This river in Canada is now a ‘legal person’

Indigenous communities are leading worldwide push to recognise legal ‘personhood’ rights of rivers, lakes and mountains.

Montreal, Canada – Jean-Charles Pietacho says the belief that nature is a living thing that must be respected, has been at the heart of the Innu people’s way of life for generations. But now, that idea has been applied in a new way as the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit in February recognised the Magpie River, a 300km (186 miles) waterway in the Cote Nord region of the Canadian province of Quebec, as a “legal person”. The designation – a first in Canada – aims to give the Indigenous community an added tool to defend the river, known as Muteshekau Shipu in the Innu language, from potential environmental harms.