| For the first time, a river is granted official rights and legal personhood in Canada | |
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The Muteshekau-shipu Alliance today announced the granting of legal personhood to the Magpie River, through the adoption of two parallel resolutions by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality (RCM). The river is thus assigned nine rights, as well as potential legal guardians responsible primarily for ensuring that these rights are respected. This is the first such case in Canada.
The announcement was made in partnership with the International Observatory on the Rights of Nature (IORN), based in Montreal, Canada, which drafted the resolutions in collaboration with the Alliance. The two resolutions, more than ten pages each and crammed with references, rest on multiple legal bases in national and international law and will help protect the river. |
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The initiative is part of a global movement – particularly active in New Zealand, the United States and Ecuador – to recognize the rights of Nature.
The Magpie River (Muteshekau-shipu in the Innu language) is an internationally renowned river nearly 300 km long. The river is recognized worldwide for its rapids and for whitewater expeditions, most notably by the prestigious National Geographic magazine, which ranked it among the top ten rivers in the world for whitewater rafting. The river's protection has received regional consensus, but the plan to declare the river a protected area has been thwarted for years by state-owned Hydro-Québec, due to the waterway's hydroelectric potential. |
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