MADRID — In Vilcabamba, a small town in southern Ecuador, people live to be more than 100 years old. In Quechua, the town’s name Huillopamba means Sacred Valley, but for the rest of the world, it is known as the Valley of Longevity or “the land of the oldest old people in the world.”
More than a decade ago, this peculiarity attracted too many tourists which damaged the inhabitants’ source of livelihood: The Vilcabamba River was modified to widen the road leading to the town. Altering the river’s natural course caused flooding. The way of life and even the average age of the people in the valley began to change with the arrival of foreigners looking to spend their last years in a privileged place.
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In 2011, tired of seeing their land lose its integrity, some residents filed a legal action backed by the Ecuadorian Constitution that since 2008 recognized the rights of Mother Earth — the first in the world to do so. With this lawsuit, Ecuador made history again by ruling that the Vilcabamba River had “the right not to be diverted from its course.”
The first successful legal case on the rights of nature, the ruling recognizing the Vilcabamba as a legal entity then paved the way for many others. Perhaps even more symbolic is the 2011 case of Whanganui River, in New Zealand, which ended a long dispute between the Iwi indigenous people and the government through an agreement.
Another case was that of the Atrato River in Colombia, “the country where most rivers have been recognized as subjects despite not having a constitution like Ecuador’s that introduces the rights of nature,” says Valeria Berros, a lawyer and professor at the National University of Litoral in Argentina. “What Colombia did with the Atrato was unprecedented because it reinterpreted the current law in an ecocentric way” to try to protect it from the contamination caused by mining activities.
Why the rivers?
Whether by city ordinances, jurisprudence or constitutional law, more and more rivers are granted the same rights and protections as human beings. Their intrinsic value is being recognized. Why is it not the case with forests, mountains or glaciers, which are also in a critical state? Digno Montalván, postdoctoral researcher at the Carlos III University of Madrid, explains that there are reasons.
First, rivers are “one of the elements of nature that best represent the interconnection between the human and the non-human.” Second, “water has always been a fundamental element for human development. In this sense, in this new ecocentric moment of the law, the conservation of rivers makes sense: It is taking this concern for a vital resource one step further.”
Moreover, for indigenous territories, the arteries of the planet hold “special spiritual, symbolic connotations.” For some religions such as Hinduism, rivers are also often objects of worship. The Ganges and Yamuna in India were thus recognized as living beings with rights in 2017 for their mystical importance (although the Supreme Court later overturned this decision).
Meanwhile, Montalván says, “rivers have been among the natural spaces that, despite their importance, have received, in some cases, the greatest share of pollution: they have been dumping grounds for chemical waste from big companies, waterways for trade and even rubbish dumps.”
Europe’s turn
The protection of nature is expanding. But it is not for the same reasons everywhere, nor at the same pace. The cases of Vilcabamba and Whanganui are influenced by this vision the world has of indigenous people defending that nature should not be exploited.
The rights of nature are not one global movement or universal tool.
“The origin of the ecocentric view has a lot to do with Latin American indigenous communities, who never had a voice and today have found it through these ideas,” Berros says. “Their visions pluralize an
environmental law that otherwise tends to be quite anthropocentric.”
For his part, Montalván argues that the next steps do not have to follow the exact same path in all regions of the world, although they must go in the same direction.
“The rights of nature are not one global movement or universal tool. Believing that what has been proposed in latitudes such as Ecuador, New Zealand or India can be completely replicated in other contexts such as the European or Anglo-Saxon ones can be a mistake,” he says.
“There are many ways to achieve recognition of natural rights and each specific context must or should achieve this recognition through its own cultural, historical and political tradition,” he continues.
“In the case of Latin America, indigenous peoples are relevant actors and we have grown from this fusion between the indigenous and the non-indigenous, especially in Ecuador [where he is from]. But perhaps tradition, enlightenment, ecological knowledge, romanticism, literature, science are the tools Europe needs to achieve this change.”
Spain paving the way
The Mar Menor, near Cartagena, Spain, has opened the door to the recognition of the rights of nature in Europe. And today, the saltwater lagoon is no longer the only ecosystem considered a subject in the country.
All along its course, the Tins River, in Galicia, in northwest Spain, faces pollution from waste, the presence of invasive species such as acacias and crocosmias, and misuse by urban planning.
On March 1, 2024, the Serra de Outes City Council unanimously approved the Declaration of Rights of the Tins River. It lists 10 rights, including the right to life and existence as an ecosystem in balance, and to be clean and free of pollution.
A year before the proclamation, locals met to jointly imagine what they would like the river to be like in 10 years. Based on this consensus, 14 commitments, both for the residents and anyone visiting the river, were also drawn to ensure its conservation.
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