- A new guidebook aims to assist tribal nations across the United States in adopting legal frameworks that recognize the rights of nature.
- The growing rights-of-nature movement seeks to protect the environment by legally acknowledging its inherent right to exist and thrive independent of human use.
- The guide examines real-world challenges and pathways for passing laws and includes case studies of tribes that have enacted rights-of-nature laws through constitutions, ordinances and resolutions.
- The guide contains practical guidance on steps like surveying community perspectives, holding educational gatherings, and forming planning committees.
In 2023, a group of small communities in Ecuador ousted the world’s largest copper mining company from their community forest reserve, asserting that the company was violating the “rights of nature” enshrined in the Ecuadorian constitution.
In recent years, countries like Ecuador, New Zealand, and India have passed rights-of-nature laws. This growing “rights of nature” movement protects the environment by legally acknowledging its inherent right to exist and thrive independent of human use. This represents a profound shift from existing environmental law that views nature as property that can be owned.
In the U.S., Tribal nations are leading the way in incorporating the rights of nature into their governance structures.
A newly published guidebook is the latest contribution to this effort. Published by the Native-led Bioneers Indigeneity Program, the Guide to Rights of Nature in Indian Country provides strategies and resources for Indigenous communities interested in enacting laws granting ecosystems, landscapes and species legal rights and personhood.
“As a coalition of Native and Native-descended authors, we wrote this guide by and for American Indian/Alaska Native community members who are interested in learning about how the Rights of Nature can bring Tribal values into contemporary law,” the Bioneers Rights of Nature website states. “If you are interested in bringing this movement to your community, we would be happy to brainstorm with you.”
The 30-page guidebook presents real-world challenges and pathways for passing laws. It provides case studies of tribes that have enacted rights-of-nature laws, including through constitutions, ordinances and resolutions. The guide examines the pros and cons of each method and includes examples of how tribes have navigated these decisions.
Rights of Nature laws often arise in response to immediate threats like mining, drilling, development and pollution to ecosystems and species critical to Indigenous cultural and life practices. Resolutions can address urgent threats quickly, while ordinances carry more permanent legal force. Amending constitutions provides the strongest protection but involves lengthy approval processes.
The guide covers several case studies of Tribal nations that have passed resolutions and laws recognizing the rights of nature in recent years. In 2016, the Ho-Chunk Nation passed a resolution to add the rights of nature to its constitution, becoming the first to propose such a constitutional amendment.
The Ponca Nation passed a resolution in 2017 granting nature the right to exist and establishing rights to clean air, water, and freedom from pollution. The White Earth Ojibwe passed a resolution acknowledging the rights of wild rice to flourish in 2018. And in 2022, the Sauk Tribe sued Seattle with salmon as the plaintiff, resulting in the city agreeing to provide fish passages in any new permit or permit renewal for hydro dams.
Other tribes have passed laws granting personhood status and rights to specific ecosystems. The Nez Perce in 2020 recognized the rights of the Snake River to exist and regenerate. That same year, the Menominee Tribe asserted the rights of the Menominee River to remain pollution-free. In 2019, the Yurok Tribal Council’s Klamath River resolution granted it rights to a clean environment and legal standing against harm.
In addition to case studies, the guide contains practical guidance on steps like surveying community perspectives, holding educational gatherings, and forming planning committees. Tools and templates for community engagement are also provided, including sample fliers, surveys and presentations.
According to the guide, passing rights-of-nature laws demonstrates Tribal sovereignty. However, “it is important to understand that the ability of Rights of Nature policy to support and forward Tribal sovereignty is subject to case law and has not yet been tested in [US] court,” the guidebook cautions.
“In spite of this warning, we believe that now is the time to stretch sovereignty to protect ancestral homelands for generations to come,” the guide states. “Rights of Nature laws are a way to ensure that our values are passed down … They tell the world what matters to us.”
Banner image: A bear with its salmon catch. Image by Deborah Freeman via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
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