Colorado Town Learns the Harm Caused by Granting Rights to Nature

The nature-rights movement isn’t about conservation or responsible husbanding of the natural world. Rather, it seeks to handcuff human thriving by preventing most uses of our natural resources.

But it sounds soooo nice, doesn’t it? Well, the Colorado town of Nederland has learned the hard way that granting “rights” to waterways impedes all kinds of beneficial projects. From the Colorado Sun story:

The town of Nederland leaders loved their wild watersheds so much they passed a resolution for “rights of nature” to protect local rivers, and bolstered that by appointing two “guardians” who could question dams or threats to clean, flowing water.

Until Nederland remembered it might want to build its own dam.

Now, Nederland’s town board will vote whether to repeal the rights of nature concept for local watersheds because it may be used “in ways that could jeopardize the town’s water security,” according to a memo written by Mayor Billy Giblin.

Of course it will. That’s the very point of nature rights.

Here’s the problem. The traditional approach to environmental law permits nuanced policies that balance human need with responsible husbandry. Sometimes, that severely restricts human activities, sometimes not. But once nature has “rights,” all such nuance is crushed, as Giblin discovered:

Giblin said in an interview he is an environmentalist seeking the least harmful ways to secure water, but that he and town leaders must also “balance those ideals with the practicality and reality that we must reserve our water rights and store our water for the sake of the present and future welfare and security of our community.”

“Welfare of the community” is irrelevant to nature rights, or at least very low on the list of priorities.

Lest you doubt that, take a gander at this reaction from one of the nature-rights people:

“Fighting dams and protecting rivers is what we do and we’re not going to stop doing it, regardless,” said Gary Wockner of Save the World’s Rivers, formerly Save the Colorado, who supported the Nederland rights of nature resolution and has helped bring similar resolutions to other Colorado towns. “Dams destroy rivers. That’s what they do.”

Dams also provide tremendous benefit to humans. They store water in case of future need, control floods, provide recreation in the reservoirs, and in some cases generate electricity. But to nature-rights activists, the river matters more than people.

Let’s hope the leaders of Nederland regain their senses and repeal nature rights. Then, they can decide on whether to build a dam based on the entire merits of the situation, not just the impact on the natural flow of the river.

By the way, I interviewed Tom Linzey, the founder of the nature-rights movement, on my Humanize podcast, in which he admits that nature rights will cause wrenching economic changes in human society. If you want to hear his perspective, hit this link.