By Sally Churchward.
During Southampton National Park City’s Urban Wild week, we look at the River Rights Movement.
Do you believe that rivers should be free of pollution, have native biodiversity, be sustained and able to flow? Then you may support River Rights already – even if it’s something you’ve never heard of before.
The River Rights movement seeks to protect rivers, often by recognising their legal personhood – in a similar way to how businesses and corporations can have a distinct legal status. Granting rivers legal rights means they can be protected by law, making it easier for communities to protect them, for example against pollution.
The Universal Declaration of River Rights includes the rights to:
- Flow
- Perform essential functions within their ecosystems
- Be free from pollution
- Connect with sustainable aquifers
- Native biodiversity
- Regenerate and be restored
The River Rights movement is rapidly growing internationally. The Universal Declaration of River Rights was developed by the Earth Law Center in 2017 and was based on victories of the rights of rivers globally.
The first River Rights charter in England was passed by Lewes District Council for the River Ouse. And campaigners in Southampton are hoping that Southampton City Council will soon be following suit, for the Rivers Itchen and Test.
Southampton resident Dr Neil Williams is one of those involved in River Rights, on both a national and local level. He set up the River Rights Network, with the first meeting taking place in 2023. The national network is a collaboration between river groups, activists, campaigners, CICs and co-ops across the UK and now includes 48 groups, representing more than 50 rivers, all of whom are trying to make River Rights a reality in their area.
“I’m interested in ways of thinking about nature as something we owe duties to rather than just a resource to properly manage and distribute.” says Neil. That led me to the Rights of Nature.”
Neil set up the Network after realising that there were quite a few groups across the UK trying to do something about River Rights but that they weren’t necessarily talking to each other.
“The project started as trying to bring these groups together to share best practice, talking about how charters work, how rights work, how best to recognise and actualise River Rights in different locations.
It’s proved really popular and successful, because Rights of Rivers has been exploding in the UK.”
Neil believes there are a number of reasons why interest in River Rights has been growing so much lately.
“I think the obvious reason is because people are disappointed with a lot of the ways our rivers are being managed and governed and the state of our rivers. You don’t need me to give all the details about the ecological state of our rivers – people know and are incredibly angry and frustrated by it.”
He explains the two main pillars to the Rights of Rivers: “The first is recognising that rivers have intrinsic value, they aren’t just a resource to be managed, they aren’t just something we can use however we like. They’re something that deserves respect and to be treated as valuable in their own right.
“The second is that the people who are best placed to understand what’s in the interest of their rivers are local communities, the people who work and live side by side with the river. In other countries, this is often indigenous people. Here it’s local community groups who are best placed to represent the interests of the river.
“So Rights of Rivers is often about both recognising the value of rivers and empowering local communities to speak on their behalf. Both of those things are lacking in our current governance structures. We don’t respect rivers. We treat them merely as a resource and we don’t even do that successfully – we exploit them, we over extract, we pollute, dump sewage in them and so on.
“People are very frustrated that they have no power to stop that mismanagement. So River Rights does both. It gives a vocabulary for thinking about the river and ideally, when it’s properly instituted, it gives local communities the power to do something about it.”
And one such community can be found in St Denys, which has one of the city’s two rivers, the Itchen, running through its heart.
The Itchen is home to a huge range of wildlife – Atlantic salmon, otters, seals, kingfishers and much more. But experts warn that the wildlife, particularly the salmon, are under threat from sewage that is being dumped into the river.
St Denys resident Kirsteen Anderssen is one of the founding members of the Southampton River Rights Group. She also helps facilitate the junior ambassadors of the River Rights movement locally, Guardians of the River Itchen, a group of around 20 home educated children and young people who are working to conserve, protect and campaign for the river.
The Guardians of the River Itchen started out as junior conservationists who responded to an advert posted by Friends of the Itchen Estuary looking for a group to undertake citizen science.
Their work has included taking water samples from the River Itchen and growing e. coli as well as testing for nitrates, nitrites, phosphates and more. “Some of what they have found has been really shocking,” says Kirsteen.
The group have also taken part in protests to protect the river, campaigning under slogans such as ‘less faeces, more species’, and ‘stop the plop’. They are actively involved in writing the charter for submission to Southampton City Council, which it is hoped will help secure River Rights for the Itchen.
Zac, 15 (pictured above), is a member of Guardians of the River Itchen. He says the role has brought some surprises. A low point was realising just how polluted the river is, while a high was spotting an otter up close.
“Rivers are alive,” says Zac, explaining why the River Rights movement is so important to him.
“They are a valuable eco system for other forms of life and they deserve rights because there are things that should be protected there.
“I’ve lived on the River Itchen for my whole life so it has a special role in my life.
“River Rights are really important. like other Rights of Nature around the world.
“I think it’s important to have a basic structure for the protection of these natural habitats and ecosystems.
“Nature is basically our life support system – we can’t just have it crumble away because we’ll go with it.
“Getting involved in the rights of the River Itchen feels like an important thing to do, a duty in a way.”
The Southampton River Rights Group grew out of Kirsteen and others hearing about the Whanganui river in New Zealand which has gained rights, alongside the River Ouse, and hoping to replicate that in Southampton for the Itchen.
The Council consulted with Friends of the Itchen Estuary before passing a motion in 2025 to recognise the Rights of the River.
The council is now committed to recognising the Rivers Itchen and Test as vital, living ecosystems deserving of legal rights and stronger protection from pollution, development, over-abstraction, and habitat degradation.
The Southampton River Rights group now has to create a charter which protects the rights of the Itchen and Test rivers, to be endorsed by the council in 2027.
Kirsteen doesn’t see this as an end goal but part of an ongoing process to protect the river.
“If we get our charter adopted it may make some difference and it’s a starting point to grow from,” she says.
“For me it’s another step and gives me a sense of trying to do something in the place where I live.
“I often feel really helpless and powerless to effect change anywhere else so I want to be able to try to do something here.
“And the water that is out the back of my house and that we work with in citizen science, it touches water bodies in the whole of the rest of the world.
“Outrage is also in there!” she adds.
“That people can get away with making these decisions that impact us living here, who have no sense and knowledge of what they’re destroying, what they’re doing.”
“There is a huge amount of wildlife in the river,” she adds. “And on top of that there’s SUPing and kayaking and lots of fun stuff – just going out on the river and being part of it, as long as you don’t’ fall in and swallow any of the e. coli!”
For more information, visit:
- as part of the Urban Wild festival, Southampton River Rights are holding a ‘joyful jaunt’ along the River Itchen on 31st May. For more information click here.
- Reproduced with permission from Southampton National Park City. Main image courtesy of New Forest National Park Authority.
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton