SEATTLE – The Center for Environmental Rights announced a settlement in a Rights of Nature case. The Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe had sued the City of Seattle. The Tribe had two goals. First, the tribe wanted to recognize the legal rights of salmon. Second, they wanted Seattle to admit that the lack of fish passages in the dams materially harmed the tribe. Both parties settled on April 19.
This case links two issues of interest to the Pagan communities. Pagans with an animist perspective will find a Rights of Nature argument attractive. This case involves Indigenous sovereignty.
The Seattle Times reported that the original request for renewal would extend current use for thirty to fifty years.
These dams currently block the migration of fish up and down the river. Fish passages in the dams would allow the fish to migrate the length of the river. Salmon need this migration to reproduce.
The City of Seattle holds the federal license to operate the Skagit dams. Those dams provide hydroelectric power to Seattle. Seattle’s attempt to renew its permit to operate those dams triggered the suit.
In the settlement, the city agreed to include fish passages in its renewal. On April 28, Seattle filed their revised renewal. Those revisions require Seattle to “construct, operate, and maintain upstream and downstream fish passage facilities at some or all of the dams as informed by coordination with tribes and federal agencies.”
As part of the settlement, neither party accepted the other party’s claims. Both parties said the agreement reflected “their relationship of mutual respect and consultation.” They both said the fish passages would lead to “recovering a self-sustaining harvestable salmon runs.”
Jack Fiander, tribal lawyer said, “This settlement agreement creates a roadmap for the creation of a fish passage system to return salmon to their native ecosystem and restore the lifeblood of the tribes.”
Treaty obligations
Native American Tribes have sovereignty. Treaties govern the legal and political relationships between tribes and the US government.
The Sauk-Suiattle ceded lands to the US government in the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliot. That treaty recognized the tribe’s “right and obligation to protect fish migrating to and from the Tribe’s traditional fishing grounds.” No one had consulted with the tribe about the construction of the dams along the Skagit River. The tribe’s lawsuit argued that the dams “obstruct the passage of adult fish upriver, and block nutrients necessary to the health of juvenile fish as they migrate down the length of the river on their way to the ocean, contributing to the severe decline of salmon species.”
“The Seattle Times” described the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe as “one of the smallest and poorest in the region.” Its legal “team” consisted of just one person.
Photo by M. Tejeda-Moreno
What are Rights of Nature laws?
The group Lawyers for Nature has described Rights of Nature laws as recognizing that ecosystems or species have inherent rights.” Those inherent rights are like those of people and corporations.
What fish are involved?
The Skagit River flows from southwestern British Columbia into northwestern Washington state. It drains into Puget Sound.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has identified four species from the Skagit River as “Threatened.” These include the Puget Sound steelhead, the Puget Sound Chinook salmon, the southern distinct resident green sturgeon, and the southern distinct Pacific eulachon. They have identified one species, the southern resident orcas, as “Endangered.”
The cities of Port Townsend and Gig Harbor, Washington have recognized southern orcas as having rights. Those rights include “the right to life, autonomy, free and safe passage, adequate food supply from naturally occurring sources, and freedom from conditions causing physical, emotional, or mental harm, including a habitat degraded by noise, pollution, and contamination.” At present, scientists estimate that only 73 southern resident orcas exist. These orcas depend on Chinook salmon, themselves a threatened species, as a major food source. Rights of Nature laws can protect both predator and prey species, but not from each other. Nature differs from a “Why can’t we all get along?” lovefest.
The Wild Hunt has previously covered this case.
Skepticism about the legal concept of the Rights of Nature
On May 5, the New York Times reported on skepticism about Rights of Nature laws. In that article, the Times quoted Michael Livermore, University of Virginia. He said that “provisions recognizing the rights of nature are too open-ended in classifying what nature means and who can represent it.” The article further referenced an Ecuadoran case in the “Virginia Law Review.” In that case, each side, the government, and the agricultural workers, claimed to represent nature.
Electric batteries require copper. Efforts to decrease fossil fuel use have increased demand for the copper used in electric batteries. That demand has driven increases in plans to build new copper mines. One such proposed copper mine threatens sacred Apache land at Oak Flat.
The journal, Science, described weaknesses in the legal concept Rights of Nature. A lack of clarity exists about how to apply these laws. This article advocated for the use of scientists in enacting, implementing, and enforcing these laws.
Image credit: anncapictures from Pixabay
Decolonization and Rights of Nature
In Asian Journal of Law and Society, Lieselotte Viaene articulated critiques from a Decolonizing perspective. A full discussion of her arguments is beyond the scope of this article, but a brief synopsis is possible.
Viaene stated that “at the heart of international law lies the intertwined core assumptions that nature is ‘property’ and a ‘resource for wealth generation to enable societies to continually develop.’” Viaene argues that the Rights of Nature laws challenge this view. She argued that the resolution of that challenge would be difficult at best. It may well be impossible.
This tension becomes clear in political struggles around human access to water. The concept of “human access to water” understands water only as a resource for human consumption. It fails to understand water as a living being. Human needs take precedence over those of other beings.
Viaene compared the fictitious personhood of rivers and ecosystems with that of another fictitious person, the corporation. Corporate fictitious personhood allows a corporation to file suit and be sued. In contrast to, say, a river ecosystem, a corporate board can articulate its interests. It can fire an attorney who, in its opinion, fails to represent its interests. River systems and species can do no such thing.
Indigenous peoples communicate with natural entities through ayahuasca rituals, bird songs, consulting sacred sites, dreams, fire ceremonies, and other indigenous ways of knowing. So far, Rights of Nature cases have not relied on these ways of knowing as part of the Rights of Nature law. If Rights of Nature laws reflect an Indigenous worldview, Viaene argued that non-Western ways of knowing should count as evidence.
Animists and Pagans may find the Rights of Nature perspective attractive. The legal concept of the Rights of Nature is only a couple of decades old. In those decades it has grown. A few of its weak points have now become visible. To grow as a legal concept, it must face these weaknesses.
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