Wesley Smith writes for National Review Online about the nation’s oldest university supporting a dubious, unscientific concept.
The “nature rights” movement is pushing environmentalism into the unscientific realm. Specifically, the movement promotes a neo-pagan mysticism — such as invoking Pachamana the Incan earth goddess — as a major basis for its advocacy.
Such unscientific approaches have reached the highest levels of the ivory tower and have been invoked in medical and science journals. Most recently, the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium on “nature rights” undergirded by “indigenous knowledge” as part of the 2025 Harvard Climate Action Week. From “Indigenous Leadership on Protecting Water as a Fundamental Right:”
“Throughout the event, a recurring theme was the need to reframe the human relationship with water—not as a resource for human consumption but as a living relative with which humans share reciprocal duties.” …
… What “reciprocal duties” do waterways have toward us? The whole notion is ridiculous on its face. And I’m sorry. Rivers are not alive. Waters are not our “living relatives.” They are geological features.
To treat them otherwise would be to engage in unscientific neo-pagan mysticism, perfectly proper among indigenous cultures, but no basis for environmental public policies capable of furthering modernity.
Yes, environmental stewardship is an important human duty. And yes, we need to continue to improve our husbandry of the environment. But if rivers have rights — such as the “right to flow” — the human harm would be incalculable. We would not be able to build dams, engage in flood control, and generate electricity because those activities impede the natural flowing of rivers.
I get that the intelligentsia is enamored of all things indigenous. I too like many of these cultures. (My great grandmother was Cherokee.) But they were pre-industrial societies. It’s a simple fact that indigenous practices toward nature are inadequate in an industrial world.
