The river flows from the mountain to the sea. I am the river , the river is me.’ With reference to famous saying of whanganui , do you think Rivers have same legal rights as Human? Comment on rivers as legal entity.
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Answer:
With these words, the Maori tribes of Whanganui, New Zealand, declare their inseverable connection to their ancestral river. The river rises in the snowfields of a trio of volcanoes in central North Island. The tribes say that a teardrop from the eye of the Sky Father fell at the foot of the tallest of these mountains, lonely Ruapehu, and the river was born.
Swelled by myriad tributaries, it twists like an eel through mountainous country—part of it a national park—on its 180-mile journey to the sea. Travel the precipitous River Road, and far below you will see canoeists drifting down the placid reaches, at one with the current and its cargo of flotsam and foam, then digging their paddles deep to hurtle through a rapid.
This is the river that for more than 700 years the Whanganui tribes controlled, cared for, and depended on. It is their awa tupua—their river of sacred power. But when European settlers arrived in the mid-1800s, the tribes' traditional authority was undermined—and finally extinguished by government decree.
Since then, they have watched their river be degraded and disgraced, even as it was feted as a scenic wonder—“The Rhine of New Zealand.” It's rapids were dynamited to create easier passage for tourist paddle steamers. Its gravel was extracted for railway ballast and road metal, damaging the river's bed and harming its fisheries. Its mouth became a drain for a city's effluent.
Most grievous of all, its headwaters were diverted into a different catchment as part of a sprawling hydroelectric power scheme, depriving the river's upper reaches of its natural flow. That act of aquatic decapitation was a deep cultural affront. In Maori understanding, the head is the most sacred part of any person, and to them, this river is indeed a person—a tupuna, or ancestor.