Milwaukee Is First County To Recognize ‘Rights of Nature”

Crowley signs Rights of Nature resolution at Urban Ecology Center – Menomonee Valley Branch. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

County Executive David Crowley signed a resolution Friday and made Milwaukee County the first in Wisconsin to recognize the “Rights of Nature.”

The Rights of Nature Movement is a global movement asserting that natural areas, bodies of water and plant and animal wildlife have a right to exist unimpeded and unpolluted by human society. In Wisconsin, it has been pushed forward by indigenous people in the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Guy Reiter, a member of the tribe and executive director of a Menominee Indian community organization called Menikahnaehkem, has become a leader in the Wisconsin movement for recognizing the rights of nature. An important way to think about the movement, he said, is “to think of our environment as a part of us, not something that’s external, but it is internal, it is who we are.” Reiter thanked the county leaders for the “monumental” resolution supporting the movement.

He said he thought of the county’s action in terms similar to the famous line uttered by astronaut Neil Armstrong when he first stepped on the moon: “This is one step for man, and then a huge step for the environment,” Reiter said.

The author of the resolution, Sup. Liz Sumner, noted that the county’s resolution specifically recognizes that bodies of water in Milwaukee County are “integral and essential” to the local environment.

“This resolution recognizes that the natural world has an inherent right to exist and thrive,” Sumner said. “It should not simply be based on whether we benefit from the natural world in an economic sense.”

Protecting the county’s natural areas is an important piece of achieving the goal of becoming the healthiest county in Wisconsin, Crowley said, referencing his strategic plan for the county.

“While we can’t undo the mistakes of those before us, we can always do better today, we can recommit ourselves to this land that we are standing on, we can acknowledge the rights of the tribes who were here before us,” Crowley said. “And that’s exactly why we’re here today, to say clearly and unequivocally that Milwaukee County, land and waterways deserve to be protected and maintained to be healthy, robust, and resilient.”