Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: The more “rights” for Mother Nature, the fewer for you.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Who needs science when you have indigenous ways of knowing? Not at Harvard you don’t.
“As part of Harvard Climate Action Week 2025, the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights convened a panel titled Human Resources: Indigenous Leadership in Protecting Water as a Fundamental Right. The discussion, moderated by Faculty Director Mathias Risse, brought together three inspiring Indigenous leaders: Bryan BainBridge, CEO of the Great Lakes Intertribal Council Inc.; Charitie Ropati, water engineer and climate adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General; and Dr. Kelsey Leonard, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of the Environment at the University of Waterloo. Together, they explored how Indigenous knowledge, law, and lived practice shape the fight for water security in an era of climate disruption.
“Risse opened the session by situating water within the human rights framework. ‘You need a stable climate and a healthy environment for any kind of human rights to be exercisable,’ he said. He reminded the audience that the right to safe drinking water, recognized by the UN in 2010, and the more recent acknowledgment of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment represent important progress. Yet he also noted the limits of these frameworks, which often treat the environment as something external to humanity, existing for human use. Indigenous perspectives, he emphasized, challenge this division by recognizing water ‘among our relations, among the greater nature into which we are all embedded.’
“…
“[J]ustice must extend beyond human beings. “Justice is not something solely for humans, but justice for all living beings,” she said. Leonard described the growing global movement to recognize the inherent rights of rivers and waters—an approach already embraced by Indigenous legal systems for millennia. Examples include the Menominee River (recognized by the Menominee Nation), the Whanganui River in New Zealand, and the Klamath River in California. Such recognition, she argued, allows ecosystems not only to survive but to thrive.”
Some Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature want to formally recognize that nature has “inalienable” rights. It reads, in part:
“Resolved by the assembly, the senate concurring, That the Wisconsin State Legislature recognizes that nature possesses inherent rights, including the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored
“…
“Resolved, That the Wisconsin State Legislature commits to engaging Indigenous communities, environmental scientists, legal experts, landowners, and the public in building a framework for environmental law that reflects both traditional ecological knowledge and modern science”.
Apparently even Mother Nature can have a right to earn some green and own the means of production…
“To illustrate what this might mean – imagine if that large tree you drive by each day, or that river you cross, or the mountain in the distance, had legal rights itself. If it did, and it could own shares of a company, then how might that affect the Directors of such a company when they come to make decisions?
“Elizabeth and I met one sunny afternoon to discuss this topic. The light dipped towards the horizon and pierced through the red leaves that were dropping from the trees around Canterbury Law School that I had sat under decades before as a student. That conversation turned into a collaboration with her and Dr David Jefferson that was published by Cambridge University Press called ‘Experiments with the Extension of Legal Personality to Ecosystems and Beyond-Human Organisms: Challenges and Opportunities for Company Law’.
“In this we put forward scenarios that collided my experience as a practising lawyer with the theoretical side of the law – for example, a mountain might have a 500 year perspective on the type of trees that get planted on its slopes. Commercial forestry or native trees? A timber mill on the banks of a river using traditional fossil fuel machines or more regenerative options that would not damage the environment? Are there extra duties a director would owe to such an entity that is a shareholder of a company or would the same ones apply as to any director? Have a read of the paper and see what we were concluding!”
TTFN.
