Advocates at IUCN Congress Highlight a Wave of New Support for the Rights of Rivers

Contacts:    

1. Monti Aguirre, International Rivers (707-591-1220; monti@internationalrivers.org) 

2. Grant Wilson, Earth Law Center (510-566-1063; gwilson@earthlaw.org) 

 For immediate release: September 8, 2021

 Marseille, France—Today, advocates from across the globe gathered at the IUCN World Conservation Congress (both in person and remotely) to highlight the precipitous growth of the movement to recognize the rights of rivers and watersheds. The press conference also marked the approximate one year anniversary of the formal launch of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers (“Declaration”), a civil society initiative to define the basic rights to which all rivers are entitled. According to its proponents, the Declaration intends to build awareness and serve as a customizable legal model for governments wishing to join the rights of rivers movement.

Over the past year, rights have been recognized or declared for (at minimum) Boulder Creek and the Boulder Creek Watershed (Nederland, USA, mirroring some language from the Declaration), the Magpie River (Canada), waterways in Orange County, Florida (USA), the Alpayacu River (Ecuador), and the Paraná River and Wetlands (Rosario, Argentina). In contrast to traditional environmental laws that recognize Nature as mere human property, this legal precedent acknowledges that rivers, watersheds, and other natural entities are living entities with rights.

With regards to the Declaration, it now has support from close to 1,700 individuals and 211 organizations from over forty countries. Numerous ‘rights of rivers’ campaigns also incorporate parts of the Declaration, including in El Salvador (rights of the Lempa River), France (rights of the Tavignanu River), Mexico (rights of all rivers in Oaxaca), Nigeria (rights of the River Ethiope), Pakistan (rights of the Indus Delta and River), Serbia, and the UK (rights of the River Frome). Additionally, last week, 16 IUCN members co-sponsored an emergency motion calling upon IUCN members to endorse the Declaration, although it did not pass. 

Advocates have also submitted a multitude of amici curiae briefs in defense of the ‘rights of rivers’ that specifically reference the rights recognized in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers, including briefs seeking to protect the rights of the Dulcepamba River, Piatúa River and Nangaritza River in a series of cases currently before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador. Another amicus brief seeks to protect the Marañon River in Peru based in part on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers. In one instance, an administrative body in Ecuador upheld the rights of the Dulcepamba River and ordered protection of its flows.

The momentum towards the rights of rivers is growing as a response to mounting global threats to rivers and freshwater ecosystems. According to the 2020 Living Planet Index, 944 monitored freshwater species declined by an average of 84% between 1970 and 2016. Due to an onslaught of dams and other infrastructure, only 37 percent of rivers longer than 1,000km still flow freely.  

 The notion of recognizing the personhood or rights of rivers gained global attention in 2017. That year, a treaty agreement between the Whanganui Iwi (a Māori tribe) and the Crown Government recognized the Whanganui River as a legal person, a Constitutional Court decision in Colombia recognized the rights of the Atrato River, and a court in Uttarakhand, India, recognized the Ganga and Yamuna Rivers as legal persons with rights (later stayed). In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to constitutionally recognize the Rights of  Nature. 

Quotes: 

“It is obvious that effective river management works best at the basin scale, and ‘river rights’, as described in the Declaration, is a very important way of achieving this and ensuring protection of ecosystem integrity.” 

-Angela Andrade, Chair of IUCN’s Commission on Ecosystem Management

“Globally, rivers have enormous social, cultural, environmental, and economic value, but are becoming progressively more threatened. The Rights of Rivers approach is becoming increasingly important for ensuring that they can continue to provide these essentials to benefit nature and the people who rely on them.” 

Kristen Walker, Chair of IUCN’s Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy.

“Western law and culture often treat rivers as a human resource instead of recognizing the reality that they are living systems. An important step towards correcting this falsehood is for rivers and other natural entities to be recognised in law as legal entities with intrinsic rights.” 

-Jessica Sweidan, CoFounder & Trustee of Synchronicity Earth; IUCN Patron of Nature.  

“The playbook for protecting rivers and watersheds must evolve beyond the traditional environmental law approaches we’ve been using since the 1960s, as such laws are helpful but grossly inadequate. The Declaration is a useful legislative starting point for those wishing to promote new, Earth-centered legal protections for fresh waters.”

-Grant Wilson, Executive Director of Earth Law Center.

“This movement towards recognizing the rights of rivers will be extremely helpful for protecting the freshwater biodiversity present in these ecologically important rivers.” 

-Dr. Topiltzin Contreras Macbeath, Head of the Conservation Biology Research Group at the University of Morelos, México and Co-Chair of the Freshwater Conservation Committee of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission.

“Rivers are the veins of the Earth. They hold so much life and provide the conditions for life to evolve, flourish, and regenerate. This declaration is essential in the process of legally recognizing the inherent rights of rivers worldwide, as a way to protect their integrity, health, and role in Earth’s web of life.” 

-Hana Begovic, Director of Earth Advocacy Youth.

“A global study of river protections that I recently led shows the growing importance of the Rights of Rivers movement, relative to some of the other protection systems we discussed. We concluded that Rights of Rivers is a powerful tool for recognizing Indigenous cultural plurality in legal systems, and for bringing about transformative change in the protection of nature.”

-Dr. Denielle Perry, Director of the Free-flowing Rivers Lab in Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth and Sustainability, and Co-Chair of the Durable River Protection Coalition.

"Rivers across the planet are ribbons of biodiversity that are facing unprecedented threats due to climate change and dam building. Rights of Nature for Rivers offers a path forward that combats these threats and gives rivers their rightful protection as the planet's life-saving arteries.” 

-Gary Wockner, Co-Founder of Save The Colorado and Founder of Save The World's Rivers.

“Our current laws are not rising to address the climate and biodiversity crises. Freshwater ecosystems need permanent protections to sustain water quality, food security, and human rights. A Rights of Nature approach offers transformative change at a time where it could not be needed more.”

Monti Aguirre, Latin America Manager at International Rivers.

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 Find more on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers, visit www.RightsOfRivers.org

Rights of Nature a focus at the IUCN Congress

‘Energizing Rights of Nature’ IUCN hybrid workshop

Contact:

Michelle Bender, Earth Law Center, mbender@earthlaw.org (+1 509 218 9338)

Natalia Greene, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, natalia@garn.org (+593 99944 3724)

Osprey Orielle Lake, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), osprey@wecaninternational.org (+1 415 722 2104)

September 8th, 2021: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) started in Marseille, France on September 3rd. As the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, the IUCN is a global authority on the status of Nature and the measures needed to safeguard the planet. Intended to meet every four years, the IUCN Congress 2020 is now being held as a hybrid format in light of the pandemic.

At the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2012, Members of the Union passed Resolution 100: “Incorporation of the Rights of Nature as the organizational focal point in IUCN’s decision making.” Within this resolution, the IUCN called for Nature’s rights to be a “fundamental and absolute key element in all IUCN decisions” and work towards the creation of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature. However, implementation has been slow. “This is about much more than recognizing rights. We must work to shift our baselines, adopt new principles and standards for decision making, and transform the ethics and values that underlie our legal, economic and governance systems. We still have a long way to go to reconstruct our relationship with the natural world and achieve the vision of living in harmony with Nature,” says Michelle Bender, Ocean Campaigns Director at the Earth Law Center.

Earlier this year, at the IUCN’s Global Youth Summit, Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) Youth Hub held a joint workshop and co-created a declaration with over 200 participants on the Rights of Nature and Future Generations. They comprise: formally adopting the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth; creating an IUCN Commission (or working group within each Commission) for the Rights of Nature to be mainstreamed through cross-cutting and joint initiatives, events, discussions or projects; and creating best-guidelines documents to provide guidance to IUCN members on best practices and challenges to implementation and enforcement of Earth-centered governance. The Declaration and recommendations are included in the IUCN’s Draft Outcome Statement produced August 11, 2021 and is expected to be presented at the Marseille Congress.

Civil society groups are pushing Rights of Nature at the Marseille Congress to ensure it remains at the top of the agenda, and the IUCN works towards implementing its commitments under Resolution 100, its Action Programmes and the IUCN World Declaration on the Environmental Rule of Law. Within this advocacy effort, Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) stated, “In order for IUCN to truly uplift Resolution 100, there must be a primary understanding by governments and financial institutions that humans must urgently reorient themselves from an exploitative and ultimately self-destructive relationship with nature, to one that honors the deep interrelation of all life and contributes to the health and integrity of the natural world. An essential step in achieving this goal is to create a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature as a fundamental, rights-bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited or used in market-based schemes. This is a worldview change, and one that Indigenous Peoples have been demonstrating for generations.”

Almost 13 years have passed since Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize that Nature is a subject of Rights in its Constitution. Now, 37 countries recognize the Rights of Nature, either at a national level, in subnational legislation or by recognizing the rights of an ecosystem. The time has come for the Rights of Nature. As Natalia Greene, member of GARN’s Executive Committee, said in her opening speech for the ‘From Glaciers to Oceans’ event in Marseille, “We do not defend nature, we are nature that defends itself. We are an integral part of this incredible living community, the ecosystem-Earth, and we are all subjects of rights.”

Graphic created by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

Rights of Nature activities at the Congress included:

• On September 4th, GARN’s European Hub presented the day event called “From Glaciers to Ocean: Forum for the rights of European aquatic ecosystems”, at Coco Velten in Marseille. This event included a press conference, four interesting panels about the philosophy of the Rights of Nature and the rights of aquatic ecosystems, a movie and a debate, and the awaited launch of the verdicts of the five cases heard by the European Tribunal in Defense of Aquatic Ecosystems, which took place from January to May 2021.

• Sept 5th: Ecocide Presentation Red Mud Case “Ecocide and red mud, a canyon’s autopsy” - Espaces Générations Nature

• Sept. 5th: Conference: Rights of Nature and Future Generations : a common destiny, Conference at Espace Generations Nature

• A joint workshop held on September 5th ‘Energizing the Rights of Nature’ in partnership with Comité National de l'UICN, France; IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL); Earth Law Center; Consejo Internacional de Derecho Ambiental (ICEL); Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN); and Odyssey.

• Sept. 6th: Conference: European movement for the rights of nature! Espace Generations Nature

• Sept. 6th: Conference: “Does Nature have rights?” Valérie Cabanes, Sarah Vanuxem and Marine Calmet at the Mucem Museum.

• ELC and GARN sent a letter to IUCN President Zhang and IUCN Members on September 7th, highlighting ways in which the IUCN can implement Resolution 100.

• A symposium September 6th and 7th by ICEL, IUCN WCEL and Pace University on “Environmental Law Confronts Earth’s Ecocrises”

• September 8th press conference on the global rights of rivers movement and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers in specific, in addition to an emergency motion submitted on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers (outcome pending).

• September 9th session on “Rights of Nature: legal perspectives from America, and its implications in International Environmental Law” by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Ecologic Institute

The IUCN has a unique opportunity to progress with the guarantee of the Rights of Nature in this Congress, especially through the advancement of Resolution 100. The Rights of Nature is present during this world gathering, through its various organizations and representatives, to advocate for transformative, systemic change, so necessary during this urgent time for the people and the planet.

About the organizations:

Earth Law Center (www.earthlawcenter.org): ELC champions Earth-centered laws and community-led movements that respect and protect all life on the planet. 

Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (https://www.therightsofnature.org/): GARN is a global network of organizations and individuals committed to the universal adoption and implementation of legal systems that recognize, respect and enforce “Rights of Nature”.  

Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network ( https://www.wecaninternational.org/): WECAN is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.