Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans Kelsey Leonard
Aquay Wunne Kesuk.
Kelsey Leonard Nooweesuonk.
Hello, good day, everyone.
I’m from the Shinnecock Nation.
Tabutni to the Cahuilla peoples,
whose land we gather on today.
I was taught that water is alive.
It can hear,
it holds memories.
And so I brought a water vessel
up with me today,
because I want it to hold the memories
of our conversation today.
Who gets legal rights?
History has shown us
some people but not others.
In the United States,
Indigenous peoples like myself
were not citizens
under the law until 1924.
My Shinnecock ancestors, pictured here,
were not citizens under the law.
Then why do we claim to be nations
governed by the rule of law
if some people are protected,
but not others?
Because it remains one
of the best ways to fight injustice.
And, as Indigenous people,
we know injustice.
A dear friend, mentor, water walker,
Nokomis, Grandmother
Josephine Mandamin-ba,
she told me of a prophecy
that comes from her people,
the Anishinaabe of the Midewiwin Society.
And in that prophecy,
she told me that it tells
of a day that will come
where an ounce of water
costs more than an ounce of gold.
When she told me that prophecy,
I sat for a moment,
and I thought about all of the injustices
we see in our world today,
the water crises we see
in our world today,
and I said, “Nokomis, Grandmother,
I feel like we are already
in that time of prophecy.”
And she looked back at me directly,
and she said,
“So what are you going to do about it?”
That’s why I’m here with you today,
because I believe
that one of the many solutions
to solving the many water injustices
we see in our world today
is recognizing that water
is a living relation
and granting it the legal
personhood it deserves.
So to do so, we need to transform
the way in which we value water.
We have to start to think
about how do we connect to water.
Usually, someone might ask you,
“What is water?”
and you would respond
with “Rain, ocean, lake, river,
H20, liquid.”
You might even understand
the sacred essentiality of water
and say that water is life.
But what if I asked you, instead,
“Who is water?”
In the same way that I might ask you,
“Who is your grandmother?”
“Who is your sister?”
That type of orientation
fundamentally transforms the way
in which we think about water,
transforms the way
in which we make decisions
about how we might protect water,
protect it in the way that you
would protect your grandmother,
your mother, your sister, your aunties.
That is the type of transformation
that we need if we are going to address
the many water crises we see
in our world today,
these harrowing water crises
that have streamed
across our digital devices
in countdowns to Day Zero,
the point at which municipal
water supplies are shut off.
Places like Cape Town, South Africa,
where in 2018,
residents were limited
to two-minute showers
and 23 gallons of water
per day per person,
or just this past summer,
where the mismanagement of water
led the streets of Chennai
to be lined with thousands
of plastic water jugs
as residents waited hours
for water tankers
to deliver water,
first by rail, then by truck,
to meet their daily needs.
Or even here in the United States,
one of the most developed
nations in the world.
Today, Flint, Michigan
still does not have clean water.
But you are likely unfamiliar
with these water crises,
such as Neskantaga First Nation
in Northern Ontario, Canada,
where residents have been
on a boil water advisory since 1995.
Or Grassy Narrows First Nation,
which for decades has been dealing
with water contamination
from the paper mill industry
and where a recent study found
that nearly 90 percent
of the Indigenous population
has some form of mercury poisoning,
causing severe health complications.
Or even among the Navajo Nation.
Pictured here is the Animas River
on an early morning in 2015,
prior to the Gold King Mine spill.
After the spill leaked millions
of hazardous mine waste
into the river system,
this was it later that day.
Today, the Navajo Nation
and the Diné People
and the river itself are still
trying to recover from contamination.
Or even right here
in Palm Springs, California,
where the Agua Caliente Band
of Cahuilla Indians
has been fighting for decades
to protect groundwater from exploitation
so that future generations
can not only live but thrive
in their homelands,
as they have since time immemorial.
You see, a recent study
by DIGDEEP and the US Water Alliance
found that race, in the United States,
is the strongest predictor
of water and sanitation access,
and that for us,
as Native American people,
we are the group most likely
to have access issues
as it comes to water and sanitation.
So, as an Indigenous
legal scholar and scientist,
I believe that many
of these water injustices
are the result of the Western
legal system’s failure to recognize
the legal personhood of water.
And so we must ask ourselves –
who is justice for?
Humanity alone?
We’ve granted legal personhood
to corporations.
In the US, the Supreme Court
found in “Citizens United”
that a corporation was a person
with similar protections
under the Constitution,
such as freedom of speech,
and applied similar reasoning
in “Hobby Lobby,”
finding that a corporation
had the right to freedom of religion
in defense against the implementation
of the Affordable Care Act
for its employees.
Now, these are controversial cases,
and as a Shinnecock woman
and a legal scholar,
they make me question
the moral compass of the Western world,
where you can grant legal
personhood to a corporation
but not nature.
You see, legal personhood
grants us the ability
to be visible in a court of law,
and to have our voices heard
as a person protected under the law.
And so if you can grant that
to a corporation,
why not the Great Lakes?
Why not the Mississippi River?
Why not the many waterways
across our planet
that we all depend on to survive?
We know we are in a global climate crisis,
but globally, our waters
are also threatened,
and we are facing a global water crisis,
and if we want to address
these crises in our lifetime,
we need to change.
We need to fundamentally transform
the way in which we value water.
And this is not something new
for us as Indigenous peoples.
Our Indigenous legal systems
have a foundational principle
of understanding our nonhuman relations
as being living and protected
under our laws.
And even for the Western world,
environmental legal theorists
have argued for the rights of nature
since the 1970s.
But we need to do better.
We need to change.
And we need to grant
legal personhood to water,
because it affords the following
rights and protections.
It grants water the right to exist,
flourish, and naturally evolve,
and most of all,
it protects the water from us,
from human beings that would do it harm,
from human-caused climate-change impacts,
from pollutants,
and from man-made contamination.
Moreover, it reverses
the accepted hierarchy
of humanity’s domination over nature.
As human beings on this planet,
we are not superior
to other beings on this planet.
We are not superior to the water itself.
We have to learn
how to be good stewards again.
We often imagine that the world
is filled with infinite water.
In fact, it’s not.
This planet, Ohke, Mother Earth,
has very finite freshwater resources.
Currently, nearly two billion people
live in countries experiencing
high water stress.
It is also estimated that by 2030,
up to 700 million people
could be displaced, worldwide,
due to water scarcity.
We have to address this crisis.
And so it’s time for us to change.
We have to transform
the way in which we value water.
And we can do that.
We can learn to be good stewards again.
We can create laws through which
we grant legal personhood to water.
We can start to honor
the original treaties
between Indigenous peoples
and non-Indigenous peoples
for water protection.
We can appoint guardians for the water
that ensure the water’s rights
are always protected.
We can also develop
water-quality standards
that have a holistic approach,
that ensure the well-being of the water
before our human needs.
And moreover, we can work to dismantle
exclusive property ownership over water.
And there are amazing successful examples
of this around the world.
The Whanganui River in Aotearoa,
in New Zealand,
and the Ganges River in India
were both granted
legal personhood in 2017.
And even this year,
the residents of the city of Toledo
recognized the legal
personality of Lake Erie.
And right here in California,
the Yurok Tribe granted legal personhood
to the Klamath River.
You see, I imagine a world
where we value water
as a living relation,
where we work to restore
our connection to water.
As women, we are water carriers.
We nurture water
in our wombs for nine months.
It’s the first medicine
that each of us as human beings
is exposed to.
See, we are all born as human beings
with a natal connection to water,
but somewhere along the way,
we lost that connection,
and we have to work to restore it.
Because I imagine a world
in which water is healthy
and ecosystems are thriving.
I imagine a world
where each of us takes up
our right of responsibility
as water citizens
and protects water.
So, in the words of Nokomis,
what are you going to do about it?
What are you going to do for the water?
Well, you can call your local politician.
You can go to a town meeting.
You can advocate for granting
legal personhood to water.
You can be like the residents
of the city of Toledo
and build from the grass roots,
and craft your own legislation
if the politicians won’t write it,
recognizing legal personality of water.
You can learn about the Indigenous lands
and waters that you now occupy
and the Indigenous legal systems
that still govern them.
And most of all, you can connect to water.
You can restore that connection.
Go to the water closest to your home,
and find out why it is threatened.
But most of all, if you do anything,
I ask that you make a promise to yourself,
that each day, you will ask,
“What have I done for the water today?”
If we are able to fulfill that promise,
I believe we can create a bold
and brilliant world
where future generations are able to form
the same relationship to water
that we have been privileged to have,
where all communities
of human and nonhuman relations
have water to live,
because water is life.
Tabutni. Thank you.
(Applause)