentrism, ecocentrism and biocentrism. A content-oriented ideational analysis lays the groundwork for mapping what moral positions and perceptions that motivates the recognition of the Whanganui River as a legal entity. In addititon, the study has transcribed videos with indigenous people which has been categorized and structured according to the theoretical framework. The analysis concludes that the colonial intergenerational oppression on the Māori's and the observed negative impact on the river corresponds with the well-being of the Māori people. This observed correlation, combined with a modified holistic ecocentrism, is the foundation to which a selected group of Māori's justify and motivate the Te Awa Tupua Act. This essay also problematize that environmental ethics is characterized by a context that need to be supplemented with an updated and multifaceted view of our nature and indigenous people, which draws attention to more positions that in history have not been given enough space in academic context.

The occupation of Moutoa Gardens in 1995 highlighted efforts by Whanganui iwi to draw attention to the non-settlement of long-standing land grievances arising out of land confiscations by the Crown in New Zealand in the 1860s. Maori attitudes to land have not been well understood by successive New Zealand governments since that time, nor by many Pakeha New Zealanders. In an effort to overcome that lack of understanding, this thesis studies a particular genre of Maori composition; namely, waiata tangi or songs of lament, which contain a strong indigenous sense of place component. The waiata used in this study derive from my tribal area of Taranaki, which is linked historically and through whakapapa with Whanganui iwi. These waiata were recorded in manuscript form in the 1890s by my great-grandfather Te Kahui Kararehe, and are a good source from which to draw conclusions about the traditional nature of Maori feelings for place. Two strands run throughout this thesis. The first examines the nature of Maori feelings for place and land, which have endured through primary socialisation to the present day. By focusing upon a form of expression that reveals the attachment of Maori towards their ancestral homelands, it is hoped that the largely monocultural Pakeha majority in New Zealand will be made aware of that attachment. It is also hoped that Pakeha may be suitably informed of the consequences of colonialist intervention in the affairs of the Maori people since 1840, which have resulted in cultural deprivation and material disadvantage at the present day. In the current climate of government moves to address the problems bequeathed them by their predecessors, it is important that the settlement of land claims and waterways under the Treaty of Waitangi should proceed unhindered by misapprehension and misinformation on the part of the public at large. The second strand of my thesis concerns the waiata texts themselves, which I wish to bring to the attention of the descendants of the composers of those waiata, who may or may not know of their existence. Since so much of value has been lost to the Maori world it is important that the culturally precious items that remain should be restored as soon as possible to those to whom they rightfully belong. Key themes examined in this thesis are the nature of Maori "feelings" for place and a "sense" of place; Maori research methodologies and considerations, including Maori cosmology and genealogical lines of descent; ethical concerns and intellectual property rights; ethnographic writings from the nineteenth century which tried to make sense of Maori imagery and habits of thought; the Kahui Papers from which the waiata were drawn; and the content and imagery of the waiata themselves. I also discuss the use of hermeneutics as a methodological device for unlocking the meanings of words and references in the waiata, and present the results both from a western sense of place perspective and a Maori viewpoint based on cultural concepts and understandings.

The occupation of Moutoa Gardens in 1995 highlighted efforts by Whanganui iwi to draw attention to the non-settlement of long-standing land grievances arising out of land confiscations by the Crown in New Zealand in the 1860s. Maori attitudes to land have not been well understood by successive New Zealand governments since that time, nor by many Pakeha New Zealanders. In an effort to overcome that lack of understanding, this thesis studies a particular genre of Maori composition; namely, waiata tangi or songs of lament, which contain a strong indigenous sense of place component. The waiata used in this study derive from my tribal area of Taranaki, which is linked historically and through whakapapa with Whanganui iwi. These waiata were recorded in manuscript form in the 1890s by my great-grandfather Te Kahui Kararehe, and are a good source from which to draw conclusions about the traditional nature of Maori feelings for place. Two strands run throughout this thesis. The first examines the nature of Maori feelings for place and land, which have endured through primary socialisation to the present day. By focusing upon a form of expression that reveals the attachment of Maori towards their ancestral homelands, it is hoped that the largely monocultural Pakeha majority in New Zealand will be made aware of that attachment. It is also hoped that Pakeha may be suitably informed of the consequences of colonialist intervention in the affairs of the Maori people since 1840, which have resulted in cultural deprivation and material disadvantage at the present day. In the current climate of government moves to address the problems bequeathed them by their predecessors, it is important that the settlement of land claims and waterways under the Treaty of Waitangi should proceed unhindered by misapprehension and misinformation on the part of the public at large. The second strand of my thesis concerns the waiata texts themselves, which I wish to bring to the attention of the descendants of the composers of those waiata, who may or may not know of their existence. Since so much of value has been lost to the Maori world it is important that the culturally precious items that remain should be restored as soon as possible to those to whom they rightfully belong. Key themes examined in this thesis are the nature of Maori "feelings" for place and a "sense" of place; Maori research methodologies and considerations, including Maori cosmology and genealogical lines of descent; ethical concerns and intellectual property rights; ethnographic writings from the nineteenth century which tried to make sense of Maori imagery and habits of thought; the Kahui Papers from which the waiata were drawn; and the content and imagery of the waiata themselves. I also discuss the use of hermeneutics as a methodological device for unlocking the meanings of words and references in the waiata, and present the results both from a western sense of place perspective and a Maori viewpoint based on cultural concepts and understandings.