Is a river a person?

Advocates for the legal rights of nature say yes.

Published January 24, 2022 in National Catholic Reporter by Barbara Fraser.

Nauta, Peru — Three years ago, in January 2019, residents of communities along Peru’s Marañón River crammed into the sweltering meeting room that serves as the town hall in this small Amazonian city to hear government officials describe a plan to dredge, or deepen, parts of the Marañón and two other Amazonian rivers.

The goal, the officials said, was to make sure boats could travel the rivers all year round, even during extreme dry spells like droughts in 2004 and 2010, which made the transport of passengers and goods difficult or impossible as water levels dropped. The project would also include modern navigation aids, for nighttime travel. The way they described it, there were no downsides.

But not everyone in the audience was convinced. During the question-and-answer session, someone worried aloud that the dredging would eliminate the sand flats where people planted crops during the dry season. Another feared that dredging would increase river bank erosion, while a third said it might stir up sediment contaminated with oil or heavy metals from industrial runoff upstream. Still another added that the shallow spots filled with tangles of downed tree trunks might complicate navigation, but they were the best places for fishing.

Then two Kukama women stood up and voiced their own objection. Mari Luz Canaquiri and Emilsen Flores were from communities upriver and had participated in courses in their parish where the pastors — Spanish Augustinian Frs. Manolo Berjón and Miguel Angel Cadenas — talked about both pollution of the river and the importance of the Kukama culture. Canaquiri and Flores were also leaders of a women’s organization, Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana, which means “women who work” in the Kukama language.