What do the Whanganui River in New Zealand, nature itself in Ecuador and – more recently – the Mar Menor Lagoon in Spain have in common? They have all been endowed with the rights of legal persons by the respective states. You can no longer do what you want with these ecosystems, they have been recognized as particularly worthy of protection.
On a much smaller – and more common – scale, this realization that our nature is about more than exploitable resource donors or parceled out individual properties has now also been shown in Markt Schwaben. The new Tree Protection Ordinance does not give trees any rights, but it protects them from arbitrary access by citizens.
The fear was quickly expressed from the ranks of the CSU/FDP and Free Voters that this could degenerate into patronizing and harassment of the citizens. After all, as responsible beings, they themselves are able to find an adequate way of dealing with nature. However, this mentality of free felling for free citizens is no longer up to date.
At the latest, climate change and the summer heat waves have shown that trees are not just about losing a beautiful visual object. They are central building blocks for a resilient urban landscape, they cool the streets and clean the air. They are too important to be left to individual decision-makers, who in times of inflation and financial uncertainty might be tempted to look more to the green in their wallets than outside their windows.
In Ecuador, New Zealand, Spain and now also a bit in Markt Schwaben, people are in the process of reassessing the status of nature – and they have taken the right path.