In a first for Britain, campaigners from the English town of Frome want to protect their river by granting it 'legal personhood'. Read the full story by Matthew__Green
FROME, England - Nobody knows exactly how ancient masons, wielding chisels made from deer antlers, managed to build Stonehenge, the standing circle that has enchanted southern England for thousands of years.
Frome, a market town in the county of Somerset, is petitioning the British government to grant the River Frome “legal personhood” – in effect, giving it human rights. “This is much bigger than just wanting to punish people for doing something wrong,” said Macfadyen, who also served as Frome’s mayor. “It’s about trying to change a mindset about the environment in which we live.”
In his 1972 book, “Should Trees Have Standing?”, Stone argued that voiceless natural features would be best protected by granting them the kinds of legal protections and access to courts usually reserved for two-legged plaintiffs. That same year, a high court in India declared the Ganga and Yamuna rivers legal entities – along with two Himalayan glaciers and their meadows, waterfalls and forests. Colombia’s constitutional court made a similar move for the Atrato River basin, where riparian communities face illegal gold mining and paramilitary violence. This summer, Bangladesh recognised the rights of all its rivers.
Fed up with party divisions hobbling the town council, Macfadyen and a group of like-minded collaborators resolved to stand as independents at the next elections. On a recent afternoon, Macfadyen led Reuters on a tour of some council-backed projects grouped loosely along the river, whose green-brown waters curve gently through the town. Wildflowers, nettles and brambles had been deliberately allowed to run riot on its steep, shaded banks.
Jamie Kelsey Fry, a contributing editor at the New Internationalist magazine, co-founded a similar initiative in the neighbouring county of Devon. He sees the campaigns as part of a “new municipalism” movement reshaping politics in cities as diverse as Barcelona in Spain, Jackson in Mississippi and Valparaiso in Chile – their organisers often driven at least in part by concerns over climate change.
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