Written by Jamie Wilks

On Wednesday 27^th May, the Climate and Ecological Transitions Hub at Loughborough University, London, in collaboration with the Surge Cooperative, held a Rivers Rights for the Channelsea lecture and workshop. The workshop occurred during UK Rivers Week, which is a campaign aimed at celebrating all of London’s rivers and the projects that aim to improve their health. The lecture and workshop welcomed over 30 attendees, including staff and students at Loughborough University London, members of the Surge co-op, researchers from external universities, members of community groups, and interested individuals who all wanted to learn more and understand River Rights. These discussions come at an important moment, as the Nature Rights Bill was debated in parliament on 3^rd June. In this blog post, I reflect on the lecture and workshop discussions in the context of evolving rights of nature debates.

The lecture

The first hour of the afternoon was led by Josh Levene. Josh has been working with river-based communities across the world for the last 25 years and has more recently led the creation of a River’s Rights charter for the River Ouse. Josh began by asking us to think of a memory we had of being by a river. For me, it was being around and swimming in the River Mole in Leatherhead with friends during the summer as a teenager. However, as Josh demonstrated, these positive memories and stories have no place in current water governance. The river is a resource to be managed, and financially, it is worth more when it is dead rather than alive. But how can an entity that has existed for thousands of years, contain living organisms, be the site of economic activity, leisure activity and fond memories of generations of humans, be treated with such disregard?

The remainder of Josh’s lecture looked to answer this question and outline the context of the contemporary governance of rivers in the UK. As it stands, we have a fragmented water governance system, weak accountability for privately owned water companies and low public trust and engagement. Subsequently, our rivers are in crisis. In 2024, only 14% of rivers were in good ecological health, and none reached a good chemical status. Josh argued that the causes of this outcome are systemic. Western philosophers have informed our anthropocentric worldview, which views humans (mainly men) in a hierarchy above and separate from the natural world. Consequently, over the last few centuries, water has been commodified, and the rivers are seen as property or a resource to be managed. This has led to extractive practices and managing ecological harm after damage occurs. The Rights of Nature (RoN) framework aims to address these systemic issues. RoN provides a unifying framework that gives nature value and representation within governance. The framework embodies the notion that the health and empowerment of local communities and the health and empowerment of nature are connected. In practice, this means a river’s value is intrinsic and not substitutable or reducible to its instrumental benefits. In addition, a representative of the river is appointed to speak in governance contexts and protect its fundamental interests, which are grounded in ecological health. This unifying logic helps to navigate complexity across institutions, sectors and scales. Currently, there are 31 UK Rights of Nature initiatives in the UK, including the River Wye, Rother, Roding and Lodden. Furthermore, river rights have been recognised and formalised in New Zealand and Ecuador. Overall, the construction of river rights transforms the historical management of rivers towards a governance structure that recognises the river’s intrinsic value and empowers local communities to have political agency in their governance.

The Workshop

In the second half, we participated in a workshop facilitated by Hannah White from the Surge Co-operative. Hannah explained the formation of the Surge co-op in 2018 and the legal challenges they have faced in becoming stewards of the Channelsea. Surge aims to reanimate the barge-friendly area by creating sustainable community-led moorings for larger boats. This involves using underused blue spaces, wharves and quaysides to build links between communities and nature. The Channelsea is a tidal estuary of the River Lea located just south of Stratford in East London. Disputes between Surge and the Port of London Authority over who owns or manages the Channelsea led to a legal precedent based upon the 1857 Tomlin Order. This has led to an opportunity to “create a new form of stewardship of the land and water based upon cooperation and collaboration to benefit future generations and build climate resilience” (Dartford County Court, 2020:3)

We split into three tables to discuss the potential barriers, opportunities for synergies between other societal goals, and what the charter may look like in 20 years’ time. I sat on the opportunities table. We discussed the potential of the charter to strengthen social cohesion among local communities that can become stewards of the river they belong to, the physical and mental health benefits of access and care for the river, the river providing a unifying social force, and increasing healthy individual political agency. Several barriers were identified, the impacts of sewage pollution, including power relations between the cooperative and the Port of London Authority, being stonewalled or labelled as troublemakers, a lack of economic capital to support the co-op, and macro- political shifts that may affect governance. Finally, future possibilities included increased access to the river and making it swimmable, floating gardens, and the prioritisation of river ecology. But also, the potential for actors to co-opt such initiatives that present greenwashing concerns.

Reflections     

Following these discussions, I had one reflection that I thought was worth sharing. Firstly, during the workshop, we raised concerns over managing pollution when being near and in the river at the Channelsea. River and blue space pollution has become ubiquitous in the United Kingdom. Combined sewer overflows, urban run-off, chemical spills from industry, plastics and material waste, forever chemicals, and microplastics all pose a risk to human and non-human health. Furthermore, toxic environmental legacies remain in many coastal communities that have experienced deindustrialisation, and the state has done little to prevent repeated exposure to pollution for local communities. Unfortunately, pollution is not going anywhere, and its effects are experienced unequally across social groups (e.g. gender, class, race, disability). Recent research has shown that despite the health risks from pollution exposure, people continue to use blue spaces for recreation and leisure sports (see Evers, 2019). So, in the development of river rights and the increased access to blue spaces that communities seek, we need to develop sensibilities to navigate pollution. This means developing an in-depth understanding of the places we interact with. Newcastle University scholar and surf studies expert Clifton Evers argues that people and communities who work, live, swim, paddle, boat, surf, and fish around blue spaces develop an embodied pollution literacy. This entails identifying physical pollution spills, smells and tastes associated with pollution, access to water quality testing equipment, identifying changes in the local ecology and having access to medicine following exposure to pollution. While by no means a panacea to the toxic legacies of polluting industries and continued sewage pollution, these micro actions can go hand in hand with the institutional-level changes to alter the governance of rivers that support the rights of nature and give agency to local people.

To conclude, the River Rights charter provides us with a framework for understanding our relationship with nature. The creation of a contract helps to limit the complexity of the legal system that currently governs rivers and ensures the river has a legitimate claim to not be polluted. While many institutional and legal disputes remain, the capacity of community groups is often strained, and pollution concerns continue to affect the health of those wanting to be close to rivers. River Rights presents an important opportunity for transformative change, ensuring rivers are spaces for all people and creating positive memories. The lecture from Josh Levene and the workshop facilitated by Hannah White helped all those who attended think differently about the rights of a river and showed the potential for a genuine alternative. Thank you to all who attended!

Cited literature: Evers, C. W. (2019). Polluted leisure. Leisure Sciences, 41(5), 423–440.