Press Release | Advocates at IUCN Congress Highlight a Wave of New Support for the Rights of Rivers

Press Release | Advocates at IUCN Congress Highlight a Wave of New Support for the Rights of Rivers

For immediate release: September 8, 2021 Contacts:     1. Monti Aguirre, International Rivers (707-591-1220; monti@internationalrivers.org) 2. Grant Wilson, Earth Law Center (510-566-1063; gwilson@earthlaw.org) Marseille, France—Today, advocates from across the globe gathered at the IUCN World Conservation Congress (both in person and remotely) to highlight the precipitous growth of the movement to recognize the rights of rivers and…

Read More
Press Release  | Coalition of International Organizations Files an Amicus Curiae Brief Calling for the Recognition of the Intrinsic Rights of the Marañón River in Peru

Press Release | Coalition of International Organizations Files an Amicus Curiae Brief Calling for the Recognition of the Intrinsic Rights of the Marañón River in Peru

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 12th, 2021 Contacts: Constanza Prieto Figelist (cpfigelist@earthlaw.org, +1 202-621-3877), Monti Aguirre (monti@internationalrivers.org, +1 707-591-1220) Lima, Peru—On July 5th, a coalition of international organizations filed an Amicus Curiae brief before the Celendín Court of Justice, Civil Court, requesting the recognition of the inherent rights of the Marañón River associated with the exercise…

Read More
Organizations launch petition to save the Cuiabá River in Brazil

Organizations launch petition to save the Cuiabá River in Brazil

The coalition pressures Mato Grosso State environmental agency (SEMA) to suspend licensing to six new dams planned to be built on the Alto Paraguay basin. A coalition of Brazilian and international civil society organizations and social movements* has launched a petition to pressure the Mato Grosso State environmental agency (SEMA) against the approval of environmental…

Read More
Rivers Are Key to Restoring the World’s Biodiversity

Rivers Are Key to Restoring the World’s Biodiversity

By: Alessandra Korap Munduruku, Darryl Knudsen, Irikefe V. Dafe This article was originally featured on Independent Media Institute Biodiversity is plummeting, but restoring rivers could quickly reverse this disastrous trend. In October 2021, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will meet in China to adopt a new post-2020 global biodiversity framework to reverse biodiversity loss and its impacts on ecosystems,…

Read More
United for Restoration and a Just Recovery: How protecting biodiversity and advancing climate and economic justice is the recovery we need

United for Restoration and a Just Recovery: How protecting biodiversity and advancing climate and economic justice is the recovery we need

This year, Earth Day and UN World Environment Day both focus on restoration, for good reason; 97% of Earth’s land area may no longer be ecologically intact. If we don’t urgently make recovery and investment choices that change course, our ecosystems, and humanity itself are on a path to collapse.  We’re facing multiple crises: a global pandemic,…

Read More
Why Recognize a River’s Rights? Behind the scenes of the Magpie River case in Canada.

Why Recognize a River’s Rights? Behind the scenes of the Magpie River case in Canada.

By: Pier-Olivier, SNAP Quebec; Monti Aguirre, International Rivers; Grant Wilson Earth Law Center Lire en Français Keywords: environment, conservation, rivers, protection, law, Nature, Magpie, legal personhood, First Nations, municipalities On February 23, the Muteshekau-shipu Alliance, of which SNAP Québec is a member, announced that “legal personhood” had been granted to the Magpie River – a…

Read More
PRESS RELEASE | Coalition Submits Amicus Brief in Nangaritza Case Calling for a Bold Application of the Rights of Nature in Ecuador

PRESS RELEASE | Coalition Submits Amicus Brief in Nangaritza Case Calling for a Bold Application of the Rights of Nature in Ecuador

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2021 Contacts: Constanza Prieto Figelist (cpfigelist@earthlaw.org, +1-202-621-3877) Grant Wilson (gwilson@earthlaw.org, +1-510-566-1063) QUITO, ECUADOR—This week, a coalition of forest experts, river protectors, and law professors submitted an amicus brief to Ecuador’s Constitutional Court calling for a robust application of the “Rights of Nature” to protect the Upper Nangaritza River Basin Protected Forest…

Read More
River Poems By Poet Laureate Robert Hass

River Poems By Poet Laureate Robert Hass

Poet Laureate Robert Hass is joining us live on December 16 at 5pm pacific for our 2020 end of the year event “Rivers Unite Us” for a live reading. A RIVER from “The State of the Planet” The people who live in Tena, on the Napo River, Say that the black, viscous stuff that pools in…

Read More
PRESS RELEASE | “Rights of Nature:  Landmarks for the construction of a General Theory” Book Launch

PRESS RELEASE | “Rights of Nature: Landmarks for the construction of a General Theory” Book Launch

By: Anna Maria Cárcamo, Legal Advisor Latin America and the Brazilian National Articulation for the Rights of Nature – Mother Earth Português translation below | Tradução de português abaixo Rights of Nature is a global movement which proposes a profound change in legal frameworks and society as a whole, from an anthropocentric to an ecocentric…

Read More
How to Win Legal Rights for South Asia’s Rivers

How to Win Legal Rights for South Asia’s Rivers

By: Ayesha DSouza, South Asia Program Coordinator & guest writer Sarah Bardeen What is a river? The dictionary defines a river as “a natural stream of water of usually considerable volume” or, quite simply, a “watercourse.” But at our “Dialogue on the Rights of Rivers,” which took place in Delhi, India from March 6-7, 2020,…

Read More