Posted on 04/21/2022 6:39:08 AM PDT by algore
Granting rivers legal personhood represents a seismic shift from the bedrock belief in Western society that humans are at the apex of the natural world. But for many Indigenous people, the concept of nature as a sentient equal to humans is nothing new. In Maori culture, for example, ancestors, or tupuna, are embodied in the landscape.
“I see the river and the trees as ancestors,” says Uapukun Mestokosho, a member of the Mutehekau Shipu Alliance, the committee that advocated for the river’s legal rights. “They’ve been here long before we have and deserve the right to live.”
While the personhood movement reconceptualizes the relationship between rivers and people, granting non-human entities personhood is an existing Western concept applied to corporations that can bridge Western and Indigenous legal systems. “In the case of the Magpie River, Indigenous law is showing up in a language that Canadian law can understand,” says Lindsay Borrows, a law professor at Queen’s University in Ontario.
How these personhood declarations translate into legislation varies widely, from an overarching recognition in the case of the Whanganui River to a list of specific rights in the Magpie and Klamath. Other legislation recognizes natural entities as rights holders but stops short of personhood.
That’s the case with Los Cedros Biological Reserve in Ecuador, where a recent landmark ruling upheld the reserve’s constitutional rights against mining. Similarly, in central Florida, Lake Mary Jane guardians recently filed a case in state court to uphold the lake’s rights against encroachment—a first in America.
Personhood is a new legal tool, so it remains to be challenged in court. Yet part of its power lies in the ability to keep conflicts outside the courtroom. Instead, it relies on appointed guardians advocating on behalf of the river or forest. It also represents Indigenous law drawing a line in the sand.
“We want to send a message that we are a government for our nation,” says Shanice Mollen-Picard, a member of the Mutehekau Shipu Alliance. “We live in this territory, and we know how to protect it best.”
Good one!
Give rivers human rights. Next it will be any body of water including that pond you dug in your own backyard. Then certain trees and eventually soil. This is all little moves leading to removing property rights and land ownership.
My garden plot wants to vote.
Sure. When the river is convicted of a crime you put it behind a dam. It's a river prison, and the river is dammed.
Holy no flow batman lol
The liberals will get it to vote soon.
Now that’s funny!! 😂
I’m wondering if Maxine Waters is human for human sacrifices...
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