The Rights of Nature: A Global Movement

As pressures on ecosystems mount and as conventional laws seem increasingly inadequate to address environmental degradation, communities, cities, regions and countries around the world are turning to a new legal strategy known as The Rights of Nature.

“Nature often has legal rights as codified in environmental laws, but granting nature legal personhood is a different story,” co-director Crimmel said in a statement, “The main difference is that a Rights of Nature framework typically grants legal personhood status to nature, meaning that a river, for instance, would have the same rights as a person.”