A Town Board in Colorado Considers a Rights of Nature Repeal

The ink is barely dry on a Colorado town’s first rights of nature resolutions, yet a motion to repeal them is scheduled for a vote Tuesday night. 

The resolutions, adopted in Nederland to protect a section of Boulder Creek that runs through the town, were inspired by the global “rights of nature movement,” which aims to secure recognition that ecosystems and individual species have the legal right to exist and regenerate.

The Nederland town board approved one of the rights of nature resolutions earlier this year, appointing two legal guardians to act on behalf of Boulder Creek. The other, a 2021 “Rights of Nature for Boulder Creek” declaration, recognized that, within town limits, the creek and its watershed are “living” entities possessing “fundamental and inalienable rights,” such as to exist, to be restored and to provide an adequate habitat to native wildlife.

Neither resolution is legally binding, and the guardians’ appointed for Boulder Creek are limited to preparing annual reports about the ecosystems’ health and making recommendations on improving water quality, wildlife habitats and wetlands protection. 

While roughly 30 other countries have rights of nature laws or court rulings on the books, no court in the United States has ever recognized the legal doctrine, despite numerous efforts by towns, cities and counties to adopt rights of nature measures. 

Still, the symbolic power of those local rights of nature ordinances and resolutions can be significant—as in Nederland. 

The move to repeal Nederland’s dual resolutions by Nederland’s mayor, Billy Giblin, comes as the town advances an application with the state to construct a dam and reservoir on Middle Boulder Creek. The reservoir would provide Nederland with an upstream water supply. Currently, the town relies on water from the City of Boulder’s Barker Meadow Reservoir downstream. 

The current controversy of Nederland’s rights of nature resolution erupted last month, when Save the World’s Rivers, a Colorado-based nonprofit, filed opposition to Nederland’s application, claiming that it was deficient and asking that the town be required to carry out an engineering plan and provide a cost estimate for the dam, among other things. 

“Dams kill rivers, they drain rivers and this dam would do that to Boulder Creek,” said Gary Wockner, executive director and founder of Save the World’s Rivers. 

Wockner said he believes that the move to repeal Nederland’s rights of nature resolutions stems from his involvement in advocating for those resolutions’ passage—he was one of the lead advocates behind the resolutions. 

He said that his role at Save the World’s Rivers is distinct from his rights of nature advocacy and that he has fought dozens of dam projects in the southwest United States for over 20 years. 

“To respond to our opposition to the Nederland dam in this case by targeting the rights of nature is just punitive,” Wockner said. 

Giblin, the Nederland mayor, did not respond to an interview request. But in an explanatory document filed ahead of Tuesday’s board meeting, Giblin alleges that the rights of nature resolutions “may be being used in ways that the Town did not understand or anticipate at the time of adoption, and in ways that could jeopardize the Town’s water security.” The document also states that “proponents of Rights of Nature” have filed opposition in at least three Colorado court cases involving water issues. 

“This unexpected shift—from Rights of Nature as a tool to provide the Town with information about the health of the Creek, to others using Rights of Nature as a point of leverage against the Town and its neighbors in the community…should be considered in deciding whether Rights of Nature remains a good fit for the Town of Nederland,” Giblin says in the document. 

Nederland’s six-member town board will vote on his repeal measure. Five of the board’s members were newly elected in April, taking office after the resolution was approved in January appointing the Boulder Creek guardians. 

Wockner alleged that the dam project at issue is connected to a push to create new residential housing in the region. 

“You might say nature is out and dams are in, in Nederland,” Wockner said. 

The town’s application filed in connection with the proposed dam stems from a conditional water right Nederland has held since 1980. To maintain the right, the town must every six years file a “diligence” application showing that it is taking steps to put the right to a “beneficial use.” The law is based on the public policy that water in the state should be used for human benefit, and if a right holder isn’t taking steps to do so, the right should go to someone else.