Local councils around the UK are acknowledging that there are both biodiversity and climate crises, and that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. The UK has, over the past 50 years, lost significant biomass of species. In 2022, a study led by Buglife and Kent Wildlife Trust reported a massive loss of flying insect numbers: nearly 60 per cent in less than 20 years.1‘Bugs Matter survey finds that UK flying insects have declined by nearly 60% in less than 20 years’, Buglife news release, 5 May 2022. As is well documented, human impacts on the natural world have been significant.

One of the most devastating impacts is in the freshwater environment. In the UK, our rivers are in serious trouble, after decades of issues with sewage pollution and agricultural runoff, and more recently the added impacts of microplastics and forever chemicals. As we have previously highlighted (see December 2022/January 2023 Legal Action 20), the Environmental Audit Committee reported in January 2022 that only 14 per cent of England’s rivers have good ecological status.2‘“Chemical cocktail” of sewage, slurry and plastic polluting English rivers puts public health and nature at risk’, Environmental Audit Committee news article, 13 January 2022.

This has been an alarm call to many who care about their local rivers. For example, responding to local public interest, Lewes District Council passed a motion in May 2022 on the impacts of sewage pollution into the Lewes catchment freshwater and marine areas. In the first instance, the council resolved to ‘protect its rivers and seas, including from the cumulative impacts of pollution, in line with its local planning policy, and the National Planning Policy Framework’.3Agenda and minutes: Full and annual council, Lewes District Council full council – Monday 23 May, 2022 6.00 pm, Lewes District Council; see also ‘Council requirement to assess sewage impacts of proposed development’, Environmental Law Foundation news release, 13 June 2022.

It is clear that our environmental legislation is failing to prevent the destruction of nature, often simply regulating the rate of destruction. The UN, which last year recognised that a clean and healthy environment is a universal human right,4Katy Thompson and Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, ‘Historic UN resolution recognizes healthy environment is a human right’, UN Development Programme blog post, 28 July 2022. has also previously called for the human race to rethink its relationship with the natural world in order that we might enable the recovery of nature upon which humans and all species depend.5Inger Andersen, Solutions for a planet in crisis, London School of Economics public lecture, UN Environment Programme, 20 January 2021.

How might we best do that? Legal Action readers will work with many who are ‘rights vulnerable’ and as we reflect and consider how humanity might reframe its relationship with the natural world to ensure a healthy and habitable environment for all, we suggest that the environment should be considered in the same terms. Indeed, there is now a flourishing global movement of governments recognising the rights of nature, in particular the rights of rivers.

Essentially, what is being done through the rights of nature movement is a rebalancing of our relationship with the natural world, acknowledging that we are a part of, not apart from, nature. It moves us from a position of dominance to one of respect and interdependency, facilitating the ability of ecosystems and species to evolve and thrive.

Our legal frameworks have long recognised the rights of some humans – by no means all humans, historically – but the concept of rights has evolved over time. In the UK, women in the 20th century were gradually granted greater legal status, including the right to vote, and we know there have been many struggles globally for human rights to be recognised. Additionally, we have extended rights to corporations globally: companies, which are wholly conceptual entities, have gained legal rights and are recognised as legal entities distinct from their individual decision-makers. If we can imagine a company acquiring rights, then the transition to nature acquiring rights is not too fantastical.

Of course, many cultures already recognise nature’s rights, as can be seen through their belief systems; for example, Pachamama, or Mother Earth, is a revered goddess of the indigenous people of South America. Other countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Canada and Colombia, have recognised the legal rights of rivers – in Bangladesh’s case, all rivers. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the Whanganui river in New Zealand, which was granted rights of personhood in 2017.6Eleanor Ainge Roy, ‘New Zealand river granted same legal rights as human being’, Guardian, 16 March 2017. This was a world first, with the river now having the same rights as a person before the law, enshrined by the New Zealand parliament and enforceable in the courts. The local Māori people think of the river as an ancestor and have long recognised that it exists in its own right and is of itself. Two guardians are appointed to represent the river and to ensure that its rights are upheld. More recently, rights of nature were recognised in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December 2022.7‘COP15 ends with landmark biodiversity agreement’, UN Environment Programme, 20 December 2022.

In the UK and Ireland, there is a growing awareness of and interest in the rights of nature. In Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, in 2021, three local authorities adopted motions recognising rights of nature, agreeing to develop a dialogue with local communities and to use this dialogue along with wider learning and collaboration to research what a declaration for the rights of nature might look like.8Shauna Corr, ‘Northern Ireland council “first on these islands” to recognise the “rights of nature”’, BelfastLive, 25 June 2021; Motion: rights of nature – council meeting – 5 July 2021, Fermanagh & Omagh District Council; and Declan Magee, ‘Donegal County Council first in the Republic to adopt rights of nature doctrine’, DonegalLive, 14 December 2021. The Environmental Law Foundation has recently worked with a local district councillor in Lewes, East Sussex, where a motion was passed by the council, with cross-party support, to explore and ultimately declare a rights of river charter (perhaps the first in England) for their local river, the Ouse.9‘Council passes first ever rights of river motion in England’, Lewes District Council news release, 21 February 2023. These developments demonstrate a desire from local communities to encourage access to environmental justice for all species.