Rights of Rivers
Quick links: Voice of the River | Rights of Rivers Summit | Learn more about Rights of Nature | Useful links | FAQ’s
This page describes the concept of Rights of Rivers and efforts to protect and value the Sussex Ouse with a new Rights of River framework. Lewes District Council was the first council in England to pass a motion seeking to declare a Rights of River Charter for the Ouse.
The concept was discussed at the River Festival in September 2022 where local people took part in a workshop, led by Love our Ouse, to propose a draft charter of rights for the river. Love Our Ouse is the lead organisation to date delivering community participatory aspects for the Rights of River work and is part of a growing network both locally and nationally.
Rights of Rivers Summit
On the 24th of November 2023 Love our Ouse organised a Rights of River Summit to bring practitioners locally and from across the UK to share experiences and to make progress on developing the River Ouse Charter.
The Summit reported on global and national implementations of Rights of Rivers to date from a variety of notable speakers, followed by a guided walk of the Winterbourne chalk Stream and held workshops on emerging key themes in the afternoon.
One of the main aims of the Summit was to bring together key stakeholders to progress the Ouse initiative. We also wanted to bring together interested parties and rights of nature activists from all parts of the UK who have connected with us following the Rights of Rivers motion. Invitees included, amongst others, local authorities, river groups, statutory organisations, academics, environmentalists, water utility companies, legal experts, farmers, and local communities.
We have compiled a full Report of the day including contributions from attendees during the afternoon workshops and key outputs. We hope you find it an interesting read and find it useful if you are working on Rights for your River. Read Report HERE
Check our wonderful highlights film on our ‘OuseTube’ channel which we feel captures the day well! HERE
The full recording of the morning presentations from our inspiring speakers can be
found HERE
Podcast: ‘Advocating for Nature: Rights for the River Ouse’
This fantastic podcast hears from many different voices about the movement to secure rights for the River Ouse – where the ideas come from, what they might mean in practice, and some of the exciting possibilities and gnarly issues associated with it. So settle down with a cuppa and have a listen!
The podcast has been made as part of the Railway Land Wildlife Trust’s NatureLinks Youth Action Programme, and has been funded by the National Lottery.
Link to listen: HERE
What is Rights of Nature?
Rights of Nature is a way of rethinking our relationship with nature. All too often nature is defined in relation to humans and their activities. Rights of nature argues that nature should be recognised as existing on its own terms and have the same kind of legal rights that Human Rights give people. Rights of Nature also recognises the interdependencies that exists between all living things.
Some human rights have been extended to corporations globally – a company which is a wholly fictional entity is recognised as a legal entity distinct from its individual decision makers. If we can define a corporation as having rights, then it does not seem a great leap to suggest that nature and more specifically a river has similar rights.
The Universal Declaration on Rights of Rivers defines the basic rights for a river as;
- THE RIGHT TO FLOW
- THE RIGHT TO PERFORM ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS WITHIN ITS ECOSYSTEM,
- THE RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM POLLUTION,
- THE RIGHT TO FEED AND BE FED BY SUSTAINABLE AQUIFERS,
- THE RIGHT TO NATIVE BIODIVERSITY, AND
- THE RIGHT TO REGENERATION AND RESTORATION
A Rights of Rivers declaration provides a framework to address the numerous threats faced by our river and broadens the narrow (but understandable) focus of the water pollution debate which dominates discussion on our waterways. We believe that to safeguard the future of our river and in fact all of nature we need the paradigm shift that Rights of Rivers brings.
Lewes District Council Motion
It was in this context that a motion to Lewes District Council was proposed and passed in February 2023.
1. This Council acknowledges the growing global movement of ‘rights of nature’ as a framework for rethinking its relationship with the environment.
2. This Council believes that there is a case to be made for considering our interactions with our local waterways in the context of ‘Rights of Rivers’ and through which the health and wellbeing of the River Ouse can be addressed.
3. This Council will explore with local communities and relevant stakeholders the implementation of Rights of Rivers along the River Ouse. This will involve working towards the production of a ‘Declaration on the Rights of the River Ouse’ by relevant stakeholders for possible endorsement by the Council within 2 years.
Rights of Rivers across the UK
The reaction following the Lewes District Council Rights of River motion has been incredible with a huge amount of interest and stories in national newspapers, radio interviews, talks and podcasts.
We’ve been contacted by numerous river-focused groups, Wildlife Trusts and other local authorities working towards implementing Rights for their rivers.
We have received lots of offers of help developing and defining what the eventual River Charter for the Ouse will look like. Excitingly we are working with a lawyer who was involved in drafting the Rights of Nature aspects in the Ecuadorian Constitution.
We’ve helped several Master students who have chosen to focus on Rights of Nature as their thesis and we are partnering with Roehampton University and others in a bid to develop a national Rights of Nature network.
There is a growing recognition that Rights of Rivers offers an important shift in the way we relate to nature and rivers.
What’s Next?
We are working in partnership with a number of people on different strands of Rights of Rivers so that by the end of 2024 a viable Charter for Rights of Rivers is able to be recognised and endorsed by Lewes District Council.
Steering Group
Our Rights of Rivers Steering Group is made up of representatives from Love Our Ouse, Railway Land Trust, Environmental Law Foundation, Lewes District Council, Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust, Sussex Wildlife Trust and others as the work programme demands.
The steering group meets every 2 months and ensure that progress is kept on track.
Legal Mechanisms
The legal aspects of Rights of Rivers are an important aspect of the eventual applicability of the Charter. Emma Montlake (Love our Ouse Director) is leading this area in consultation with Environmental Law Foundation, Monica Fiera-Tinta and others
When discussing what the ‘Voice of the River’ might look like and who is best placed to ‘speak for the river’, we are able to engage with young people for example, who begin to appreciate the river as its own entity and not as something in relation to humans.
We’ve found through community engagement and through our River Mapping at local events that Rights of Rivers shows the interconnectedness of the many issues being faced by our river in an easy to engage way.
We’re speaking with local communities, young people, landowners, statutory organisations and many others who all have an interest in the health of the river.
We’re delivering Rights of River live workshops sessions and surveying local people’s ideas for the Charter. It’s really vital that people who live and connect with the Ouse to be involved.
All our public sessions are made into reports you can read.
Learn more about Rights of Nature
A rights of Nature Toolkit – rights-of-nature-toolkit.pdf
Ecoforensic CIC: Rights of Nature – www.youtube.com
Water has a memory – www.filmsforaction.org/watch/water-has-a-memory/
Cold Rights – https://susanschuppli.com/COLD-RIGHTS
Wildhope: Does Nature have Rights? – www.wildhope.tv/episode/does-nature-have-rights/
The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World. Book by David R. Boyd
Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. Book by Cormac Cullinan
Naturebang podcast – Rivers and Rights of Nature
Rights of Nature – a global movement documentary watch here
Invisible Hand – a Rights of Nature documentary
Useful Links
Rights for the River Ouse Press links
The Guardian – The River Ouse maybe the first River to Gain Legal Rights
Al Jazeera podcast – An English Town’s Take on Rights of Nature
Local Government – Granting Rivers Rights
Weald to Waves – Ouse Opens Floodgates for Legal Rivers Rights
The Telegraph – Why England’s most underrated river is about to become its cleanest
Sussex Wildlife Trust – Rights of River Charter
Sussex Express – Sussex River to be the first in England to have its own rights
The Argus – River Ouse could get legal protection after Lewes council motion
FAQ's
Here are more insights into the Rights of River and Nature movement that you may find useful
What is Rights of Rivers (Nature)?
There is a growing international movement that recognises nature as having rights, inherent to its own ecology, distinct and divisible from humans. The global context is of a growing area of earth jurisprudence; that is the law recognising that nature has rights, rivers, and forests for instance.
Who else has rights?
Recognising existing rights of nature is a natural evolution of the legal rights movement. Many peoples have fought to have their rights recognised over the centuries and now we have an International Declaration of Human Rights and the UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Companies – a wholly fictitious entity have rights. A company exists as a separate legal entity, distinct from its decision makers, can be sued and can sue in a court of law.
What are key global dates for Rights of Nature?
In September 2008 Ecuador voted to accept a new constitution which included Rights of Nature. These rights are now embedded in the constitution and were enforced against the Ecuadorian government over mining concessions issued in a protected forest, Los Cedros in 2021. The court ruled they must be revoked. The Constitutional Court said the government’s failure to conduct studies looking at the fragility of Los Cedros coupled with the uncertainty of the effects from the permitted mining activity “violates the rights of nature to exist and regenerate”.
In 2017 the New Zealand Parliament voted to approve legislation recognising the Whanganui River as a legal person. “I am the river and the river is me” . S.12 of the legislation recognises “the river is an indivisible and living whole incorporating all its physical and metaphysical elements”.
On 19th December 2022, the United Nations (UN) Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) agreed a landmark agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss: the Kunming to Montreal Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. It states: The framework recognizes and considers these diverse value systems and concepts, including, for those countries that recognize them, rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth, as being an integral part of its successful implementation.
How are Rights of Nature Implemented globally?
Environmental Constitutionalism, as with Ecuador’s constitution, rights of nature have been included in an overarching piece of legislation that gives constitutional effect to the protection and conservation of nature.
Legal Personhood as with the Whanganui River in New Zealand which grants natural entities legal personhood, this gives nature standing in court, but in addition gives courts a wider scope to take ecological science evidence into consideration in deciding on precaution and remediation.
Who speaks for the River?
Typically in the global movement nature and river rights are associated with indigenous communities, who already recognise nature rights through belief systems, cultural and moral values. In New Zealand the local Maori community are recognised in law as being able to give the river a voice. This is simply enshrining in law what the community have always recognised; that the Whanganui River is an ancestor.
Why are Rights of Rivers needed in the UK?
Nature is in crisis and as a species it is critical that humans reframe our relationship with nature, the UN has called for this. The UK is in one of the 10% most nature depleted countries in the world. Our rivers in the UK are in serious trouble with only 14% reaching good ecological status and no river reaching good chemical status.
Our environmental laws and regulations are failing to prevent the destruction of nature. Existing law is not being enforced and overarching legal environmental principles are marginalised. The existing regulatory structures for monitoring, management and enforcement of rivers are not fit for purpose.
Most of our laws are based around humans and their property, what they own and the protection of that which is owned. Our laws completely disregard the infinite numbers of species that we share the planet with.
Rights of rivers provides a new way of thinking about the natural world and provides legal mechanisms for reflecting the other, nature and non-human species.
Rights of Rivers in Lewes?
It is unlikely that we will have any overarching piece of UK legislation anytime soon, recognising rights of nature.
However there are opportunities at a local level. We will be exploring what opportunities may already be available such as under various Local Government Acts and the potential use of conservation covenants. Also we want to explore representational rights of the Ouse at forums such a planning meetings and in neighbourhood plans
“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.” - David Brower, Environmentalist
Contact Us
We’re keen to hear from anyone interested in being involved. Email us: info@loveourouse.org
