Rights of Rivers

How We Survive

Marketplace

Business, News

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Colorado River has been carved up and relentlessly fought over for decades. But has anyone ever asked what the river wants? Until recently, that answer was ‘no.’

There’s a growing movement, rooted in Indigenous values, to give nature — rivers, fish, crops and trees — the same rights as people (and corporations). It’s known as Rights of Nature. In our last episode of the season we travel to the other side of the world, visit a mountain town making history and learn from salmon in the Pacific Northwest, as we figure out if personhood is feasible for the Colorado River and what that would mean for the river and those who depend on it.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Amy. Before this episode starts, I want to thank you for listening to how we survive.
0:05.8	This season is coming to an end, and I need to remind you that we are public media.
0:11.5	We rely on donations from you to continue doing this kind of
0:15.6	rigorous long-form journalism. Please give generously right now at
0:20.4	marketplace.org slash survive. We've also got a link in the show notes.
0:25.0	Now, on to the episode.
0:27.0	Back in 2017, New Zealand's parliament took a historic vote.
0:32.0	We've heard this bill today called revolutionary, unique,
0:37.0	and I want to call it extraordinary. Lawmakers were asked to decide whether to give the
0:41.9	Vanganui River, the third longest river in the country,
0:45.7	a special status.
0:47.3	Here today we recognize a river and its catchment as a legal entity, a legal person. That's right, a legal entity, a legal person.
0:53.0	That's right, a legal person.
0:56.0	It would be the first river in the world to gain this status.
1:00.0	Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, had been fighting for the rights of the Vanganui since the 1800s,
1:07.0	when British colonizers began settling along the river, exploiting it for industry, and over time polluting the water and harming the wildlife
1:16.6	that depended on it.
1:18.8	Personhood would give the river the same rights as people in New Zealand and allow guardians to speak on its behalf.
1:26.2	The question is that the motion be agreed to.
1:29.2	Those of that opinion will say aye.
1:31.2	Aye.
1:32.2	The contrary, no. The aye. The contrary no the eyes have it. The day Parliament passed the law a
	...

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