That’s good. I went for a walk in the Wye valley in Wales many years back and I’m happy it’s getting some protection.

Rivers in Ecuador, Canada and New Zealand have been granted legal personhood in recent years, and the House of Lords is considering a proposal by the former leader of the Green party, Natalie Bennett, to change nature’s legal status from objects, property and resources to subjects with inherent rights.

I’m not sure why you’d need rivers to have personhood to be protected. I guess that might just be a result of weird legal frameworks.

Last year, the Ouse, which runs through East and West Sussex, became the first river in the country to have its rights formally recognised.