The Magpie River was declared a legal person in 2021.Stephanie Foden/The Globe and Mail
Lindsay Borrows holds the Queen’s Law Professorship in Indigenous Law and Governance and is a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation.
First Nations are leading Canada’s Rights of Nature movement.
From the Magpie River in Innu territory (Quebec), to Rice Lake in Anishinaabe territory (Ontario), and most recently the Finlayson caribou herd in Dena territory (the Yukon), the Rights of Nature movement is extending legal and moral protection to rivers, lakes, animals and ecosystems, recognizing their right to be treated with dignity and respect. Yet if we are serious about strengthening our relationships with the living world, we must remember that recognizing rights must also come with understanding our own responsibilities toward it.
Indigenous legal perspectives show us a way to expand our collective imagination of what it means to recognize nature’s rights by centring responsibilities – to the land, to one another and to ourselves. It is not enough to recognize that a river has the right to be free from pollution, the right to be restored or the right to maintain natural biodiversity. We must act in a way that creates the conditions for the rivers to thrive by keeping them free from pollution, engaging in hands-on restoration work, and learning – then acting – on what supports their biodiversity.
This wild river in Quebec is now considered a person. How will it help with conservation?
In my work as an Indigenous lawyer over the past decade, I’ve heard Elders who have grown up largely in an oral tradition critique the practice of writing down laws. They say, “laws are for the lawless.” Contrary to what you might think, they are not referring to passing written laws to prevent lawlessness. Instead, they mean written laws are only needed if we have forgotten the powerful underlying teachings of responsibility that we carry in our minds and in our hearts, passed down generations through stories, ceremonies, songs, art and land-based practices. In Indigenous legal perspectives, law is not only left to specialized judges and legislatures, lawyers and Parliament. Instead, we are all legal practitioners and judges in a sense, with an important role to play in keeping our communities safe, resolving conflict, and building healthy relationships.
From this perspective it often makes more sense to talk about responsibilities instead of rights. Take driving as an example. What will have a stronger impact on road safety: teaching new drivers that their passengers have rights, or teaching them the practices of how to drive responsibly? I expect I’m not alone in preferring that drivers focus on their responsibilities on the road as the foundation of safety.
Quebec town of Terrasse-Vaudreuil recognizes the rights of trees
The practices of responsibility to nature are countless, and you can find or make communities around you to imagine how species can flourish in the future together through acts of care for the living Earth. This might include buying used goods instead of new, supporting local regenerative farmers, cleaning up streams, taking your children outside, telling stories or offering prayers or songs of gratitude for the Earth. You could join the new grassroots movement called Plant Baby Plant led by Anishinaabe botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, which encourages people to restore biodiversity through gardening and collective action. Its rallying call is, “Raise a garden, raise a ruckus.”
In response to the current epidemic of environmental harms causing climate change, biodiversity loss, and negative health outcomes, the Elders remind us that we each have the power to create change by carrying laws in our hearts and actions. The Canadian government’s recent conservation policy report – “A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature” – recognizes a fundamental truth: “there is no path to 30x30 without Indigenous leadership.” If Canada is serious about protecting 30 per cent of its lands and waters by 2030, it must also embrace the responsibilities to nature already embedded in Indigenous legal traditions.
Without clear and shared duties of care to the land, we risk our children’s future through a conservation framework that is “lawless” in practice.