Rivers all around the world are being given their own legal rights. But what does this mean? And how does it work? Candice Marshall writes in the Australian Geographic, how Victoria’s Yarra River (Birrarung) was legally recognised 2017 as a ‘living entity’ and what that means. The standing accorded to the Yarra is just one example of a much larger global trend to legalise the Rights of Nature. Also known as Earth Jurisprudence, the movement promotes the recognition of the inherent rights of Nature to ‘exist, thrive and evolve’.
