From the sacred peaks of Aotearoa to the rivers of Colombia and the contested waters of Lake Erie, a global movement is emerging to grant the natural world legal personhood, driven by Indigenous worldviews and a growing call for environmental justice.<\/p>\n
The mountain dominates the western coast of New Zealand’s\u00a0North Island, also known as Aotearoa<\/u><\/a>. Its peak is like the center point of a sundial, the shadows on its slopes telling time. The cloud formations drift in and out, shaping the weather.<\/p>\n There are several M\u0101ori stories related to the creation of Aotearoa’s geography. One tells of\u00a0four mountain warriors<\/u><\/a>\u00a0who lived in the interior of the North Island: Tongariro, Taranaki, Tauhara, and P\u016btauaki. Two of them, Tongariro and Taranaki, were in love with a maiden mountain, P\u012bhanga, and they fought a mighty battle over her affections. Taranaki was defeated, and in shame and sadness, he left the center of the island. He dragged his club along behind him as he left, carving a deep gouge out of the land, which filled with his tears. This tear-filled ravine became the Whanganui River. When Taranaki reached the sea, he turned north and saw the beautiful\u00a0Pou\u0101kai mountain range<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and settled there. The offspring of Taranaki and Pou\u0101kai became the plants, trees, animals, rocks, and rivers that flow over the slope of Taranaki Maunga (Mount Taranaki) today.<\/p>\n The M\u0101ori have fought for decades to incorporate the natural world into their national law. Through the long process of conflict, negotiation, and reconciliation between the\u00a0M\u0101ori iwi<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and the Crown, Aotearoa New Zealand is now at the forefront of the\u00a0Rights of Nature<\/u><\/a>\u00a0movement, with laws enacted that recognize the rights of Taranaki M\u0101unga, the Te Urewera Forest, and the Whanganui River. These laws are among the most detailed and widely known examples of a growing global campaign to develop laws recognizing the rights\u2014or legal personhood\u2014of natural entities.<\/p>\n The most recent example was the signing of the\u00a0Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on January 30, 2025. This bill granted the mountain\u00a0legal personhood<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and gave it all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of a person. The mountain\u2019s rights are being recognized not because of its use to the communities who live in its shadow, but because the mountain deserves such recognition as a living being. These\u00a0legal rights<\/u><\/a>\u00a0will also enable conservation efforts and prevent forced land sales.<\/p>\n Another famous example is the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act, which recognizes the values and legal personhood of the Whanganui River. Although the existence of this law has been extensively covered in news stories, the process of drafting the legislation, its history, and the implementation mechanisms have received much less attention. Understanding how the Te Awa Tupua legislation came about provides insight into whether it is possible to create a framework for successfully implementing and enforcing similar laws elsewhere.<\/p>\n In a different context, half a world away, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio, passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) on February 26, 2019. This measure, which would have been added to the City Charter, was the culmination of several years of citizen-led efforts in response to the increasing number of toxic algae blooms appearing in\u00a0Lake Erie<\/u><\/a>. The proposal passed with 61 percent of the votes in favor, although the\u00a0special election<\/u><\/a>\u00a0drew only about 9 percent of eligible voters to the polls. The day after the election, a local farm filed a lawsuit challenging the new law.<\/p>\n The complaint argued that LEBOR exceeded the City of Toledo’s authority and violated numerous constitutional protections by creating legal personhood for Lake Erie, thereby intruding on state and federal powers. On February 27, 2020, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio found in favor of the farm and struck down the proposed law in its entirety. Although the result was disappointing for those who worked hard to get LEBOR on the ballot, it provides key lessons for advocates, including the necessity of crafting laws that fit within the context and culture in which they will ultimately apply.<\/p>\n In contrast to the judicial challenges Lake Erie advocates faced in Ohio, the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia has issued several decisions recognizing the rights of Nature, the most recent of which granted\u00a0rights to the Colombian Amazon<\/u><\/a>. The youth plaintiffs in the case, ranging in age from seven to 25, argued that they had a fundamental right to a healthy environment. They based this on constitutional provisions supported by international law.<\/p>\n The court agreed and further held that the\u00a0Colombian Amazon<\/u><\/a>\u00a0is \u201can entity, subject of rights, and beneficiary of\u2026 protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration\u201d and that the national and local governments are obligated to protect these rights under Colombian law. In its decision, the court connected a healthy, thriving Amazon to the fundamental constitutionally protected rights of the young plaintiffs.<\/p>\n Each of these cases is part of a growing global movement to improve environmental justice protections and develop a more\u00a0holistic human-Nature relationship<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that treats all living things as part of a common, interconnected whole. In addition to the above examples, countries such as Peru, Ecuador, India, Bangladesh, Uganda, Panama, and Sweden, along with local communities in the U.S. and elsewhere, have crafted laws that recognize these rights through various legal mechanisms.<\/p>\n These new laws provide an innovative strategy to develop better protections for people, natural entities, and biodiverse ecosystems. Particularly for advocates in the U.S., where existing efforts have been local or Indigenous so far, learning from places where rights of Nature laws have been successful nationally can provide helpful insights on scaling up efforts in other communities.<\/p>\n The growing body of rights of Nature laws draws on an array of legal cultures and institutions. It provides illustrative examples for advocates interested in developing these legal tools for environmental justice in their communities. Although each law reflects the context from which it emerges, there is a remarkable similarity in the language used to recognize the rights of Nature. In Ecuador, this takes the form of broad\u00a0constitutional recognition of Pachamama<\/u><\/a>, also known as Mother Earth. Ecuador\u2019s constitution states in Article 71 that \u201cNature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain itself and regenerate its own vital cycles, structure, functions and its evolutionary processes.\u201d<\/p>\n In India and Bangladesh,\u00a0public interest litigation<\/u><\/a>\u00a0has led to court decisions that have recognized the rights of rivers as essential for the common good of both people and the rivers themselves. Uganda implemented amendments to its national\u00a0environmental legislation in 2019<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to protect Nature\u2019s right to \u201cexist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.\u201d Across the U.S., some municipalities have passed\u00a0local ordinances<\/u><\/a>\u00a0recognizing the rights of Nature, including in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Oregon, Colorado, and Florida. Recently,\u00a0Panama enacted legislation<\/u><\/a>\u00a0protecting Nature\u2019s \u201cright to exist, persist, and regenerate its life cycles\u201d and requiring the government to ensure its \u201cplans, policies, and programs respect the rights of Nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Indigenous communities have been some of the strongest advocates for creating laws regarding the rights of Nature. In 1998, the Sami Parliament in Sweden adopted a declaration supporting the \u201cRights of Mother Nature.\u201d Later that year, a member of the Swedish Parliament proposed a constitutional amendment that would enshrine the rights of Nature into\u00a0Swedish law<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n In the U.S., Indigenous communities such as the Ho Chunk, Ponca, White Earth Band, and Yurok have explicitly incorporated the rights of Nature into their\u00a0tribal laws<\/u><\/a>. These Indigenous communities have taken the lead on codifying legal recognition of what has been, for millennia, a cultural and spiritual understanding of Nature\u2019s rights to exist and flourish as an independent living entity.<\/p>\n Although more people recognize the need to address environmental justice issues, there are still those who are resistant to new ideas. Finding ways to address these challenges is essential and requires outside-the-box thinking that a rights of Nature framework may provide. Each successful promulgation of rights of Nature laws opens more space for the idea that we need to change\u00a0how<\/i>\u00a0humans think about Nature, the human-Nature relationship, and current legal and policy structures. The Rights of Nature movement offers environmental advocates in the U.S. and around the world innovative legal mechanisms to do just that.<\/p>\n Although developing rights of Nature laws is a growing space for environmental justice advocates, the underlying concept of Nature possessing rights is not new. Many point to the 1972 publication of Christopher D. Stone\u2019s article \u201cShould Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects<\/u><\/a>\u201d as the origin for this idea of Nature having legal personhood. However, the idea of Nature as an\u00a0independent and interdependent entity<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that has the right to exist and flourish because of its own intrinsic value and life force has been around much longer.<\/p>\n Many Indigenous communities and cultures have cosmologies grounded in the belief that Nature, ecosystems, and biomes are independent living entities, coexisting in partnership with all living things, including human beings. In these belief systems, no living entity is more or less important than another, and all depend on each other for survival. For these Indigenous communities and others who share these beliefs, the\u00a0contemporary rights of Nature movement<\/u><\/a>\u00a0is a manifestation of practices that have always been part of their worldviews and values.<\/p>\n For others, however, the idea of Nature possessing rights is contrary to a worldview that holds human beings at the apex of a hierarchy, with Nature below us and viewed as a\u00a0commodity<\/u><\/a>\u00a0here for our use and abuse. In the U.S., and many wealthy countries, laws have developed from Enlightenment-era ideas about individual rights, including the right to own property. As a result, the concept of Nature having independent legal standing has never been part of the conversation, either culturally or legally. This presents challenges that advocates must be aware of when considering the development of Nature rights in a country like the U.S., where it is not just about changing the law but also changing the culture.<\/p>\n Many people who have grown up under laws and policies that view Nature simply as a resource for human use\u2014whether in the form of industrialization or recreation\u2014will require a shift in worldviews and values to see that Nature in all its forms has the right to exist, be free from critical damage, and protect itself through legal mechanisms. Changing cultural perceptions is often a long-term process, but developing strong laws protecting the rights of Nature can help shift conversations and accelerate the process.<\/p>\n Given these challenges, those who wish to fight for the rights of Nature must develop a two-pronged advocacy strategy to integrate this concept into contemporary norms. First, cultural perceptions and worldviews need to change to view human beings and natural entities as equal parts of an interconnected whole. Second, we must reinterpret existing laws and create new ones that support the concepts of rights of Nature while working to implement more sustainable systemic changes to promote a more just world.<\/p>\n We need to develop this advocacy strategy and create new and better ways to protect our planet and all the living things that call it home. Things won\u2019t happen overnight. Legal change, cultural change, and shifts in worldviews all take time, but we must keep up the fight. By working together, we can ensure that all living things on this planet can continue to thrive and survive.<\/p>\n Standing for Nature: Legal Strategies for Environmental Justice<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u00a9 2025 by Dana Zartner, Fabien Cardenas, and Mohammad Golam Sarwar is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/u><\/a>) by permission of\u00a0Island Press<\/u><\/a>, Washington, D.C. This excerpt was adapted and produced for the web by\u00a0Earth \u2022 Food \u2022 Life<\/span><\/a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cHow the Rights of Nature Movement Is Reshaping Law and Culture<\/a>\u201d by\u00a0Dana Zartner<\/a>,\u00a0Fabian Cardenas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mohammad Golam Sarwar<\/a>\u00a0is licensed by\u00a0the Observatory<\/a>\u00a0under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a>. For permissions requests beyond the scope of this license, please see\u00a0Observatory.wiki\u2019s Reuse and Reprint Rights guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legal change, cultural change, and shifts in worldviews all take time, but we must keep up the fight. By working together, we can ensure that all living things on this planet can continue to thrive and survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3513363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79718,213530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3513140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-environment-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3513140"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3513364,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513140\/revisions\/3513364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3513363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3513140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3513140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3513140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Aotearoa New Zealand\u2019s Role in the Rights of Nature Movement<\/h3>\n
Challenges and Lessons From Lake Erie<\/h3>\n
Rights of Nature in Colombia<\/h3>\n
A Global Movement for Environmental Justice<\/h3>\n
Legal Recognition of Nature\u2019s Rights Across the Globe<\/h3>\n
Indigenous Communities and the Rights of Nature<\/h3>\n
The Origins of the Rights of Nature Concept<\/h3>\n
Overcoming Resistance and Shifting Worldviews<\/h3>\n
A Two-Pronged Strategy for Change<\/h3>\n