Within the UK, the rights of nature’s movement is inchoate but growing, with a specific focus on the rights of the rivers. Several civil society initiatives over the past three years – including community charters, motions in local councils, and community declarations – have recognised the rights of rivers. However, these initiatives face at least two serious obstacles. Firstly, the practices of these different initiatives are for the most part isolated from each other and from the global RoN movement. Secondly, there is currently littleacademic research into the conceptual foundations, legal plausibility, and ecological potential of the RoN movement in the UK. This project aims to resolve both problems.
This project has three main objectives:
- To perform a definitive interdisciplinary investigation into the possibility and plausibility of awarding natural entities rights in the UK context.
- To facilitate the development of a UK-wide network of local communities currently developing RoN initiatives.
- To work with local initiatives involved in this network (Objective 2), to co-produce and implement research into the RoN in UK (Objective 1).
The main outputs to this project will be an academic examination of the possibilities of RoN in the UK, and the establishment of a UK-wide RoN advocate network.
