Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans | Kelsey Leonard

Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized Talk recommendations and more.

Water is essential to life. Yet in the eyes of the law, it remains largely unprotected — leaving many communities without access to safe drinking water, says legal scholar Kelsey Leonard. In this powerful talk, she shows why granting lakes and rivers legal "personhood" — giving them the same legal rights as humans — is the first step to protecting our bodies of water and fundamentally transforming how we value this vital resource.

Get TED Talks recommended just for you! Learn more at .

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know. For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), submit a Media Request here:

Follow TED on Twitter:
Like TED on Facebook:

Subscribe to our channel:

39 Comments on Why lakes and rivers should have the same rights as humans | Kelsey Leonard

    • @Philosophical Mind “I was taught that water is alive” “it can hear” “it holds memories” “water injustices” “water is a living relation and granting it legal personhood it deserves” “how do we connect to water” “who is water” “As an Indigenous legal scholar and scientist, I believe that many of these water injustices are the result of the WESTERN legal system’s failure to recognize the LEGAL PERSONHOOD OF WATER”.

      i mean we are talking about a molecule here right? but it sounds like were talking about god himself. again, which is why I stated it’s religious, and cultish.

  1. So can we Sue the water for freezing and throwing my car into the guardrail ? Or when it invaded our town and destroyed our homes? If it has rights, it also has to own the responsibilities too.

    • One Race: Prances, dances, beats on a drum, and prays to a “Rain God” for water & thinks water is ALIVE
      One Race: Creates the Industrial Revolution, uses pumps, pipes, and chemicals to distribute and treat their water because they KNOW water is DEAD

    • Incorrect. Rights are not packaged with responsibility. If we confer more and more rights of personhood onto animals with greater sentience, like say an orca or dog, does this mean we can haul in a killer whale into court because it damaged our boat?

      Yeah. That’s not how rights work, bud.

    • I do not own a kidding.

      Jokes aside. That’s not how rights of personhood works. More and more, animals are gaining rights of persons, which gives them more and more protection. Has conferring rights onto animals somehow made parrots vulnerable to SLAPP suits? Or crows to laws against theft?

      Conferring legal personhood onto an entity means certain laws on treatment apply; your suits talking point is a “hilarious” non sequitur that doesn’t.

    • Apparently race dictates whether or not you can legally buy hand sanitizer, oh wait that’s wrong, what dictates if you have access to water or sanitary environments IS IF YOU GET A JOB OR NOT.. TED=foolishness… #blocked

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


Shares
Share This