Literature Review

In the year 2017, the Indian rivers Ganga and Yamuna were granted rights equivalent to a 'legal person'. This is part of a series of legal or judicial pronouncements; rivers in some parts of the world have been given rights equivalent to those given to humans. But what does it mean for a river to have rights? How would such rights be implemented? What implications do these decisions (with specific focus on India) have for not just the rivers and those living in/on/along them, but for the relationship between humans and the rest of nature? These questions are addressed, indicating some resolutions as also the issues that need to be addressed in order to find the answers.

In 2019, Bangladesh joined the ever-growing list of countries to recognize rivers as living entities with legal rights. The Bangladesh Rivers case is another example of advocacy from the Supreme Court in Bangladesh, and the article explores the relationship between the executive and the judiciary, and the ongoing role the judiciary has played in water law reform. The Court based its decision on a novel reading of the Constitution, linking the legal rights of the rivers to the public trust doctrine and the human right to a healthy environment. This foundation is itself potentially controversial, and the new legal status of the rivers may set their interests against those of the people who live along and rely upon them. By making comparisons between this case and similar decisions in India and Colombia, the Bangladesh Rivers case can be seen as part of the transnational movement to grant legal rights to rivers.

A study of the rights regime for environmental protection in India indicates that such protections overlap with constitutional rights guaranteed primarily to citizens or persons under the law. Contemporary jurisprudence has aggressively developed this intersectionality, declaring natural entities to be living persons with fundamental rights analogous to those of human beings. This article explores the role played by two judgments delivered by the Uttarakhand High Court – Mohammed Salim v. State of Uttarakhand and Lalit Miglani v. State of Uttarakhand – in the establishment of an effective framework for environmental protection. This is effectuated in both cases by assigning legal personality to rivers and articulating a conceptual shift from the human-centric approach. Accounting for the socio-cultural and spiritual relationships that have received legal protection, this article critically analyzes the judgments, their rationale and contributions to environmental protection. As the judgments articulate a paradigm shift in environmental protection, their effectiveness is best assessed through analyzing the frameworks created for their implementation. While the pronouncement of the Indian courts on the legal personality of rivers is an encouraging paradigm shift in environmental commitment, establishing the rights of nature was undertaken without due attention to the complexities that characterize the Indian socio-politico-religious context and to the legal consequences of bestowing vaguely contoured rights upon natural entities.

Recognition of the right to the environment as a human right in several jurisdictions revolutionised the approach towards environmental protection. Nevertheless, the right to the environment has an anthropogenic dimension, and this recognition could not mitigate the environmental crisis faced by the planet. In response to this increasing ecological crisis, the concept of recognising the rights to nature evolved. The Indian judiciary propounded the river Ganges and Yamuna; Glaciers, Gangotri, and Yamunotri as legal personalities and granted them the rights commensurate with that of a human being. This trend gained attention in Bangladesh, which gave all its rivers rights and legal personhood in 2019. Though the decisions followed the more prominent global trend, these decisions differ from the worldwide movement and their decisions in the articulation of rights and implementation. This paper critically evaluates the legal developments in the rights to nature jurisprudence in India and Bangladesh, focusing on the right to rivers. A critical understanding of the judicial developments is essential in analysing the potential of giving the rights of rivers in improving environmental protection strategies. Considering the impact of these judgments in the transboundary context, the paper looks into the impacts and implications of this recognition on transboundary river governance in India and Bangladesh. The article articulates an eco-centric approach as the starting point for evolving a global perspective in recognising the rights of rivers.

Despite the growing prominence and use of Rights of Nature (RoN), doubts remain as to their tangible effect on environmental protection efforts. By analyzing two initiatives in post-colonial societies, we argue that they do influence the creation of institutionalized bridges between differing land-ownership regimes. Applying the methodology of inter-legality, we examine the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 and the Ugandan National Environment Act 2019. We identify five normative spheres that influence land-ownership regimes. We find that the established Ecuadorian RoN have an institutionalized effect on the nation's legal system. Their more recently established Ugandan counterpart shows potential to develop in the same direction.

Framed against the background of anthropocentric and ecocentric values, the specific themes of this article are located in the developing discourse of Earth Jurisprudence and Wild Law. Critically, the article argues that connection with nature—and specifically, with land—underpins any transformation of property law from an anthropocentric, individualist concept to a more ecocentric and relational one. It draws upon evidence from psychology, sociology and environmental education to demonstrate that connection with nature is central to fostering a Wild Law of property. The article then addresses how such connections can be developed by education, focusing upon the experiences and opportunities offered by initiatives such as Forest School and suggesting these represent emerging forms of Wild Education.

Place attachment and ecocentric attitude are the important determinants of conservation behaviour, especially for traditionally managed landscapes. In this paper, we explore the relationship between place attachment and the ecocentric attitude of farmers engaged in Jhum cultivation (shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn cultivation) in the Zunheboto District of Nagaland, India. We administered a questionnaire survey (n = 153) based on a widely used four-dimensional place attachment framework and a well-known cognitive scale for measuring ecocentric attitude. The results indicate that Jhum farmers' modest ecocentric attitude is significantly associated with their place attachment, especially with place identity and place dependence, although their behaviour of organized deforestation is in apparent contradiction. While an ecocentric attitude generally contributes to environmentally responsible behaviour, we argue that, for Jhum farmers, the absence of such a causal relationship is influenced by other rationalities, particularly owing to the lack of alternative livelihood opportunities. The findings of this study establish the inherent positive ecocentric attitude of Jhum farmers who are often held responsible for deforestation and environmental degradation. Furthermore, we argue that such an inherent positive ecocentric attitude and a strong place attachment are imperative to implement place-based models for sustainable mountain agriculture.

Various attempts have been made to amalgamate the concepts of intrinsic value and ecosystem services, often with a stop-over at the economic concept of existence value. These attempts are based on a confusion of concepts, however. In this article, two types of non-use values are distinguished: warm glow value, related to the satisfaction people may derive from altruism towards nature, and existence value, related to the satisfaction people may derive from the mere knowledge that nature exists and originating in the human need for self-transcendence. As benefits to humans, warm glow and existence values can be considered ecosystem services. Neither warm glow value nor existence value represents benefits to nature itself, however. Intrinsic value lies outside the scope of the wide palette of ecosystem services. Although the concept of ecosystem services does not cover benefits to nature and the intrinsic value of such benefits, intrinsic value is not necessarily incompatible with economic valuation. Although a deontological ethics does not allow economic valuation of nature as an end in itself, consequentialism does. In consequentialism, however, intrinsic value is not attributed to nature itself, but to benefits to nature. These benefits can be economically valued on the basis of benefit transfer.

With scant evidence that market-based conservation works, argues Douglas J. McCauley, the time is ripe for returning to the protection of nature for nature’s sake.

While many of the concerns over the economic valuation of nature have gained broad exposure, justice concerns remain largely peripheral. Within both scholarly debate and actual valuation exercises, the emphasis is most often on reconciling cultural and monetary valuation. Increasingly, as the valuation of nature gains momentum, proponents of the trend seek to relieve apprehensions by suggesting that economic valuation is entirely compatible with intrinsic and esthetic values. This attempt to mollify skeptics, however, misses the mark; regardless of whether or not nature may be valued simultaneously in cultural and economic terms, the social and environmental justice implications of monetary valuation remain. The purpose of this commentary is to clarify that much of the resistance to the economic valuation of nature is motivated by these justice concerns and that reassurances about the cultural value of nature do little to quell them. Several of the justice reasons to remain cautious of the economic valuation of nature are also elaborated.

One of the greatest obstacles to the conservation, wise use, and sound management, of natural ecosystems, is that Man does not recognize, or else grossly under-values, the functions and services of these systems. Forests are cut, trees are burned, and animal populations are destroyed, with little regard for the free services which ecosystems provide. Because these services which are rendered by natural systems at the local, regional, and global, levels remain widely unrecognized, the values of natural systems (beyond their market value of extract-able goods) seldom influence land-use decisions. More-over, mechanisms to reflect such values and to influence management decisions accordingly, are widly absent The objectives of this paper are to describe the values of goods and services of natural ecosystems, and to structure these values into a functional framework. This formalization provides recognition of total value of natural ecosystems, and provides also a mechanism to translate values into action decisions. Because of the rapid destruction and conversion of tropical forests and the urgent need for conservation of this unique resource, we have chosen examples from such ecosystems to illustrate our value scheme.

A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches.