Grounded in Indigenous legal and cultural traditions, the agreement establishes whales as rights-holders and calls for their protection through laws and management systems inspired and led by Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhales, as legal persons, possess inherent rights essential for their existence, thriving, and flourishing in healthy marine ecosystems,\u201d the declaration says. Among the rights it enumerates: freedom of movement and migration; development of natural behaviors; cultural expression; a healthy environment; and restoration and regeneration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The declaration\u2014part of the growing global rights-of-nature movement<\/a>\u2014also establishes a whale protection fund, outlines a pathway for implementation and sets out measures to protect whales through marine protected areas and management strategies that integrate Indigenous knowledge and scientific data. Polynesian nations and \u201cother interested parties\u201d are invited to adopt the declaration and help carry out its objectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe stand united by our shared responsibility to protect whales for generations to come, fulfilling our role as kaitiaki (guardians) of the ocean and honoring the ancient wisdom that binds us to these magnificent creatures,\u201d the treaty says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Inside Climate News talked with Daniel Hikuroa, a M\u0101ori scholar and Earth systems scientist, about the treaty\u2019s broader implications for environmental governance, humans\u2019 relationship to the rest of the natural world and Indigenous sovereignty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hikuroa, who is an associate professor of M\u0101ori studies at the University of Auckland, spoke with Inside Climate News before the text of the treaty was released and was not involved with its creation. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n KATIE SURMA: In 2024, Indigenous leaders from the Pacific region signed a treaty\u2014the Declaration for the Ocean (He Whakaputanga Moana)\u2014recognizing whales as legal persons with rights. What is the significance of this?\u00a0<\/p>\n DANIEL HIKUROA: You had what many refer to as tribal leaders\u2014but who see themselves as Indigenous sovereign nation leaders, and I use those words intentionally\u2014signing up to something drawn entirely from within an Indigenous worldview. Many of the tribal leaders who signed are associated through being from the M\u0101ori cultural group.<\/p>\n Many of the signatories to the He Whakaputanga Moana trace their ancestry back through kinship connections. New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, wider French Polynesia, Rapa Nui and Hawai\u02bbi have language and customs that all come from the same root.<\/p>\n The treaty is not meant to be exclusive. It kicked off with tribal leadership from the M\u0101ori world, but it was never intended to be exclusively M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n Its importance lies in Indigenous leadership operating as sovereign nations\u2014not presidents or prime ministers. It began with kinship connections and expanded outward. That\u2019s what distinguishes it from other biodiversity frameworks. It\u2019s both its strength and its vulnerability.<\/p>\n At a minimum, it offers a powerful vision. The mission will be harder. The question becomes: how does this practically contribute to better outcomes for whales? Ultimately, it\u2019s about healthy oceans\u2014without that, you don\u2019t have healthy whales.<\/p>\n But without vision, there\u2019s nothing to buy into. At a workshop in Tahiti, an elder spoke about finding unity of purpose while maintaining uniqueness. That really stuck with me\u2014celebrating unity and diversity together.<\/p>\n SURMA: That treaty followed a series of national laws in New Zealand recognizing ecosystems as legal persons. Is the treaty related to those developments?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: In concept the treaty aligns with New Zealand\u2019s legal personhood work\u2014for a forest, Te Urewera; the Whanganui River, Te Awa Tupua; and more recently a mountain, Taranaki Maunga (Te K\u0101hui Tupua).<\/p>\n The idea of personhood as granted by a government is an imperfect expression of Indigenous worldviews and aspirations, but it\u2019s far better than anything we had before. Politics is the art of what\u2019s possible\u2014how you take a beautiful idea and bring it into reality.<\/p>\n It comes down to where authority lies. From a M\u0101ori perspective, a river\u2019s authority to be a river comes from the river itself. Tupua (from Te Awa Tupua Act) are more ancient and powerful than people. In a legal framework, that authority comes from the government. That\u2019s the simplest way to explain it.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, it\u2019s about healthy oceans\u2014without that, you don\u2019t have healthy whales.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the legal personhood framework has empowered people. Communities are absolutely in a better place than before. But there\u2019s still a tension. People know the river is their ancestor. That understanding predates the law. \u201cI am the river, and the river is me.\u201d<\/p>\n We have a similar saying where I\u2019m from. \u201cNoo taatou te awa, noo te awa taatou\u201d\u2014we, and the \u201cwe\u201d includes the river, are the river, and the river is us. On balance, yes, we\u2019re better off. But it\u2019s still a stepping stone. We\u2019re on a journey.<\/p>\n SURMA: Do you see the Declaration for the Ocean treaty\u2014being entirely between Indigenous nations\u2014as different?\u00a0<\/p>\n HIKUROA: Yeah, I believe it is. They\u2019re not seeking recognition from nation-states in the usual way. As Indigenous peoples, we draw our identity from place. We are that river; that river is us. We are that mountain, that mountain is us. We are that whale, that whale is us.<\/p>\n So when we draw from that sovereign nation framing, it\u2019s about being part of nature rather than apart from nature. The declaration is trying to speak on behalf of the whales.<\/p>\n Arguably, the greatest strength of the declaration\u2014and its greatest weakness\u2014is that it operates outside the current geopolitical nation-state system. That\u2019s where lawyers start asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s the legal precedent for this?\u201d<\/p>\n We could respond by saying that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was fundamentally based\u2014though never explicitly\u2014on the principle of mare nullius: the idea that the ocean was empty. That framing comes from a particular worldview.<\/p>\n Another worldview says the ocean is the great marae<\/a> that connects us all. It\u2019s an ancestor. It\u2019s living. For most, if not all, peoples in the Pacific, the ocean was never empty. For many M\u0101ori, Tangaroa is the deity of ocean life. The physical ocean is Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The personification of the ocean is Hinemoana.<\/p>\n So the idea of the ocean as a person has existed for a long time. This isn\u2019t borrowing from a Western legal tradition\u2014it\u2019s expressing how we see the world. That worldview doesn\u2019t have boundaries, exclusive economic zones or nautical miles\u2014no one told the whales about those lines on maps.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what makes it exciting: It draws from a fundamentally different worldview. But it\u2019s also the challenge\u2014breaking through the invisibility of the assumptions behind ocean governance that\u2019s framed from the land.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit absurd, really, to name a planet Earth, that\u2019s actually 70 percent water as if land is the defining feature. But you get my point.<\/p>\n SURMA: Some Indigenous communities in the Amazon are pushing for a rights-of-the-Amazon declaration<\/a> among Amazonian governments. Part of what\u2019s so interesting about that is that they are getting people to stop thinking of the forest as sliced into countries and to start seeing it as a biome. What you just said reminded me of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n HIKUROA: Yes. The first task is challenging the idea that the legal system we have is the only one we should have. That\u2019s job one.<\/p>\n The second is recognizing that other systems of knowing, being and doing\u2014and relating to whales and oceans\u2014have existed for a very long time. If we can accept the first point, we can then ask whether the systems we rely on now might actually be part of the problem.<\/p>\n SURMA: What is the place of whales in M\u0101ori culture?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: For some groups in New Zealand, whales are ancestors.<\/p>\n On the East Cape of the North Island, some tribes see humpback whales as ancestors\u2014manifestations of Paikea, one of their eponymous chiefs. That\u2019s one form of relationship.<\/p>\n Where this aligns well is with whales as charismatic megafauna. Conservation organizations have leveraged that effectively\u2014Save the Whales campaigns, Project Jonah, WWF. It\u2019s a fortunate overlap with Indigenous perspectives.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also that recent David Attenborough ocean film\u2014cinematically beautiful and message-wise deeply depressing.<\/p>\n SURMA: We\u2019ve been talking about legal expressions, but are you seeing other dimensions of system change\u2014economic or otherwise\u2014where Indigenous worldviews are being expressed?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: Yes. For nearly a decade I\u2019ve worked loosely with groups across New Zealand, the Pacific and Australia around the idea of rights for the ocean\u2014though I\u2019m more comfortable with \u201cvoice of the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n Indigenous approaches don\u2019t usually speak in terms of rights. We think in terms of responsibilities and speaking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n In New Zealand, we talk about enjoying the bounty of land and sea through user privileges\u2014never ownership. Those privileges immediately come with responsibilities.<\/p>\n Rights language overlaps, but responsibilities often get lost or reduced to compliance. We\u2019ve just seen that with freshwater regulations<\/a> here\u2014they\u2019ve set us back decades, in our view.<\/p>\n The idea emerging from Te Awa Tupua is that first, a river has the right to be a river\u2014clean water, seasonal flow. Then we can talk about user privileges, and only later about industrial or commercial use. That hierarchy has been flipped back around, and experience shows that it leads to degradation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe value of weaving systems together starts with acknowledging that Western science exists within a worldview\u2014something I was never taught during my scientific training.\u201d<\/p>\n Another thing is the renaissance of traditional navigation in the Pacific. These voyagers were among the first to notice ocean change and have been vocal in calling attention to it. There are Polynesian voyaging societies across the Pacific, including in Hawai\u02bbi. Many groups built their own waka hourua ocean-going double-hulled canoes, and a philanthropist funded seven. Immense work is going in navigator training. Those waka hourua are now spread across the Pacific. Their work aligns strongly with ocean personhood ideas, even if it\u2019s not framed that way.<\/p>\n SURMA: Your work has also focused on weaving together Indigenous traditional knowledge with Western science. Do you see rights of nature as a manifestation of that?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: Absolutely. Western science provided the rationale for colonization and imperial dominion\u2014the great chain of being<\/a>, human dominance over nature. That worldview underpins both legal systems and scientific framing.<\/p>\n The value of weaving systems together starts with acknowledging that Western science exists within a worldview\u2014something I was never taught during my scientific training.<\/p>\n Once you recognize that, you can accept that others have different worldviews. When someone says, \u201cI am the river,\u201d it sounds like nonsense unless you recognize your own assumptions.<\/p>\n The question shouldn\u2019t be who\u2019s right or wrong, but how different ways of knowing can help us understand the river\u2014especially in today\u2019s context.<\/p>\n Sometimes the weaving works; sometimes it doesn\u2019t. That\u2019s OK. The key is being clear about when and why it does or doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Earth systems science and environmental humanities strongly support rights- or voice-of-nature thinking.<\/p>\n I once gave a talk in Adelaide and was invited afterward to help launch an environmental humanities program in Stockholm. I\u2019d never heard the term\u2014but it turns out my work matched it exactly. I understood it as Earth systems science. Different disciplines, same framing.<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n SURMA: What do you mean by Earth systems science?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: After we went to the moon and looked back at Earth, we began to see it as an interconnected system.<\/p>\n Universities are structured by disciplines, which has value\u2014but what was missing was systems thinking. Earth systems science looks at interactions among atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and so on.<\/p>\n The point isn\u2019t the number of \u201cspheres,\u201d but the mindset: how changes in one part ripple through the whole. Environmental humanities shares that framing, just with different tools.<\/p>\n SURMA: Does that connect back to whales\u2019 legal personhood?<\/p>\n HIKUROA: Yes. The conceptual framework for legal personality for whales fits beautifully within Earth systems and environmental humanities framings\u2014seeing whales, oceans and ecosystems as interconnected.<\/p>\n SURMA: Different countries have different legal contexts. In some places the idea has taken off; in others, like the United States, it\u2019s been blocked. How much does a country\u2019s legal structure matter for advancing rights of nature-style laws?<\/p>\n![\"M\u0101ori](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_1160-731x1024.jpg\"\/)
M\u0101ori scientist Daniel Hikuroa.<\/p>\n![\"\u201cAs](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Dan-Hikuroa_017-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
\u201cAs Indigenous peoples, we draw our identity from place. We are that river; that river is us,\u201d said Daniel Hikuroa. Credit: Elise Manahan<\/p>\n
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