The Whanganui River has become the first in the world to be granted the legal status of a person. "We've always fought for the mana of the river,"says the lead negotiator for Whanganui iwi, Gerrard Albert."We treat the river as a tupuna, as an ancestor, and we needed to find something that would approxiamate that in law and uphold it. And from there, ensure that people understand it and work with it."