Do Rivers Have Rights? – Native News Online

Guest Opinion

Should trees have standing? And other questions on the road to personhood.

The memorable title with the double entendre, Should Trees Have Standing?, is that of a famous article written by Christopher Stone in 1972. This article marked the beginning of legal consideration of whether trees and nature have rights worthy, in Western legal systems, of being represented by a guardian in a court of law or other legal matters. After all, in the 1940s, Aldo Leopold, in A Sand County Almanac, laid the foundations of an environmental ethic, or “land ethic,” that speaks to these rights.

One of the points Leopold makes is that we should affirm the right of species’ continued existence, and at least sometimes in their natural place of existence. While this was a significant step in Western civilization to recognize this right, Native American communities (and, more broadly, Indigenous communities around the world) have always understood that nature has a right to exist and that humans are part of nature, not conquerors of it—another point Leopold claims in A Sand County Almanac. It is not surprising when scientists arrive at similar principles through different intellectual pathways, so we should not be surprised that this principle of life emerged through different ways of knowing.

The concept of the rights of nature was raised in 1972 in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Sierra Club v. Morton, in the dissent by Justice Douglas. Justice Douglas wrote:

The critical question of “standing” would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers, and where injury is the subject of public outrage.

He proposes a kind of guardian to represent the best interests of nature, while also tying those interests to human concern—“where injury is the subject of public outrage.” At the time, this was seen as a radical viewpoint, but now, a half-century later, we are seeing ordinances and tribal laws that recognize the rights of rivers and other parts of nature.

Rights of Nature for Tribes

Rights of rivers and other parts of the ecosystem have been recognized by at least eight federally recognized tribes in the United States. This is not surprising, as these legal developments reflect longstanding Indigenous worldviews.

In November 2025, the Colorado River Tribes passed an ordinance recognizing the rights of the Colorado River, including rights vested in the river or its personhood.

In 2019, the Yurok Tribe recognized the inherent right of the Klamath River to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.

In 2020, the Nez Perce Tribal Council passed a resolution recognizing the rights of the Snake River to exist, including the right to flow and to regenerate.

In 2020, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin passed a resolution recognizing the rights of the Menominee River to exist and function as a healthy ecosystem.

In 2026, the Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians passed an ordinance recognizing the “Longperson,” or the collective, interconnected waters. This law established that the interconnected water system is a living relative with the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and flow freely.

Rights of Nature in the States

The people of Toledo, Ohio, on February 26, 2019, passed the “Lake Erie Bill of Rights” (LEBOR) through a ballot initiative during a special election. On February 27, 2020, a federal judge struck down the law as unconstitutionally vague.

In 2020, Orange County, Florida, amended its charter to recognize the rights of the Wekiva and Econlockhatchee Rivers, passing with 89% approval. However, when litigation was brought under the charter, a state court held that such laws were preempted by the 2020 Florida Waterways Act, which prohibits local governments from enacting rights of nature legislation. Ohio and Idaho have passed similar measures to ensure that rights of nature laws are not adopted within their jurisdictions.

In 2023, a bill was introduced in the North Carolina Legislature to recognize the rights of the Haw River. Introduced by Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Greensboro), it did not advance beyond committee. In 2024, Reps. Harrison, Cervania, and Autry introduced the Rights of the Dan River Ecosystem, modeled after the Haw River bill; it also failed to move forward. In 2025, the same representatives introduced a bill combining these rivers in a similarly worded act.

Dozens of local governments have passed versions of rights of nature ordinances. For example, the City of Everett, Washington, passed a ballot initiative in November 2024 recognizing the right of the Snohomish River watershed to exist.

Final Thoughts

The momentum is building. Efforts over the past fifty years to recognize the rights of rivers and interconnected water systems have brought these ideas from the margins into broader public consciousness. While they began in tribal governments and are consistent with tribal traditions, they are now gaining wider traction.

This movement is profound because it pushes Western legal jurisprudence to address problems long understood in ancient ecological wisdom. By codifying the rights of rivers, tribal nations are not only protecting vital resources but also challenging the Western, property-based view of nature that has long dominated global policy. As state legislatures begin to engage with these ideas, we are witnessing the emergence of a new way of thinking about water—not solely as property, but as an entity with its own right to exist.

Ultimately, the momentum behind these laws suggests that the “rights of nature” movement is moving from the fringes of activism into mainstream public thought.

To read more articles by Professor Sutton go to:  https://profvictoria.substack.com/ 

Professor Victoria Sutton (Lumbee) is a law professor on the faculty of Texas Tech University. In 2005, Sutton became a founding member of the National Congress of American Indians, Policy Advisory Board to the NCAI Policy Center, positioning the Native American community to act and lead on policy issues affecting Indigenous communities in the United States.

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