Colorado River Rights of Nature

No one is more responsible for the facilitation of life in the American West than the Colorado River. But, headlines across the West warn that the Colorado River is at record low levels and water shortages are inevitable. These headlines are hardly new and many concerned people question whether traditional tactics will truly protect the river. 

My name is Will Falk  and I am a writer and lawyer. In the fall of 2017, I helped to file the first-ever federal rights of nature lawsuit  seeking rights for the Colorado River because American law currently fails to protect the natural world. American law fails because it protects corporate rights over the rights of human and nonhuman communities while defining nature as property. Nature, defined as property, is consumed and destroyed. Until nature's rights are protected over corporate rights, ecological collapse will continue. 
 
Rights of nature are a new judicial framework gaining momentum around the world that would revolutionize humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Rights of nature would give major natural communities like the Colorado River the rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve while giving humans who depend on these communities the right to sue on behalf of the river.   

The Colorado River will not be safe until humans truly understand the destruction being wrought on her. Eye-witness accounts will help humans understand the dire situation the river is in. To understand how the Colorado River’s rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and naturally evolve can be enforced, we need firsthand accounts describing how these rights are being violated. This is why, after the lawsuit was filed, photographer Michelle McCarron   and I began traveling with the river to give on-the-ground reports  about the river’s health while the lawsuit was pending. Unfortunately, the Colorado Attorney General threatened participants with sanctions for filing the lawsuit and it was dismissed. The Colorado River story we began was left half-finished.

It has never been more important that the Colorado River’s story be completely told. It has never been more important that rights of nature be demanded. Michelle and I are still working on the Colorado River’s story. The Colorado River speaks, and we will not stop until we know her voice has been heard. We recently published a small part of the story with Voices for Biodiversity , but we’ve only been able to travel about half the length of the river. We need help with travel costs. 

Specifically, your support will provide us with money for gas, food, and supplies to finish traveling the length of the Colorado River. We will visit the Hoover Dam, Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, major cities who depend on the river like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix as well as meet with First Nations who have lived with the river for generations. Additionally, we hope to travel to the Colorado River delta where vaquita porpoises, the world’s most endangered cetacean, are struggling for their species’ survival. In fact, only a dozen vaquita survive and, in all likelihood, they will be extinct by this time next year. Your support will help us create a biocentric story aimed at catalyzing action to protect the Colorado River while making the case for the urgent need for fundamental legal change. 
Photos © Michelle McCarron