Rights of Nature in Cities: What Could It Look Like?

Van ruimtelijke planning tot vertegenwoordiging van natuur in stedelijk bestuur. Aan de hand van internationale voorbeelden onderzoekt zij hoe steden kunnen experimenteren met een structurele plek voor natuur en haar rechten.

Movements advocating for the Rights of Nature have explored the legal and philosophical foundations of granting legal personhood to natural entities, securing access to environmental justice, and recognizing the vital role of civil society in promoting a rights-based approach to nature.

However, the urban dimension of these ideas—their integration into legal and governance frameworks within cities—remains underexplored.

This text offers a modest reflection on how the Rights of Nature could be meaningfully applied in urban contexts to support more ecological and reciprocal governance models in cities’ green transitions.

1. Envisioning the Rights of Nature in Cities – A Creative Exercise

Bringing this concept into urban life requires imaginative thinking: What would legal representation of nature look like in city governance? Could natural entities have a voice—or even a seat—on city councils? Who would speak on their behalf, and would their participation be advisory or decision-making?

These questions aim to reframe urban governance as a relationship of reciprocity between people, nature, and institutions. A notable example is the Loire Parliament in France, an initiative exploring how to give the Loire River a voice in regional decision-making.

2. Emerging Urban Pathways for Nature’s Rights

Several cities are already experimenting with different pathways to incorporate the Rights of Nature:

• One approach would be to integrate nature´s perspective and rights into municipal planning documents. For example, the city of Curridabat in Costa Rica developed a long-term community plan built around pollinators as citizens, which shaped decision making, urban design, priority setting, and evaluation.
• Other cities draw on other knowledge systems, especially indigenous ones, to inform planning and rethink its relationship to nature. For example, Auckland, New Zealand, integrated Māori values of environmental stewardship into its zoning laws and urban management. The challenge lies in embedding such cultural principles into existing institutional frameworks.
• Project-Based Approaches: Some municipalities apply Rights of Nature concepts to specific projects without embedding them systematically. While limited in scope, these initiatives can demonstrate the value of ecological governance and open the door to broader transformation if successful.
• Finally, some municipalities apply Rights for Nature concepts only to specific municipal projects without systematically embedding them in urban planning and management. While limited in scope, these initiatives can demonstrate the value of such an approach and open the door to broader transformative shifts if successful.

In general, the concept of urban rights for nature underscores the idea that nature should have a voice in how we design and inhabit cities, participating actively as part of the ecosystem of urban actors. Ultimately, it supports a call for more participatory planning and a truly vibrant local democracy—one in which both local communities and natural ecosystems are meaningfully included in decision-making and urban development processes.

Over deze bijdrage

Deze gastbijdrage is geschreven door Anna Lefrancois en geeft haar perspectief op de toepassing van Rechten van de Natuur in steden.

About Anna Lefrancois

Anna Lefrançois is a young professional working with the UN Habitat programme of the United Nations, where she supports initiatives to advance sustainable, inclusive, and resilient cities across Europe and Africa. After studying the governance of the ecological transition in cities at the Urban School of Sciences Po Paris, she joined the Environment Programme of the UN in Brussels where she worked on biodiversity, urban sustainability and One Health. She recently moved to Morocco to gain field experience supporting African cities in making sense of the challenge of rapid urbanization in a planet with environmental boundaries. She believes that unlocking sufficient climate finance, reforming environmentally harmful subsidies and granting legal rights to nature are key levers to making a systemic change in Europe and in the rest of the world. In her free time, she enjoys going on adventures, hiking in the mountains and dancing to loud music.