What is a “person”? How the Rights of Nature movement and Indigenous worldviews shift the environmental protection narrative
This blog is a part of our 2025-2026 Climate and Cultural Heritage Series made possible by the Fletcher Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and the Fletcher Office for Inclusive Excellence.
By Sarah Wallstrom
On September 29, 2008, the people of Ecuador woke up to a changed world. The day before, over 65% of voters had thrown their support behind a new constitution that, among other progressive reforms, enshrined the Rights of Nature into law. This decisive referendum made Ecuador the first nation-state to protect the mountains, forests, rivers, and air by giving them legally enforceable rights. Andean Indigenous worldviews such as the sumak kawsay principle (Kichwa for “good living,” or a full, harmonious life) and Pachamama (Mother Earth) formed the roots of the reform, which incorporated Indigenous language into its very text:
“Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies.” (CELDF)
The Ecuadorian referendum galvanized the growing Indigenous-led Rights of Nature movement on a global scale, with governments from local municipalities to the state level following suit. Water bodies are a frequent subject for protection, from Colombia pronouncing the legal rights of the Atrato River in 2016, to the Yukon tribe granting the Klamath River legal personhood in 2019, and the supreme court of Bangladesh declaring all the country’s rivers as “living entities” with legal rights that same year. Mother Earth, rainforests, and wild rice (Manoomin) have also been granted legal rights in rulings in Bolivia (2010), New Zealand (2014), and Minnesota (2018), respectively. A majority of these rulings are a codification of centuries-old Indigenous practices, and local tribes are often the loudest voices advocating for them.
The idea that ecosystems could have rights is hardly new, given that Indigenous communities the world over have been seeing natural entities as fellow “beings” for tens of thousands of years. What is new is the coding of this worldview into legal frameworks. This can sound unconventional and even unrealistic, but nature is not the first non-human entity to be given rights. Corporations and businesses are also treated like “legal persons” and almost everywhere in the world are able to own property, sign contracts, and be sued, just like a human person. Worldwide there are over 500 ongoing initiatives related to legal rights for nature, and in 2022 the United Nations recognized “the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” as a fundamental human right, riding the momentum of the Rights of Nature movement.
Rights of Nature laws are an imperfect tool, but the legal force behind them has led to wide-ranging global successes fighting back against environmental destruction. In 2021, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador ruled against a gold and copper mining project in the Los Cedros cloud forest—a biodiversity hotspot—arguing that the rights of the forest, rivers, and endangered species in Los Cedros would be violated by mining activities that would clear-cut trees, poison water, and destroy habitats (Macfarlane, 64). The mining companies were gone within 10 days. Similar rulings have led to successful enforcement of river protections in Ecuador, the appointment of river guardians to advocate for the Whanganui River in New Zealand, and restrictions on sewage dumping in Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania, among others.
Los Cedros Forest in northwestern Ecuador. (MOTH Rights)
Despite these successes, the Rights of Nature movement is neither a perfect solution, nor without its own criticisms. Issues with implementation and feasibility loom large, as shown in the response to the Uttarakhand High Court ruling on rights for the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in 2017. The Indian Supreme Court stayed the ruling, claiming it was “legally unsustainable and simply not ‘practical’.” There are ongoing issues with developing comprehensive definitions for what it would mean to “violate” the rights of a natural entity such as a river and what “restitution” would entail, not to mention questions about who can truly, thoroughly represent the interests of a river or a forest in court.
The Rights of Nature enshrined within any legal framework or political system are also only as strong as that system is fragile. Today the Ecuadorian forest of Los Cedros is once again under existential threat as the right-wing coalition led by current president and heir to a major banana business empire, Daniel Noboa, attacks the constitution and the groundbreaking Rights of Nature provisions within it. A referendum on November 16 will decide whether the constitution should be reformed or replaced, in a move that many activists claim could spell the end for legal personhood-based nature protections in Ecuador. In either case, Rights of Nature have entered the legal and political imagination all over the world, and it will be difficult to permanently shake them loose.
Although legal rights for nature can be creative, innovative tools for environmental protection, clearly they are not enough on their own. What this movement calls on us to do is something far greater than changing the law. Rather, it speaks to broader questions of how we see ourselves in relation to the natural world. Ancient Indigenous practices and ways of knowing ask us to reconsider our assumptions of what “personhood” could mean. Expanding our definition opens up new imaginative possibilities for seeing natural entities not as “things” to exploit, but as beings with whom we share the planet and on whom we depend.
The Māori of New Zealand and other Indigenous Polynesian groups signed the He Whakaputanga Moana (Declaration for the Ocean) in 2024, recognizing whales as legal persons and spurring international dialogue about the ethical and legal approach to whales. (Atmos)
Learn more about Rights of Nature in Ecuador:
Sarah Wallstrom is in her first year of The Fletcher School's MALD program, studying International Development & Environmental Policy and Conflict Resolution & Negotiation. She is interested in sustainability, particularly regarding equitable freshwater and marine resource management.