Rights for Nature
Join the Irish Rights For Nature campaign.
Nature keeps us alive. It filters our water, stabilises our climate, and sustains the food we eat. Yet under European law, it has no rights, it cannot be represented, and it cannot defend itself. Rights for Nature is the legal idea that changes that. We are officially registered with the European Commission.
We are European citizens uniting to call on the EU to recognise ecosystems as rights-holders rather than property. Starting on the 13th October 2026, we will collect one million signatures to bring this demand before the European Commission and shift the foundation of Europe’s environmental law.
Photo of grey seal by Sheena Jolley
About the Rights for Nature
Rights for Nature is a global legal and cultural movement advocating to recognise ecosystems—such as rivers, forests, oceans, bogs, and mountains—as legal entities with inherent rights to exist, thrive, and regenerate. Just like humans. It shifts environmental protection from exploiting resources to enforcing legal rights on behalf of nature.
Rights for Nature can also act as a catalyst to transform our thinking from an extractive economy towards a regenerative economy.
The campaign seeks to move beyond traditional, limited environmental regulations toward a paradigm shift that protects the intrinsic value of the natural world, and all the more than human beings, similar to developments in Ecuador and Bolivia.
Photo of sea eagle by Mike Brown
The Irish ECI campaign
In Ireland the Rights of Nature campaign has already built strong foundations, securing the backing of a significant number of politicians and senators, and the unanimous support from the Irish Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss.
In 2023, Ireland’s Oireachtas (National Parliament) endorsed a plan for a national referendum on an amendment to enshrine rights of nature (RoN) in the Irish constitution. If this amendment passes, Ireland would become the first European country to recognise the rights of nature at the constitutional level.
This new Irish ECI campaign is part of the European Coalition to bring the Rights for Nature to EU level through a European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI), with a 2 year strategy to strengthen a European movement.
Supporting organisations
We are a growing Irish and European alliance standing up for nature.
Photo of bottlenose dolphin by Mike Brown
Calling artists and storytellers
We are inviting artists, storytellers, musicians, and poets to join the ECI campaign. Together we will explore the role of the artist as activist and alchemist, building a visionary movement that helps citizens reimagine our relationship to the land and all living beings.
We will continue in the footsteps of naturalists and philosophers like Manchán Magan, John Moriarty, and John O'Donohue; and invoke mythology, reawaken folklore, recover memory, and explore our Indigenous Brehon Laws, bringing this ancient regenerative wisdom to life.
In Spring 2027 an All-Island Open Call will launch, calling on the public to participate and create music, poems, and art inspired by their local ecosystem, sharing the content online with the hashtag #RightsForNature.
Each artist is invited to become a guardian for their a local ecosystem (eg. river, lake, bog, mountain, or sea) and give voice to it, and all the more-than-human-brings that call it home. A programme of public events, workshops, and performances will showcase the artists’ creations, raising awareness about the campaign and rallying support.
Watch and Learn
This short film investigates how granting legal personhood to nature could transform environmental protection and challenge the way we relate to the natural world. You can watch the full version of the film here.
The Brehon Laws
Sustainable, earth-centered laws are core to Ireland's Indigenous heritage. As we campaign to integrate the Rights for Nature principles into frameworks like the Irish Constitution and local council policy, we invoke the wisdom of the ancient Brehon system.
Unlike modern property law - which treats nature as a resource or commodity to be owned and exploited - Brehon Law treated parts of the natural world as entities with direct legal status and intrinsic value.
In pre-Christian Irish culture, the Brehon Laws laid out comprehensive rules for the management and protection of trees, fisheries, bees wild birds, seaweed, and more.
Originally the Brehon laws were composed in poetic verse and memorised by the Brehons. Eventually these laws were recorded in written form by Christian scholars.
This visionary legal system serves as an historical precedent and philosophical foundation for the modern Rights for Nature movement, which seek to grant legal personhood and inherent rights to ecosystems.