The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain's theft from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized. It fulfills an agreement of redress from the country's government to Indigenous people for harms perpetrated against the land since.

A mountain in New Zealand has been granted the same legal rights as a person, becoming the third natural feature in the country to be recognised as an individual. Mount Taranaki – now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Maori name – is considered an ancestral being by indigenous people.