Recover Better With Nature: Personhood Rights to Rivers can help

It is now clear that when humans shut down, rivers flow healthy.  The evidences that we have gathered during the Covid19 lockdown should be lesson enough for us to reimagine our approach to save our rivers.

Reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and abatement of water & air pollution have been two of the major reliefs the Earth has got from the humans’ Covid19 response programmes. As the humans slowed down, the Earth recovered. The challenge now, however, is to retain these gains.  Under the current economic growth models that seems almost impossible.  We have enough excuses to continue with the same greed-driven development that necessarily happens at the cost of ecology. 

One such big excuse is economic recession leading to huge job losses, never seen in our lifetime. Job losses for humans, right? The issue is, can we sustain these jobs unless we stop growing by destroying the Mother Nature?  To me, you can’t be sustainable in your growth unless you grow in harmony with all other species on the Earth.  If Covid19 cannot teach us this lesson, then we can’t learn it ever. That would mean, we have chosen the path to perish sooner than expected.  “Time for Nature”, the theme of this year’s World Environment Day is a strong reminder in this regard. 

In this space, a month before, I had written how global GHG emissions are estimated to drop by 5 percent this year and that would be historic.  In the meanwhile further studies have confirmed that the reduction in annual carbon emissions this year could actually be by 7 percent.  A new analysis published in Nature Climate Change has claimed that lockdown measures have contributed to an estimated 17 percent decline in daily global carbon dioxide emissions compared to the daily global averages from last year.  This is significant and historic.  However, as I had written in my column here just a month ago, this gain is not going to last. 

Countries have already started unlocking their economies and despite massive calls for a green recovery, things seem to be business usual.

Well, Germany and other European countries have made some announcements for green recovery.  The UK too is scheduled to announce some green measures in its recovery plan very soon.  However, most of these stimuli seem to be aiding to the same kind of economic idea that has actually caused climate change and destruction of nature to an irreparable extent.  Green cars, green technology, etc. dominate the packages.  That’s good and will definitely heal the Earth but only if we respect the right of the other species as much as we respect our own rights.

If we continue to treat all other species as commodities that need to be eliminated for our progress, then no matter how many electric cars you run on the roads, the biodiversity loss may not be arrested in a pace we need to make our growth sustainable. We need to recognise and respect rights of the other species and resources for reversing this trend.  If that means a slow pace of growth, I would vote for that.  After all, we have one planet.  Humans can set their own benchmarks of growth, we are not running a competition with any other species or race or planet. I would say, for an example, let’s look into our rivers to not only learn a lesson but also chart a path towards revival with nature.

The river revival

In India, the first phase of lockdown for three weeks was announced on 24^th March.  Just in about less than two weeks, reports of rivers getting clean started coming from across India.  India’s prime celebrity river Ganga came to limelight with a clean face in national media in the first week of April itself.  Reduction of industrial waste discharge into the river caused improvement in its water quality at various places including Haridwar, Varanasi and Kanpur.  Stoppage of pilgrimage to ghats of Ganga such as the Har Ki Pauri also contributed to cleaner ghats and less pollution due to human activities.  Just within 10 days of the lockdown, real-time water monitoring data at various monitoring stations of the river found out that the water quality was suitable for bathing and fisheries.  At least 27 of the 36 stations reported this improvement. 

Data shows that a tenth of the river’s pollution, in its Uttar Pradesh (UP) stretches, comes from industrial wastes.  The shutdown of industries, therefore, helped the river clean itself.  In fact, as local experts opine, the pollution level reduced by 40 to 50 percent, perhaps also because the river at some stretches had received good rainfall in mid-March.  The increased water inflow therefore diluted the pollution to a certain extent.  At stations like Haridwar and Rishikesh, the river water was reported fit for drinking due to sharp drop in sewage and industrial effluents.  A comprehensive analysis was still lacking as there was no study to cite whether domestic wastes also stopped draining into the river or not.  It is estimated that almost 80 percent of Ganga pollution comes from domestic sewage from the nearby cities and villages.  However, the fact that people found the river clean at many places and even saw dolphins and fishes roaming around freely was a delight for most in their lifetimes. 

By the mid of April, data from the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) started indicating that the water quality of Cauvery river had improved substantially compared to pre-lockdown months.  Reports of pollution monitoring conducted at the end of April in lakes and rivers of Rajasthan also had results to be happy about.  A report of the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board (RSPCB), based on water samples collected from 45 locations including 14 from rivers found an improvement in water quality compared to pre-lockdown periods.  The biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and dissolved oxygen (DO) levels were found to have improved in river Chambal and river Kali Sindh in some locations. There has been such good news from across the nation.  Rivers have got back their lives to some extent. 

Way forward

It is now clear that when humans shut down, rivers flow healthy.  The evidences that we have gathered during the Covid19 lockdown should be lesson enough for us to reimagine our approach to save our rivers. While pollution control norms need to be further strengthened and rules strictly enforced, these are not enough.  We need to respect our rivers as persons like us, the humans.  They can’t speak for themselves, but they have a right to healthy living.  We need to ensure that and for that to happen in true sense, they have to be given rights of personhood and have the right to sue us for the abuse we cause to them.  Some countries are already doing that. 

Ecuador started the process of transformation from the current ‘property-based ownership type’ approach to natural resources to an ‘equal right to nature’ approach as it gave legal rights to nature in its constitution in 2008.  Three years after, in 2011, Bolivia adopted a similar approach and passed a law.  New Zeeland is the first country that granted legal rights to a specific river in 2017.  In the same year the Uttarakhand High Court (HC) in India declared Ganga and Yamuna ‘living entities’ and gave them legal rights as humans.  This has been stayed by the Supreme Court.

Last year, our neighbour Bangladesh became the only country in the world to grant all of its rivers the same legal status as humans. 

Some may argue this is practically a difficult thing to do.  Perhaps that’s the reason Indian apex court stayed the Uttarakhand HC decision. However, everyone wants to see clean and healthy rivers.  That’s the reason many people have been suggesting that we should have periodic lockdowns.  I would say, it’s time to admit that our conventional approaches have failed to save our rivers.  It would be good to try out this new approach.  Rivers have equal rights on Earth, as all the other ecosystems and species have.  In India, as our mythological scripts suggest, we have always been respecting rivers as persons.  Let’s make it real.