Rivers Gain Legal Rights to Fight Corporate Exploitation
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📰 The quick summary: Rivers are gaining legal personhood status in various parts of the world, recognizing their rights as living entities and providing a framework to protect them from corporate and governmental exploitation.
📈 One key stat: New Zealand’s 2017 Te Awa Tupua Act legally recognized the Whanganui River as alive and an ancestor to the Whanganui tribe, establishing a global precedent for river rights.
💬 One key quote: “It seems crazy that we give a corporation that’s ten years old rights, but we won’t give rights to a ten-thousand-year-old river,” declares Innu poet, artist, therapist, river guide and mystic Lydia Mestokosho-Paradis.
1️⃣ The big picture: Robert Macfarlane’s new book “Is a River Alive?” explores the emerging legal movement to grant rivers and natural entities the same rights corporations enjoy. He travels to four troubled rivers across the globe – from England’s River Cam to Ecuador’s Los Cedros, India’s Chennai rivers, and Quebec’s Magpie River. The book showcases how climate change, privatization, mining, and dam construction threaten these waterways. Each location features environmental advocates fighting for a radical shift in how we legally view nature – as what ecologist Thomas Berry calls “a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”
2️⃣ Why is this good news: The rights of nature movement is gaining momentum globally, with several landmark legal victories already achieved. Ecuador enshrined nature’s rights in its 2008 constitution, potentially protecting rivers from destructive mining. New Zealand passed groundbreaking legislation in 2017 recognizing the Whanganui River as a living ancestor with legal personhood. These precedents inspire similar efforts worldwide to secure legal protection for rivers against corporate exploitation. This shift in legal thinking offers a powerful framework that aligns with indigenous wisdom traditions that have long viewed rivers as living entities deserving protection.
3️⃣ What’s next: Macfarlane’s book raises essential questions that need answers: Who can speak for rivers in court? What specific rights should rivers hold? What penalties should exist when these rights are violated? Resolving these questions will determine whether the rights of nature movement can deliver meaningful protection for the world’s threatened waterways.
Read the full story here: The Conversation – Could a river sue a corporation? Robert Macfarlane’s books change the world – now he’s advocating for the world’s waterways
