Rivers in Bangladesh Now Have the Same Legal Rights as Humans

The high court of Bangladesh has recently granted the rivers in the country the rights and status of ‘living entities’ in a bid to save them from encroachment. On Monday, the court registered this landmark verdict on a petition filed by a Dhaka-based rights group, saying all the rivers of the country, would now be treated as legal persons.

Litigator Manzil Murshid said, “We filed the petition to save our rivers from powerful encroachers. The court has declared that all the rivers should now have the same rights as legal persons or living entities”. The petition filed in the year 2016.

The historic verdict came months after the country, which is crisscrossed by thousands of rivers, tributaries and streams, became the fourth nation after Colombia, India and New Zealand to honour its rivers with such rare status.

The Bangladesh High court also appointed the country’s River Conservation Commission as the legal guardian of all the waterways and directed the state agencies to fully assist them in performing their duties.

Environment experts are of the opinion that the verdict would help in saving the rivers from illegal encroachment in the densely populated country with 165 million populations and where land is regarded as precious as gold.

According to experts, many rivers of the country are struggling to survive because of the illegal sand dredging and large-scale industrial pollution.

Sheikh Rokon of Riverine People Group welcomed the verdict saying, “This verdict is very good news for us. We hope the commission can now work freely and save the rivers from premature deaths”.

He also said the high court should empower the River conservation commission to take strict action against polluters, encroachers and illegal dredging companies.

Meanwhile, Mujibur Rahman Howlader, Chairman of the National River Conservation Commission of Bangladesh said that the “unprecedented order would help the vast ecology and biodiversity of Bangladesh’s rich river system. We feel strengthened. It reminds us the rivers are not anybody’s property. We can now enforce a zero-tolerance policy against encroachers”.

The river transport authority of Bangladesh has already started a massive eviction drive by the side of the banks of the rivers around the capital Dhaka, demolishing more than 4,000 illegal establishments since January this year. The authorities have thus recovered some 190 acres of land during the drive.

Most of the rivers in Bangladesh are either branches or tributaries of two main Himalayan Rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which flow through Bangladesh before reaching the Bay of Bengal.

The first such instance of rivers being declared as a legal person was on March 16, 2017, when the river Whanganui was recognized by the Parliament of New Zealand as a living entity.

The order was followed by India, on March 23, 2017, when the Uttarakhand court declared river Ganges and Yamuna as the living entities. The Uttarakhand court also justified the ruling on the grounds saying that the rivers were losing their very existence and extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve and conserve the rivers.