The Blue Community gets a new partner in Switzerland: the Association Reuss-Initiative.
The Reuss Initiative Committee in the Swiss city of Lucerne has collected and submitted 5,460 certified signatures to the government of the canton of Lucerne. The collection began on 26 April 2025 on the banks of the River Reuss, which flows through the heart of the city and out of Lake Lucerne. The required 5,000 signatures were collected by November 2025 and submitted to the government on 15 January 2026. It usually takes around three years for an initiative to come to a vote, so by 2029, the citizens of the canton of Lucerne will be voting on the popular request.
Markus Schärli, president of the Association Rechtsperson Reuss, thanked the supporters and collectors present for their commitment. The many hours spent on the streets talking to citizens and collecting signatures has shown that more and more people are aware that nature in general, and waterways in particular, can no longer do without the protection of their own legal personality and fundamental rights.
There were many exciting and surprising encounters during the collection. For example, there was a woman from the city who said that her sister from the countryside filled bottles with tap water at her house every week because the drinking water in her village was contaminated with chlorothalonil. Or the fishermen who enthusiastically signed the petition because they know that numerous fish species no longer exist in our waters and others are barely reproducing due to the pollutants in the water. Many of those who signed the petition have realized that if nature continues to be exploited as a commodity instead of being regarded as an entity with its own rights, humans will destroy their own livelihoods.
Markus Schärli, president of the Association Rechtsperson Reuss, states:
“Some of the waterways in the canton of Lucerne are in a desolate state because the Water Protection Act is not being complied with and is not being enforced by the canton. If we grant legal personality to abstract legal constructs such as corporations, how much more should we grant this right to living nature?”
The Rechtsperson Reuss Association has been named “outstanding member of the month” by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN), a global network of organizations, professionals and activists in over 100 countries on six continents working to promote the universal adoption and implementation of legal systems that recognize, respect, and enforce the “rights of nature, for its Reuss Initiative and honored with a feature on its website.
In its commitment to join the Blue Community, the Association Reuss Initiative states:
We are seeking international networking with organizations that advocate for the improvement of nature’s rights, disseminating the principle of nature’s rights as the foundation for the protection of water and the aquatic biosphere.
«With the Reuss Initiative, we are primarily focused on ensuring a clean and safe drinking water supply in the Canton of Lucerne. The legal personality of water bodies contributes to their protection and thus to their cleanliness and continued existence.»
The Reuss Initiative is also represented in museums (Luzern Museum, Bern Natural History Museum).
Learn more from the Reuss Initiative on their website (German) or the short information in English
Photo credit: Marianne Schulze / Rechtsperson Reuss
