Florida Judge Asked to Recognize the Legal Rights of Five Waterways Outside Orlando

The “rights of nature” movement, gaining adherents across the country and globally, asserts that rivers, trees, mountains and ecosystems have legal rights, just like people and corporations.

Katie Surma in Inside Climate News on April 27 2022.

In the first U.S. enforcement action related to a burgeoning “rights of nature” movement, which holds that rivers, mountains and forests have legal rights, an attorney acting on behalf of two lakes, two streams and a marsh outside Orlando argued before a Florida judge on Tuesday that the waterways’ lawsuit against a developer is legally valid and belongs in state court.

Wilde Cypress Branch, Boggy Branch, Crosby Island Marsh, Lake Hart and Lake Mary, along with their co-plaintiff, Chuck O’Neal, filed the lawsuit last year based on a 2020 rights of nature amendment to Orange County’s Charter, the county’s mini constitution.

That amendment, approved by 89 percent of voters, granted waterways in the county the right to “exist, flow, to be protected against pollution and to maintain a healthy ecosystem.”

At issue in the case is a permit the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, also a defendant, granted to Beachline South Residential, the developer, to dredge and fill waterways for the purpose of constructing residential and commercial buildings. The plaintiffs, including the waterways, claim that the activity will violate their rights and asked the court to issue an injunction stopping the development.

Beachline South Residential and Florida’s DEP filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing, among other things, that state legislation preempts the Orange County Charter amendment, effectively rendering the waterways’ rights null. They also argue that the dispute over the validity of the dredge and fill permit is an administrative matter that should be heard before the Florida DEP instead of in state court.

O’Neal, the plaintiff and environmentalist who ran the charter change campaign in Orange County two years ago, said he hoped the case might become a model for the rest of the world and that he was pleased that the rights of nature were having their day in court…

See the full article HERE.