Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNew Zealand Grants a River the Rights of Personhood
From the dawn of history, and in cultures throughout the world, humans have been prone to imbue Earth's life-giving rivers with qualities of life itself -- a fitting tribute, no doubt, to the wellsprings upon which our past (and present) civilizations so heavily rely. But while modern thought has come to regard these essential waterways more clinically over the centuries, that might all be changing once again.
Meet the Whanganui. You might call it a river, but in the eyes of the law, it has the standings of a person.
In a landmark case for the Rights of Nature, officials in New Zealand recently granted the Whanganui, the nation's third-longest river, with legal personhood "in the same way a company is, which will give it rights and interests". The decision follows a long court battle for the river's personhood initiated by the Whanganui River iwi, an indigenous community with strong cultural ties to the waterway.
Under the settlement, the river is regarded as a protected entity, under an arrangement in which representatives from both the iwi and the national government will serve as legal custodians towards the Whanganui's best interests.
http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/river-new-zealand-granted-legal-rights-person.html
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)the USA. Too bad the corporations already have more FAUX rights than real people.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)We should ALL do our part in keeping the world's rivers and estuaries clean.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Applying the "corporations are people" arguments to the very things that the
corporations are busy destroying for profit - sauce for the goose and all that!
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)Protection against exile, freedom of movement within the borders of New Zealand, the right to marry and to found a family, freedom to change its religion or belief, the right to education, and to free choice of employment?