Does a river have rights? A coalition of US environmental groups thinks so. They have filed a lawsuit in Denver that says the Colorado river鈥檚 鈥渞ight to exist, flourish, regenerate, be restored, and naturally evolve鈥� has been violated by its namesake state.
Controversially, they want to represent it as a 鈥減erson鈥� in court and .
The Colorado provides water to 36 million people in seven arid US states and north-west Mexico. Thanks to irrigation, it greens thousands of square kilometres. But the river, which is severely overused for agriculture and rendered stagnant by a series of massive dams, is visibly shrivelling. By the time it reaches the sea in the Gulf of California, it is a toxic sludge of salts, agrochemicals and heavy metals. Most years, it dries up before it even gets there.
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If we treated people with this level of abuse, we would be hauled into court. Yet there are few legal remedies when the same is dished out to a river, a wetland or an old growth forest. That is because ecosystems currently have no legal standing in the US.
But that may be about to change. A century ago in the US, women couldn鈥檛 vote. Child labour was still a problem. Fortunately, the law evolves. Human rights are now firmly established. The extension of rights to animals has moved in the past decade from being a fringe interest to a mainstream concern debated worldwide.
Even corporations are in Europe and the US. If corporations, which exist to benefit a few shareholders, get that standing, why not ecosystems whose living communities comprise the planetary life-support system we all depend on?
Like many new ideas, this one remains controversial. But it is no more frivolous than the notion that a corporation has personhood. In fact, it makes a lot more sense.
River defences
The protection of natural systems has never been more urgent given the demand on their resources, threats from climate change and their role in mitigating the impact of extreme weather. There are precedents. In 2008, in its constitution. , Colombia and New Zealand have declared that rivers possess rights that can be legally defended. Similar litigation is being planned in Sweden and Australia.
Still, some ask why we need new legislation as current laws are sufficient. But if they were indeed powerful enough, we wouldn鈥檛 be in crisis. In the half century since environmental laws were widely enacted, carbon dioxide levels have risen sharply, coral reefs and other key ecosystems have vanished, and .
The problem, says Ben Price of the , is that environmental regulations are designed to marginally slow the rate of destruction of nature, not to preserve vital systems in perpetuity 鈥� as we need to do.
Price has worked with scores of US communities that have passed local ordinances recognising the rights of nature. He is the first to admit that it is a David-versus-Goliath struggle, pitting small towns against deep-pocketed economic interests that often write the very environmental rules that regulate them.
That is why we need bold new legal weapons that empower localities to fight for their land, water and air on a more level playing field.
Recognising the rights of nature affirms that the world is not dead matter that can be limitlessly exploited. It is a living being whose health is inextricably linked to our own.
Until we acknowledge this fundamental truth in our hearts 鈥� and as a matter of law 鈥� the state of the environment is certain to go from bad to worse.
Read more: James Lovelock and the Gaia hypothesis; Biodiversity: Try as we might, things just keep dying; I鈥檝e won a day in court for two chimps
