Reclaiming nature’s rights

Abstract

International conferences, projects and protests have so far failed to stop the catastrophic destruction of our planet’s natural environment and biodiversity. Could legal rights for rivers and landscapes protect them from pollution and devastation? Michael Gross reports. International conferences, projects and protests have so far failed to stop the catastrophic destruction of our planet’s natural environment and biodiversity. Could legal rights for rivers and landscapes protect them from pollution and devastation? Michael Gross reports. Main textAs the UK got ready to host the 26th UN climate summit in Glasgow (COP26), set for another deal not doing nearly enough to stop the climate catastrophe from happening, there was only a moderate surge in public debate on climate issues. Even the blatantly climate-damaging measure of reducing the price of domestic flights didn’t cause more than a ripple of disdain. But then a different environmental issue unexpectedly exploded in the hosting government’s face.The UK water utilities had admitted to 400,000 events of discharging raw sewage into rivers and the sea in a year, even though they are only allowed to do so in exceptional circumstances, such as after torrential rainfall. A new environment bill debated in parliament contained requirements for monitoring and reporting but no duty to reduce the sewage spills. It looked like parliament was about to let the companies get away with polluting the rivers when photos and video footage of the very unsightly mess that they produced started to flood social media. A groundswell of anger reaching across the political spectrum forced the government into reconsidering the bill and promising to force the companies to reduce the number of exceptional events.Investment will be needed to upgrade the infrastructure to cope with population increase and more frequent heavy rain caused by warmer oceans. Environment campaigners have pointed out that the water utilities had been privatised in 1991 and had since then funnelled 57 billion pounds into shareholders’ pockets rather than investing in the upgrades that could have avoided the current problems.The environmental concern won this debate for now, but it remains to be seen whether this translates to better sewers and cleaner beaches in the future. Anglers and wild swimmers may not constitute an economic power that could defeat the financial interests of the utility companies. Would it help then, one may wonder, if rivers had a legal right not to get polluted?Rights of riversThe parliament of New Zealand gave the Whanganui River rights as an independent entity in 2017, as part of a settlement reached with the Ma–ori people after eight years of negotiations. The law transfers ownership of the riverbed to the river itself and requires the appointment of legal guardians that can enforce its rights. Three years earlier, the Te Urewera forest became New Zealand’s first environmental legal person, essentially owning its own land.The concept of environmental personhood chimes with the worldview of the Ma–ori people, who often regard a specific river or mountain as an ancestor of their tribe or family group. It bridges the Indigenous philosophy with the Western ideas of law and economy, as it also draws on the idea of corporations as legal persons, which is established in law in the US and other countries.Where the line is to be drawn between these conflicting interests remains to be determined. For instance, the Whanganui River does not have the legal ownership of its water, such that a hydroelectric facility can continue to use much of its flow as it did before; an issue that has already raised concerns. However, the river can sue polluters, and this has inspired campaigners around the world to look into the possibility of similar rights for their favourite waterways.Swamped: The Boggy Branch is one of five water courses in Orange County, Florida, USA, that are named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a property developer. (Photo: Luke Dilley/Flickr (CC BY 2.0).)View Large Image Figure ViewerDownload Hi-res image Download (PPT)Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria also set up a legal protection construct for the Yarra River, although it stopped short of giving the river personhood. The Yarra, which flows into the Southern Ocean at Melbourne, had suffered from mining and industrialisation during the Victorian gold rush. As part of the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, the state set up the Birrarung Council as a statutory advisory body, including at least two traditional owners. The act calls for a strategic plan for the management and protection of the river. Like the Whanganui legislation, it seeks to bridge the views of Indigenous and Western cultures.In the wake of the Whanganui legislation news, environmentalists around the world have looked into similar possibilities. In a referendum held together with the 2020 US presidential election, the voters in Orange County, Florida, conferred their waterways the right to exist, flow, be protected from pollution and maintain a healthy ecosystem. These rights are currently being tested, as citizens have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five waterways in the county to stop a planned housing development from destroying or polluting the wetlands.Elsewhere in the US, the city of Toledo, Ohio, had granted legal rights to Lake Erie in 2019, after toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural pollution had repeatedly affected the city’s drinking water supply. However, the US legal and political system swiftly responded to strike down the legislation within a year. In a detailed legal analysis of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), Kenneth Gilbert from the University of Toledo College of Law “describes and evaluates how all three branches of government — judicial, executive and legislative — played roles in killing LEBOR”. He comes to the conclusion, however, “that LEBOR, a well-intentioned albeit legally flawed ordinance, remains significant even after its demise” (Ohio State Law J. (2020) 81, 227–237). Although he admits that, “at this stage it is not clear what legal advantages a ‘rights of nature’ law confers for fighting pollution or protecting a natural resource”, the author concludes that it is likely to give procedural and rhetorical advantages in future legal proceedings against polluters.Ironically, a major hurdle for the rights of nature movement in the US arises from the very same legal construct that inspired it: the rights of corporations. In the case of Lake Erie, the right of the lake not to get polluted and that of major agricultural producers in rural Michigan to maximise their output are in direct conflict with each other, so it wasn’t too surprising that the lake lost out.Lastly, campaigners in the Netherlands have recently launched a petition to confer legal rights to the river Maas (Meuse). As the river also flows through France and Belgium, observers have warned that this might be an issue to take to the European Union.Nature’s rightsIn South America, the cultural connection of the Indigenous population to the natural environment is somewhat different from that in New Zealand and in Australia, and this may explain why Ecuador and Bolivia came to define rights of nature from a different angle.In 2008, Ecuador changed its constitution to acknowledge rights of nature, and this was followed by a similar move by neighbouring Bolivia. In both Andean nations, the change reflected the growing political influence of the Indigenous population. Both confer rights to Pachamama, representing nature as a kind of Earth deity. Although these legislations don’t make nature a legal person, they limit the rights of humans to dominate nature — a claim that colonisers had brought to the continent as part of the European understanding of the Biblical call to “subdue the Earth”.Following the Indigenous philosophy makes sense as the remaining wilderness in the Amazon is crucial for limiting the effects of the climate catastrophe and the Indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest are recognised as its best advocates and guardians (Curr. Biol. (2021) 31, R821–R824).The first legal test for Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature was passed in 2011, when a lawsuit was filed and won on behalf of the Vilcabamba River against a road project.In Mexico, several state governments, including Colima in 2019 and Oaxaca in 2021, have passed constitutional amendments to recognise general rights of nature. In Oaxaca, and according to the Earth Law Center, which has an office in Mexico City and was involved in the legal preparations, these include “the right to preservation, the right to protection of its elements, the right to exercise its vital and natural cycles and its ecological functions, the right to integral restoration of its ecological balance, and the right to be legally represented”.AnimalsIt might be less of a conceptual leap to confer legal rights to animals as representatives of nature as opposed to rivers or other landscape features. Although there is a strong animal rights movement objecting to direct exploitation of animals in various contexts, such as farming and laboratory experiments, there are only a few examples of legal rights being attributed to wild animals in their natural environment.Recently, Colombia’s feral hippos, originating from the menagerie of drugs boss Pablo Escobar, made headlines again. Their presence and population growth have divided expert opinion, with some ecologists arguing that they can fill in specific functions of extinct native megafauna, while others are worried about their impact on the local environment and conflicts with humans (Curr. Biol. (2020) 30, R329–R331). A government sterilisation programme is now aiming to limit their population growth.As a possible cull or sterilisation of the animals was discussed, a US-based animal rights organisation, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, went to court and obtained the recognition of the hippos as “interested persons” in the case. This may affect the ability of US experts taking part in the programme, but it has no bearing on what the Colombian government decides to do with the hippos.More human-like animals, such as great apes, have been given some rights in countries including Spain, New Zealand and the UK. These, however, are designed to protect the animals from use in experiments rather than in their natural environment.Right or wrong?Rights conferred to rivers, forests or invasive hippos are currently successful in attracting media attention to environmental problems because these cases are still unusual and thus newsworthy. If it became the norm for every river and forest to be a legal person, would it actually help? The case of Lake Erie has shown that corporate interests are still more powerful than nature’s interests, so legally personified natural entities may still be heading for disappointments in courts.The usefulness of the concept, however, lies in its ability to bridge the traditional holistic understanding of nature, still prevalent among Indigenous populations in South America and New Zealand, and the Western business culture that dominates thinking in corporations.Previously, the concept of ecosystem services had already enabled scientists to quantify the usefulness of unspoilt nature for the economy, translating it into hard financial figures (Curr. Biol. (2011) 21, R525–R527). Similarly, the rights of nature movement can translate the idea of intact nature worthy of conservation into the second language that corporations understand — that of laws and litigations.Explaining the concept to European Parliament in 2018, Mumta Ito, co-founder of Nature’s Rights, said: “We need laws that recognise the intrinsic value of nature, and the way to do that is [through] legal personality, recognition of nature’s rights, and a legal framework that aligns with ecology to sustain life”.Unlimited corporate ambition has led us to the state where 26 global conferences have failed to put an end to the ongoing climate catastrophe. The situation is similarly dramatic for biodiversity loss building up to become a mass extinction. With financial and legal arguments, nature’s defenders can start communicating with corporate interests and ultimately stop them from destroying our planet. Main textAs the UK got ready to host the 26th UN climate summit in Glasgow (COP26), set for another deal not doing nearly enough to stop the climate catastrophe from happening, there was only a moderate surge in public debate on climate issues. Even the blatantly climate-damaging measure of reducing the price of domestic flights didn’t cause more than a ripple of disdain. But then a different environmental issue unexpectedly exploded in the hosting government’s face.The UK water utilities had admitted to 400,000 events of discharging raw sewage into rivers and the sea in a year, even though they are only allowed to do so in exceptional circumstances, such as after torrential rainfall. A new environment bill debated in parliament contained requirements for monitoring and reporting but no duty to reduce the sewage spills. It looked like parliament was about to let the companies get away with polluting the rivers when photos and video footage of the very unsightly mess that they produced started to flood social media. A groundswell of anger reaching across the political spectrum forced the government into reconsidering the bill and promising to force the companies to reduce the number of exceptional events.Investment will be needed to upgrade the infrastructure to cope with population increase and more frequent heavy rain caused by warmer oceans. Environment campaigners have pointed out that the water utilities had been privatised in 1991 and had since then funnelled 57 billion pounds into shareholders’ pockets rather than investing in the upgrades that could have avoided the current problems.The environmental concern won this debate for now, but it remains to be seen whether this translates to better sewers and cleaner beaches in the future. Anglers and wild swimmers may not constitute an economic power that could defeat the financial interests of the utility companies. Would it help then, one may wonder, if rivers had a legal right not to get polluted?Rights of riversThe parliament of New Zealand gave the Whanganui River rights as an independent entity in 2017, as part of a settlement reached with the Ma–ori people after eight years of negotiations. The law transfers ownership of the riverbed to the river itself and requires the appointment of legal guardians that can enforce its rights. Three years earlier, the Te Urewera forest became New Zealand’s first environmental legal person, essentially owning its own land.The concept of environmental personhood chimes with the worldview of the Ma–ori people, who often regard a specific river or mountain as an ancestor of their tribe or family group. It bridges the Indigenous philosophy with the Western ideas of law and economy, as it also draws on the idea of corporations as legal persons, which is established in law in the US and other countries.Where the line is to be drawn between these conflicting interests remains to be determined. For instance, the Whanganui River does not have the legal ownership of its water, such that a hydroelectric facility can continue to use much of its flow as it did before; an issue that has already raised concerns. However, the river can sue polluters, and this has inspired campaigners around the world to look into the possibility of similar rights for their favourite waterways.Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria also set up a legal protection construct for the Yarra River, although it stopped short of giving the river personhood. The Yarra, which flows into the Southern Ocean at Melbourne, had suffered from mining and industrialisation during the Victorian gold rush. As part of the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, the state set up the Birrarung Council as a statutory advisory body, including at least two traditional owners. The act calls for a strategic plan for the management and protection of the river. Like the Whanganui legislation, it seeks to bridge the views of Indigenous and Western cultures.In the wake of the Whanganui legislation news, environmentalists around the world have looked into similar possibilities. In a referendum held together with the 2020 US presidential election, the voters in Orange County, Florida, conferred their waterways the right to exist, flow, be protected from pollution and maintain a healthy ecosystem. These rights are currently being tested, as citizens have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five waterways in the county to stop a planned housing development from destroying or polluting the wetlands.Elsewhere in the US, the city of Toledo, Ohio, had granted legal rights to Lake Erie in 2019, after toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural pollution had repeatedly affected the city’s drinking water supply. However, the US legal and political system swiftly responded to strike down the legislation within a year. In a detailed legal analysis of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), Kenneth Gilbert from the University of Toledo College of Law “describes and evaluates how all three branches of government — judicial, executive and legislative — played roles in killing LEBOR”. He comes to the conclusion, however, “that LEBOR, a well-intentioned albeit legally flawed ordinance, remains significant even after its demise” (Ohio State Law J. (2020) 81, 227–237). Although he admits that, “at this stage it is not clear what legal advantages a ‘rights of nature’ law confers for fighting pollution or protecting a natural resource”, the author concludes that it is likely to give procedural and rhetorical advantages in future legal proceedings against polluters.Ironically, a major hurdle for the rights of nature movement in the US arises from the very same legal construct that inspired it: the rights of corporations. In the case of Lake Erie, the right of the lake not to get polluted and that of major agricultural producers in rural Michigan to maximise their output are in direct conflict with each other, so it wasn’t too surprising that the lake lost out.Lastly, campaigners in the Netherlands have recently launched a petition to confer legal rights to the river Maas (Meuse). As the river also flows through France and Belgium, observers have warned that this might be an issue to take to the European Union.Nature’s rightsIn South America, the cultural connection of the Indigenous population to the natural environment is somewhat different from that in New Zealand and in Australia, and this may explain why Ecuador and Bolivia came to define rights of nature from a different angle.In 2008, Ecuador changed its constitution to acknowledge rights of nature, and this was followed by a similar move by neighbouring Bolivia. In both Andean nations, the change reflected the growing political influence of the Indigenous population. Both confer rights to Pachamama, representing nature as a kind of Earth deity. Although these legislations don’t make nature a legal person, they limit the rights of humans to dominate nature — a claim that colonisers had brought to the continent as part of the European understanding of the Biblical call to “subdue the Earth”.Following the Indigenous philosophy makes sense as the remaining wilderness in the Amazon is crucial for limiting the effects of the climate catastrophe and the Indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest are recognised as its best advocates and guardians (Curr. Biol. (2021) 31, R821–R824).The first legal test for Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature was passed in 2011, when a lawsuit was filed and won on behalf of the Vilcabamba River against a road project.In Mexico, several state governments, including Colima in 2019 and Oaxaca in 2021, have passed constitutional amendments to recognise general rights of nature. In Oaxaca, and according to the Earth Law Center, which has an office in Mexico City and was involved in the legal preparations, these include “the right to preservation, the right to protection of its elements, the right to exercise its vital and natural cycles and its ecological functions, the right to integral restoration of its ecological balance, and the right to be legally represented”.AnimalsIt might be less of a conceptual leap to confer legal rights to animals as representatives of nature as opposed to rivers or other landscape features. Although there is a strong animal rights movement objecting to direct exploitation of animals in various contexts, such as farming and laboratory experiments, there are only a few examples of legal rights being attributed to wild animals in their natural environment.Recently, Colombia’s feral hippos, originating from the menagerie of drugs boss Pablo Escobar, made headlines again. Their presence and population growth have divided expert opinion, with some ecologists arguing that they can fill in specific functions of extinct native megafauna, while others are worried about their impact on the local environment and conflicts with humans (Curr. Biol. (2020) 30, R329–R331). A government sterilisation programme is now aiming to limit their population growth.As a possible cull or sterilisation of the animals was discussed, a US-based animal rights organisation, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, went to court and obtained the recognition of the hippos as “interested persons” in the case. This may affect the ability of US experts taking part in the programme, but it has no bearing on what the Colombian government decides to do with the hippos.More human-like animals, such as great apes, have been given some rights in countries including Spain, New Zealand and the UK. These, however, are designed to protect the animals from use in experiments rather than in their natural environment.Right or wrong?Rights conferred to rivers, forests or invasive hippos are currently successful in attracting media attention to environmental problems because these cases are still unusual and thus newsworthy. If it became the norm for every river and forest to be a legal person, would it actually help? The case of Lake Erie has shown that corporate interests are still more powerful than nature’s interests, so legally personified natural entities may still be heading for disappointments in courts.The usefulness of the concept, however, lies in its ability to bridge the traditional holistic understanding of nature, still prevalent among Indigenous populations in South America and New Zealand, and the Western business culture that dominates thinking in corporations.Previously, the concept of ecosystem services had already enabled scientists to quantify the usefulness of unspoilt nature for the economy, translating it into hard financial figures (Curr. Biol. (2011) 21, R525–R527). Similarly, the rights of nature movement can translate the idea of intact nature worthy of conservation into the second language that corporations understand — that of laws and litigations.Explaining the concept to European Parliament in 2018, Mumta Ito, co-founder of Nature’s Rights, said: “We need laws that recognise the intrinsic value of nature, and the way to do that is [through] legal personality, recognition of nature’s rights, and a legal framework that aligns with ecology to sustain life”.Unlimited corporate ambition has led us to the state where 26 global conferences have failed to put an end to the ongoing climate catastrophe. The situation is similarly dramatic for biodiversity loss building up to become a mass extinction. With financial and legal arguments, nature’s defenders can start communicating with corporate interests and ultimately stop them from destroying our planet. As the UK got ready to host the 26th UN climate summit in Glasgow (COP26), set for another deal not doing nearly enough to stop the climate catastrophe from happening, there was only a moderate surge in public debate on climate issues. Even the blatantly climate-damaging measure of reducing the price of domestic flights didn’t cause more than a ripple of disdain. But then a different environmental issue unexpectedly exploded in the hosting government’s face. The UK water utilities had admitted to 400,000 events of discharging raw sewage into rivers and the sea in a year, even though they are only allowed to do so in exceptional circumstances, such as after torrential rainfall. A new environment bill debated in parliament contained requirements for monitoring and reporting but no duty to reduce the sewage spills. It looked like parliament was about to let the companies get away with polluting the rivers when photos and video footage of the very unsightly mess that they produced started to flood social media. A groundswell of anger reaching across the political spectrum forced the government into reconsidering the bill and promising to force the companies to reduce the number of exceptional events. Investment will be needed to upgrade the infrastructure to cope with population increase and more frequent heavy rain caused by warmer oceans. Environment campaigners have pointed out that the water utilities had been privatised in 1991 and had since then funnelled 57 billion pounds into shareholders’ pockets rather than investing in the upgrades that could have avoided the current problems. The environmental concern won this debate for now, but it remains to be seen whether this translates to better sewers and cleaner beaches in the future. Anglers and wild swimmers may not constitute an economic power that could defeat the financial interests of the utility companies. Would it help then, one may wonder, if rivers had a legal right not to get polluted? Rights of riversThe parliament of New Zealand gave the Whanganui River rights as an independent entity in 2017, as part of a settlement reached with the Ma–ori people after eight years of negotiations. The law transfers ownership of the riverbed to the river itself and requires the appointment of legal guardians that can enforce its rights. Three years earlier, the Te Urewera forest became New Zealand’s first environmental legal person, essentially owning its own land.The concept of environmental personhood chimes with the worldview of the Ma–ori people, who often regard a specific river or mountain as an ancestor of their tribe or family group. It bridges the Indigenous philosophy with the Western ideas of law and economy, as it also draws on the idea of corporations as legal persons, which is established in law in the US and other countries.Where the line is to be drawn between these conflicting interests remains to be determined. For instance, the Whanganui River does not have the legal ownership of its water, such that a hydroelectric facility can continue to use much of its flow as it did before; an issue that has already raised concerns. However, the river can sue polluters, and this has inspired campaigners around the world to look into the possibility of similar rights for their favourite waterways.Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria also set up a legal protection construct for the Yarra River, although it stopped short of giving the river personhood. The Yarra, which flows into the Southern Ocean at Melbourne, had suffered from mining and industrialisation during the Victorian gold rush. As part of the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, the state set up the Birrarung Council as a statutory advisory body, including at least two traditional owners. The act calls for a strategic plan for the management and protection of the river. Like the Whanganui legislation, it seeks to bridge the views of Indigenous and Western cultures.In the wake of the Whanganui legislation news, environmentalists around the world have looked into similar possibilities. In a referendum held together with the 2020 US presidential election, the voters in Orange County, Florida, conferred their waterways the right to exist, flow, be protected from pollution and maintain a healthy ecosystem. These rights are currently being tested, as citizens have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five waterways in the county to stop a planned housing development from destroying or polluting the wetlands.Elsewhere in the US, the city of Toledo, Ohio, had granted legal rights to Lake Erie in 2019, after toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural pollution had repeatedly affected the city’s drinking water supply. However, the US legal and political system swiftly responded to strike down the legislation within a year. In a detailed legal analysis of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), Kenneth Gilbert from the University of Toledo College of Law “describes and evaluates how all three branches of government — judicial, executive and legislative — played roles in killing LEBOR”. He comes to the conclusion, however, “that LEBOR, a well-intentioned albeit legally flawed ordinance, remains significant even after its demise” (Ohio State Law J. (2020) 81, 227–237). Although he admits that, “at this stage it is not clear what legal advantages a ‘rights of nature’ law confers for fighting pollution or protecting a natural resource”, the author concludes that it is likely to give procedural and rhetorical advantages in future legal proceedings against polluters.Ironically, a major hurdle for the rights of nature movement in the US arises from the very same legal construct that inspired it: the rights of corporations. In the case of Lake Erie, the right of the lake not to get polluted and that of major agricultural producers in rural Michigan to maximise their output are in direct conflict with each other, so it wasn’t too surprising that the lake lost out.Lastly, campaigners in the Netherlands have recently launched a petition to confer legal rights to the river Maas (Meuse). As the river also flows through France and Belgium, observers have warned that this might be an issue to take to the European Union. The parliament of New Zealand gave the Whanganui River rights as an independent entity in 2017, as part of a settlement reached with the Ma–ori people after eight years of negotiations. The law transfers ownership of the riverbed to the river itself and requires the appointment of legal guardians that can enforce its rights. Three years earlier, the Te Urewera forest became New Zealand’s first environmental legal person, essentially owning its own land. The concept of environmental personhood chimes with the worldview of the Ma–ori people, who often regard a specific river or mountain as an ancestor of their tribe or family group. It bridges the Indigenous philosophy with the Western ideas of law and economy, as it also draws on the idea of corporations as legal persons, which is established in law in the US and other countries. Where the line is to be drawn between these conflicting interests remains to be determined. For instance, the Whanganui River does not have the legal ownership of its water, such that a hydroelectric facility can continue to use much of its flow as it did before; an issue that has already raised concerns. However, the river can sue polluters, and this has inspired campaigners around the world to look into the possibility of similar rights for their favourite waterways. Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria also set up a legal protection construct for the Yarra River, although it stopped short of giving the river personhood. The Yarra, which flows into the Southern Ocean at Melbourne, had suffered from mining and industrialisation during the Victorian gold rush. As part of the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, the state set up the Birrarung Council as a statutory advisory body, including at least two traditional owners. The act calls for a strategic plan for the management and protection of the river. Like the Whanganui legislation, it seeks to bridge the views of Indigenous and Western cultures. In the wake of the Whanganui legislation news, environmentalists around the world have looked into similar possibilities. In a referendum held together with the 2020 US presidential election, the voters in Orange County, Florida, conferred their waterways the right to exist, flow, be protected from pollution and maintain a healthy ecosystem. These rights are currently being tested, as citizens have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five waterways in the county to stop a planned housing development from destroying or polluting the wetlands. Elsewhere in the US, the city of Toledo, Ohio, had granted legal rights to Lake Erie in 2019, after toxic algal blooms caused by agricultural pollution had repeatedly affected the city’s drinking water supply. However, the US legal and political system swiftly responded to strike down the legislation within a year. In a detailed legal analysis of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), Kenneth Gilbert from the University of Toledo College of Law “describes and evaluates how all three branches of government — judicial, executive and legislative — played roles in killing LEBOR”. He comes to the conclusion, however, “that LEBOR, a well-intentioned albeit legally flawed ordinance, remains significant even after its demise” (Ohio State Law J. (2020) 81, 227–237). Although he admits that, “at this stage it is not clear what legal advantages a ‘rights of nature’ law confers for fighting pollution or protecting a natural resource”, the author concludes that it is likely to give procedural and rhetorical advantages in future legal proceedings against polluters. Ironically, a major hurdle for the rights of nature movement in the US arises from the very same legal construct that inspired it: the rights of corporations. In the case of Lake Erie, the right of the lake not to get polluted and that of major agricultural producers in rural Michigan to maximise their output are in direct conflict with each other, so it wasn’t too surprising that the lake lost out. Lastly, campaigners in the Netherlands have recently launched a petition to confer legal rights to the river Maas (Meuse). As the river also flows through France and Belgium, observers have warned that this might be an issue to take to the European Union. Nature’s rightsIn South America, the cultural connection of the Indigenous population to the natural environment is somewhat different from that in New Zealand and in Australia, and this may explain why Ecuador and Bolivia came to define rights of nature from a different angle.In 2008, Ecuador changed its constitution to acknowledge rights of nature, and this was followed by a similar move by neighbouring Bolivia. In both Andean nations, the change reflected the growing political influence of the Indigenous population. Both confer rights to Pachamama, representing nature as a kind of Earth deity. Although these legislations don’t make nature a legal person, they limit the rights of humans to dominate nature — a claim that colonisers had brought to the continent as part of the European understanding of the Biblical call to “subdue the Earth”.Following the Indigenous philosophy makes sense as the remaining wilderness in the Amazon is crucial for limiting the effects of the climate catastrophe and the Indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest are recognised as its best advocates and guardians (Curr. Biol. (2021) 31, R821–R824).The first legal test for Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature was passed in 2011, when a lawsuit was filed and won on behalf of the Vilcabamba River against a road project.In Mexico, several state governments, including Colima in 2019 and Oaxaca in 2021, have passed constitutional amendments to recognise general rights of nature. In Oaxaca, and according to the Earth Law Center, which has an office in Mexico City and was involved in the legal preparations, these include “the right to preservation, the right to protection of its elements, the right to exercise its vital and natural cycles and its ecological functions, the right to integral restoration of its ecological balance, and the right to be legally represented”. In South America, the cultural connection of the Indigenous population to the natural environment is somewhat different from that in New Zealand and in Australia, and this may explain why Ecuador and Bolivia came to define rights of nature from a different angle. In 2008, Ecuador changed its constitution to acknowledge rights of nature, and this was followed by a similar move by neighbouring Bolivia. In both Andean nations, the change reflected the growing political influence of the Indigenous population. Both confer rights to Pachamama, representing nature as a kind of Earth deity. Although these legislations don’t make nature a legal person, they limit the rights of humans to dominate nature — a claim that colonisers had brought to the continent as part of the European understanding of the Biblical call to “subdue the Earth”. Following the Indigenous philosophy makes sense as the remaining wilderness in the Amazon is crucial for limiting the effects of the climate catastrophe and the Indigenous inhabitants of the rainforest are recognised as its best advocates and guardians (Curr. Biol. (2021) 31, R821–R824). The first legal test for Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature was passed in 2011, when a lawsuit was filed and won on behalf of the Vilcabamba River against a road project. In Mexico, several state governments, including Colima in 2019 and Oaxaca in 2021, have passed constitutional amendments to recognise general rights of nature. In Oaxaca, and according to the Earth Law Center, which has an office in Mexico City and was involved in the legal preparations, these include “the right to preservation, the right to protection of its elements, the right to exercise its vital and natural cycles and its ecological functions, the right to integral restoration of its ecological balance, and the right to be legally represented”. AnimalsIt might be less of a conceptual leap to confer legal rights to animals as representatives of nature as opposed to rivers or other landscape features. Although there is a strong animal rights movement objecting to direct exploitation of animals in various contexts, such as farming and laboratory experiments, there are only a few examples of legal rights being attributed to wild animals in their natural environment.Recently, Colombia’s feral hippos, originating from the menagerie of drugs boss Pablo Escobar, made headlines again. Their presence and population growth have divided expert opinion, with some ecologists arguing that they can fill in specific functions of extinct native megafauna, while others are worried about their impact on the local environment and conflicts with humans (Curr. Biol. (2020) 30, R329–R331). A government sterilisation programme is now aiming to limit their population growth.As a possible cull or sterilisation of the animals was discussed, a US-based animal rights organisation, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, went to court and obtained the recognition of the hippos as “interested persons” in the case. This may affect the ability of US experts taking part in the programme, but it has no bearing on what the Colombian government decides to do with the hippos.More human-like animals, such as great apes, have been given some rights in countries including Spain, New Zealand and the UK. These, however, are designed to protect the animals from use in experiments rather than in their natural environment. It might be less of a conceptual leap to confer legal rights to animals as representatives of nature as opposed to rivers or other landscape features. Although there is a strong animal rights movement objecting to direct exploitation of animals in various contexts, such as farming and laboratory experiments, there are only a few examples of legal rights being attributed to wild animals in their natural environment. Recently, Colombia’s feral hippos, originating from the menagerie of drugs boss Pablo Escobar, made headlines again. Their presence and population growth have divided expert opinion, with some ecologists arguing that they can fill in specific functions of extinct native megafauna, while others are worried about their impact on the local environment and conflicts with humans (Curr. Biol. (2020) 30, R329–R331). A government sterilisation programme is now aiming to limit their population growth. As a possible cull or sterilisation of the animals was discussed, a US-based animal rights organisation, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, went to court and obtained the recognition of the hippos as “interested persons” in the case. This may affect the ability of US experts taking part in the programme, but it has no bearing on what the Colombian government decides to do with the hippos. More human-like animals, such as great apes, have been given some rights in countries including Spain, New Zealand and the UK. These, however, are designed to protect the animals from use in experiments rather than in their natural environment. Right or wrong?Rights conferred to rivers, forests or invasive hippos are currently successful in attracting media attention to environmental problems because these cases are still unusual and thus newsworthy. If it became the norm for every river and forest to be a legal person, would it actually help? The case of Lake Erie has shown that corporate interests are still more powerful than nature’s interests, so legally personified natural entities may still be heading for disappointments in courts.The usefulness of the concept, however, lies in its ability to bridge the traditional holistic understanding of nature, still prevalent among Indigenous populations in South America and New Zealand, and the Western business culture that dominates thinking in corporations.Previously, the concept of ecosystem services had already enabled scientists to quantify the usefulness of unspoilt nature for the economy, translating it into hard financial figures (Curr. Biol. (2011) 21, R525–R527). Similarly, the rights of nature movement can translate the idea of intact nature worthy of conservation into the second language that corporations understand — that of laws and litigations.Explaining the concept to European Parliament in 2018, Mumta Ito, co-founder of Nature’s Rights, said: “We need laws that recognise the intrinsic value of nature, and the way to do that is [through] legal personality, recognition of nature’s rights, and a legal framework that aligns with ecology to sustain life”.Unlimited corporate ambition has led us to the state where 26 global conferences have failed to put an end to the ongoing climate catastrophe. The situation is similarly dramatic for biodiversity loss building up to become a mass extinction. With financial and legal arguments, nature’s defenders can start communicating with corporate interests and ultimately stop them from destroying our planet. Rights conferred to rivers, forests or invasive hippos are currently successful in attracting media attention to environmental problems because these cases are still unusual and thus newsworthy. If it became the norm for every river and forest to be a legal person, would it actually help? The case of Lake Erie has shown that corporate interests are still more powerful than nature’s interests, so legally personified natural entities may still be heading for disappointments in courts. The usefulness of the concept, however, lies in its ability to bridge the traditional holistic understanding of nature, still prevalent among Indigenous populations in South America and New Zealand, and the Western business culture that dominates thinking in corporations. Previously, the concept of ecosystem services had already enabled scientists to quantify the usefulness of unspoilt nature for the economy, translating it into hard financial figures (Curr. Biol. (2011) 21, R525–R527). Similarly, the rights of nature movement can translate the idea of intact nature worthy of conservation into the second language that corporations understand — that of laws and litigations. Explaining the concept to European Parliament in 2018, Mumta Ito, co-founder of Nature’s Rights, said: “We need laws that recognise the intrinsic value of nature, and the way to do that is [through] legal personality, recognition of nature’s rights, and a legal framework that aligns with ecology to sustain life”. Unlimited corporate ambition has led us to the state where 26 global conferences have failed to put an end to the ongoing climate catastrophe. The situation is similarly dramatic for biodiversity loss building up to become a mass extinction. With financial and legal arguments, nature’s defenders can start communicating with corporate interests and ultimately stop them from destroying our planet.