Key Highlights
- Legal Personhood: Exploring the global shift from viewing nature as property to recognising it as a “Subject of Rights.”
- Global Precedents: Case studies on the Te Urewera Act (New Zealand) and the Mar Menor (Spain) governance models.
- Environmental Litigation: How “Rights of Nature” frameworks expand standing (locus standi) for citizens and NGOs.
- Tanzania’s Regulatory Evolution: A look at enforcement under the Environmental Management Act [CAP. 191 R.E. 2023] and the recent 2025 Amendments.
The idea that nature should have rights is usually traced back to a 1972 paper by Professor Christopher D. Stone, entitled “Should trees have standing? – Towards legal rights for natural objects”. Recognising that “each time there is a movement to confer rights on some new ‘entity, the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable”, he nonetheless argued that extending legal rights to nature was not in itself so different from giving rights to other ‘entities’ such as companies or trusts.
This idea, reflecting the Zeitgeist, found traction first at the municipal, then at the national, and then supranational levels. In 2009, the U.N., acting on a Bolivian initiative, passed Resolution A/RES/63/278 designating the 22nd of April as “International Mother Earth Day”. In 2010, Bolivia’s legislative assembly passed the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth. In 2016, more than 200 US and Canadian tribal nations signed the Grizzly Treaty, recognising the grizzly’s right to live in a healthy environment. In 2018, the Colombian Supreme Court recognised the Colombian Amazon as a ‘Subject of Rights’, and in 2019, Uganda enacted the National Environmental Act, in which Nature has “the right to exist, persist, maintain and generate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution”.
Ecuador, perhaps the place where a holistic approach to the rights of nature has gone furthest, has granted legal personhood to mangrove swamps, rivers, animals and the ocean, although these rights are balanced with the rights of the communities. Most recently, some municipalities in Peru granted legal rights to wild, stingless bees. The list goes on.
With rights come responsibilities, one would think, and this is reflected, for instance, in Section 11 of New Zealand’s Te Urewera Act 2014, which says that “Te Urewera is a legal entity, and has all the rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person”, and these are all to be exercised by a board of trustees. A similar arrangement was later established in the Whanganui River Act 2017. Interestingly, bylaws made by the board of trustees established under the Te Urewera Act (but not any made by the board established under the Whanganui River Act) have the status of secondary legislation in New Zealand.
Perhaps the way to think about it is not so much about granting nature ‘rights’ but of giving more people the right to enforce current environmental protection legislation (this, of course, presupposes that legislation is in place, which is not the case in many places). In 2022, Spain passed a law granting legal personhood to the Mar Menor, a coastal saltwater lagoon, in part because of “the inadequate protection provided by the current judicial system”. The law established a governance committee, akin to a board of trustees, but also allowed that “any physical or legal person has standing in the defence of the Mar Menor ecosystem and to seek redress in the name of the Mar Menor as interested party”.
This approach to environmental litigation seems to have already been implemented in practice. On the 31st of August 2023 it was reported that a judge, investigating the illegal dumping of mining residues into the Mar Menor, informed the Mar Menor, through its governance committee, of its legal right to seek damages. The judge also offered the right of action to several NGOs and seven local authorities.
In Tanzania, s. 4 of the Environmental Management Act [CAP. 191 R.E. 2023] (as recently updated by the Environmental Management (Amendment) Act, 2025) confirms that “Every person living in Tanzania shall have the right to clean, safe and healthy environment”. If necessary, s. 5 confirms that “Every person may, where a right referred to in section 4 is threatened as a result of an act or an omission which is likely to cause harm to human health or the environment, bring an action against the person whose act or omission is likely to cause harm to human health or the environment”. In considering the remedies available, courts are obliged to apply, amongst others, the Polluter Pays Principle and the Precautionary Principle.
Notwithstanding the good intentions behind the Environmental Management Act, the National Environmental Policy 2021 notes that “a substantial part of the country is experiencing different forms of land degradation, which includes deforestation, loss of vegetation cover, soil erosion, soil pollution and loss of biodiversity”. With the National Environmental Policy expressing concern about emerging environmental threats, such as climate change, e-waste management, invasive species, environmental pollution from oil and gas operations, chemicals, and biotechnology, models like those implemented in New Zealand or Spain may encourage greater implementation of existing legislation to mitigate these risks.
Author:
David Mestress is a Consulting Partner, RIVE&Co and can be reached at david@rive.co.tz
DISCLAIMER: This legal update is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The information presented, including recent judicial decisions, is subject to change and may not apply to specific factual situations. Readers should consult with qualified legal professionals at RIVE&Co or elsewhere for advice tailored to their circumstances. The Author and RIVE&Co expressly disclaim all liability for actions taken or not taken based on the content of this update.