In another suit claiming the rights of nature, the Sauk-Suiattle tribe is suing the city of Seattle, WA on behalf of endangered salmon that the tribe says have an “inherent rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve”. Lawsuits recognizing the nature's 'civil rights' is a growing trend.
{2-10-2017} The suit was filed in tribal court and the city is seeking to dismiss it. Rivers damned for the city's benefit no longer support sufficient populations of salmon for the tribe's needs. The Indian attorney representing the tribe incourt said the suit was a means to force the city to recognize legitimate needs of the salmon to surive.
Seattle negotiated an agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 1995 that allowed it to damage Salmon habitat by draining the Skagit River. The city is currently seeking a new license that could extend for another fifity years, long enough to insure the salmon's extiction. The tribe says it cannot rely on federal regulators to protect endangered salmon because FERC considers business benefits over the protection of habitat. The salmon is sacred to the Sauk-Suiattle and other northwest tribes.
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| the Klamath at sunset, credit LA Times |
In 2018 a Minnesota tribe, White Earth Nation, passed a law recognizing the legal rights of manoomin, a sacred wild rice. The Ojibwes filed a lawsuit in their tribal court to stop Enbridge Energy's Line 3. They claim the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is failing to protect the state’s fresh water by allowing Enbridge to pump up to 5 billion gallons of groundwater and surface water for construction amidst a devastating drought. In 2019 the Yurok tribe declared the legal rights of the Klamath River, which allows lawsuits to be filed on its behalf in tribal court. “From New Zealand to Colombia, the powerful idea that nature has rights is taking root in legal systems,” says David Boyd, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment. We must no longer view the natural world as a mere warehouse of commodities for humans to exploit, but rather a remarkable community to which we belong and to whom we owe responsibilities.” What seems a novel legal idea is actually a long awaited acknowledgment of man's proper place in the biosphere.