The first clue that New Zealand could be a tiny portion of the lost continent was in 2002. Experts used bathymetry, a method that studies the depth of water bodies, to analyze the region.

But colonizers of New Zealand in the 18th and 19th centuries took first the name of Taranaki and then the mountain itself. In 1770, the British explorer Captain James Cook spotted the peak from ...

The recognition acknowledges the mountain's theft from the Māori after New Zealand was colonized. It fulfills an agreement from the country's government to Indigenous people.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A mountain in New Zealand considered an ancestor by Indigenous people was recognized as a legal person on Thursday after a new law granted it all the rights and ...

New Zealand has formally granted a mountain legal personhood for the first time, recognizing not only its importance to Māori tribes but also paving the way for its future environmental protection.

New Zealand was the first country in the world to recognize natural features as people when a law passed in 2014 granted personhood to Te Urewera, a vast native forest on the North Island.

The mountain known as Taranaki Maunga, its Maori name, is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand, which had ruled that a river and a stretch of sacred land are people.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain’s theft from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized.