Freshwater is the most important resource of the earth, the foundation of ecosystem survival, global livelihood, economy and some religions. Freshwater environment, including rivers, lakes and streams, is very important for drinking, agriculture and manufacturing. Because of the limited nature of fresh water, it must be protected from extinction. However, with the increase of urban population, water demand and water pollution, the reality that human beings are facing is that they are killing the source of their lives. In view of the importance of fresh water to all life forms, it is proposed to endow rivers and ecosystems with personality to prevent the tragedy of common property. The logic here is that by endowing natural personality, rivers and fresh water are endowed with the right to hold polluters responsible for their actions and prevent more degradation.

This article holds that endowing natural personality is a legal substitute for traditional protection, but it must be accompanied by a long-term trend of ecological centralism. The importance of personality lies in its ability to improve environmental awareness and the legal opportunities it creates for advancing from the human-centered view of nature.

In this article, the personality theory will be evaluated, with special emphasis on the necessity of providing funds for the success of personality and clarifying its legalization. It will discuss two challenges of personality: lack of consistent results and colonized indigenous voices. It will argue that although it is legal, the challenge will not damage the value of personality. Also, the article calls for bottom-up publicity to force the government to give priority to environmental issues. The progress of environmental sociology is necessary to prevent personality theory from becoming a temporary solution to permanent problems.

Because of the diversity of nature, this article will focus its personality examples on rivers for further analysis, and will use global examples to prove the international adoption of personality. The criticism of this method is that these countries may be incomparable because of the advantages of huge differences in geographical area, political framework and river boundaries. However, the strength of personality lies in its adaptability to different cultures, religions and government political positions. Cross-border comparison is not to criticize countries, but to find out the success factors of other countries, which can be implemented by other countries if possible.

This topic is very important. Freshwater will first experience climate change by changing precipitation patterns, snow and ice cover and sea level. In July, 2021, Germany became the victim of climate change flood, which killed at least 170 people. The temperature rise of 2.5-3.5 degrees Celsius is expected to lead to the extinction of 24% freshwater fish in North America and the extinction of indigenous communities living in remote areas such as Amazon and Arctic. The depletion of environmental resources is related to the increase of water resources conflicts, the death caused by thirst and the shortage of food, energy and transportation. Simply put, without thorough environmental changes, there will soon be no environment and no human beings.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth emphasizes the depth of anthropocentrism. The declaration failed to understand the position of indigenous people and assumed that collective human beings intended to develop and destroy the earth. It puts human beings above nature and calls for laws to protect the earth, which means that indigenous laws are insufficient. The Paris Agreement may indicate the priority of the global environment on the surface, but in fact it retains the human-centered dialogue. It ignores the history of capital accumulation in developed countries, and instead puts the burden of climate change on economically disadvantaged developing countries, which aggravates global inequality. The agreement advocates green capitalism, retains its neo-liberal ideology and market mechanism with emission rights, and does not specify binding commitments in environmental financing. In 2018, most governments failed to achieve the goals of the agreement as scheduled. With the withdrawal of the United States, the legitimacy of the agreement was minimal and its ability to protect the environment was negligible. The discussion of environmental protection must go beyond human needs, otherwise environmental progress will never be realized. The boundaries of sociology need to be reconsidered to reflect the interdependence between nature and human beings, followed by the update of environmental protection law.

Law can follow the scale that gives natural legal meaning. It is very important to learn from indigenous cultures, because they have shown their interdependence with nature by considering themselves and nature as one. This is represented by Gaia metaphor, which depicts the world as a connected system, in which all active subjects play a role in its existence. Both Ecuador and Bolivia have constitutionalized Earth Jurisprudence. Although Ecuador has successfully won only three natural rights due to the financial burden of judicial procedures, it symbolizes the recognition of the intrinsic value of nature from top to bottom and sets an important precedent.

Social movements are the key to promoting environmental issues into the mainstream. Examples include Ecuador’s Pachama Act and Canada’s Doing Nothing. In 2014, the People’s Climate Parade was held, and 400,000 people in new york participated in the largest climate movement parade on record. Bottom-up pressure in New Zealand, India and Bangladesh has led to personality adoption, and there are proposals in every case, including that the sponsors consider themselves part of the river or cherish the existence of the river at the expense of their lives. An example of environmental advocacy is the case in United States in 2015, in which 20 young people sued the United States, claiming that they had suffered the present and future harm of climate change because of the government’s commitment to the fossil fuel industry. Although the case failed, it raised people’s awareness of the legal rights of the environment and the overall environmental needs. It was not until the 1970s that Maori protested that their concerns began to be addressed.

Granting legal personhood offers a legitimate alternative to traditional conservation methods. The challenges it faces, it can overcome with time and strong infrastructural support. To create longterm environmental change, a shift in people’s ideology and behaviour regarding their relationship with nature is necessary. A movement away from anthropocentrism, and instead the embracement of ecocentrism whereby there is a reprioritisation and recognition of environmental importance.

By Demi Zhang