What is it about?
In the face of increasing human pressure on the environment, a new tool for sustainable landscape planning is welcome. Environmental personhood, a legal personality granted to nature or natural objects, is today more than an institution of environmental law. As cases from Colombia, New Zealand, and Canada show, it also has intangible, cultural, and even spiritual aspects that are not directly related to environmental protection but are nevertheless inalienable elements of landscape. This leads the authors to believe that environmental personhood can be recognised in Europe as a landscape planning tool.
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Why is it important?
For the first time, an analysis has been done of the relationship between environmental personhood and landscape. The analysis shows that such a relationship exists, and its importance is still growing, especially in New Zealand. Therefore, environmental personhood can be seen today not only as an institution of environment law but also as a landscape planning tool that is currently in demand. Climate change and post-COVID-19 urban sprawl are exerting pressure on landscapes all over the world, putting them at risk of irreversible damage. The recent case of mass fish die-off in the Odra River in Poland has again demonstrated the weakness of the legal system of environmental protection and, consequently, of landscape.
Perspectives
This article presents part of our broader research on landscape, conducted at the University of Technology in Katowice. In the course of this research, we have come to believe that environmental personhood can add value by protecting, managing, and planning landscape in Europe. It was a real pleasure to analyse cases from around the world and see that landscape matters to so many people. We hope this article will be a valuable contribution to a better understanding of environmental personhood, and even to its implementation in Europe.
dr Piotr Bulawa
Wyzsza Szkola Techniczna w Katowicach
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Environmental Personhood as a Landscape Planning Tool, Journal for European Environmental & Planning Law, August 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/18760104-19030003.
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