The future of the Rights of Nature: an interdisciplinary scoping analysis

环境退化率高，气候变化对社会的影响越来越大，这表明迫切需要找到以可持续和有复原力的方式管理自然资源的新方法。最近的改革在很大程度上是对这些日益加剧的危机的反应。随着环境危机发生的频率和程度不断加剧，在“地球法”的旗帜下，一种新的、很少被探索的创新方法正在出现，以提供更好、更可持续的自然资源管理。支持地球法的运动，以一种新的法律理论的出现为基础，也被称为地球法理学，正在获得动力。地球法的理念是承认自然的“法律人格”，赋予自然资源的权利、权力、义务和法律主体的责任。自从厄瓜多尔在2008年将自然权利纳入其宪法以来，一些国家出现了新的立法和法院案件，承认自然的合法权利。但是，通过最近在新西兰、澳大利亚、哥伦比亚和印度承认河流的权利，最发达的应用已经成为现实。由于河流不能自行合法行动，这是基于新的制度安排，承认当地社区和土著人民的“监护人”角色。这种新的监护办法可以使土著人民对自然的哲学和文化办法更受尊重和更有参与性地结合起来。它还可以提供一种不那么以人类为中心的方式来与自然联系，通过承认一些土著哲学，这些哲学承认并重视自然是一个有生命的存在。从理论上讲，这依赖于自然利益（河流）和当地居民利益（社会文化和经济）之间的平衡。虽然对这些国家管辖范围内的法律发展有一些新的分析，但关于这如何可能构成一种新的生态和参与自然管理模式的跨学科分析却很少。人文科学、社会科学和生命科学之间缺乏跨学科的研究，因为以前的分析主要是背景和特定领域的。我们的范围界定研究将是对河流权利、土著人民的监护和地球法之间关系的首次国际和跨学科分析之一。因此，它将有助于推动有关当地社区更直接地管理自然资源的方式的知识前沿，从而有助于保护当地生态系统，并为新的嵌入式当地复原力形式提供平台。为此，我们建议开发一个新的法律、生态和参与（LEAP）模型，以探索该领域的未来研究。通过开发一种新的跨学科方法来研究地球法，我们的研究将探索一种新的“监护”模式是否有助于更可持续的环境管理，同时以文化上合理、公平和可持续的方式改善人们的生计。

The high rates of environmental degradation and increasing impacts of climate change on society evidence a strong and growing need to find new ways to manage natural resources in a sustainable and resilient manner. Recent reforms have been largely reactive to these intensifying crises. As the frequency and magnitude of environmental crises accelerate, one new and little explored innovative approach to offer a better and more sustainable management of natural resources is emerging under the banner of 'Earth Law'. The movement to support Earth Law, underpinned by the emergence of a new legal theory, also known as Earth Jurisprudence, is gaining momentum. The idea of Earth Law is to recognise the 'legal personalities' of nature, granting natural resources rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of legal subjects. Since Ecuador included Rights of Nature in its Constitution in 2008, new legislation and court cases recognising the legal rights of nature have emerged in several countries. But the most developed application has been materialised via the recent recognition of the rights of rivers in New Zealand, Australia, Colombia and India. As rivers cannot act legally on their own, this is based on new institutional arrangements recognising a 'guardianship' role for local communities and indigenous peoples. This new approach to guardianship could offer a more respectful and empowering participatory integration of indigenous peoples' philosophical and cultural approaches to nature. It could also offer a less anthropocentric way to relate to nature, by recognising some of the indigenous philosophies which recognise and value nature as a living being. In theory, this relies on a balance between the interest of nature (the rivers) and the interests of the local populations (socio-culturally and economically). Although there is some emerging analysis of these legal developments in their own national jurisdictions, there is little interdisciplinary analysis on how this might constitute a new ecological and participatory model for the stewardship of nature. Interdisciplinary research between humanities, social sciences and life sciences is lacking as previous analysis has been largely contextual and field specific. Our scoping study will constitute one of the first international and interdisciplinary analysis on the relationship between rivers rights, indigenous peoples' guardianship and Earth Law. As such, it will contribute to pushing the frontiers of knowledge concerning the way more direct management of natural resources by local communities can contribute to protecting local ecosystems and provide a platform for new embedded forms of local resilience. To do so, we propose to develop a new Legal, Ecological and Participatory (LEAP) model to explore future research in this field. By developing a new interdisciplinary approach to the study of Earth Law, our study will explore whether a new model of 'guardianship' could contribute to a more sustainable management of the environment, while also improving people's livelihoods in ways that are culturally sensible, equitable and sustainable.