Serra de Outes (Spain) Declaration: rights of the Tins River

Summary

On March 1, 2024, the Serra de Outes city council (Galicia) unanimously adopted the Declaration of Rights of the Tins River, which recognizes the river as a subject of rights within the scope of the Outes Municipality—making it the first river in Spain to have its rights officially recognized. The Declaration establishes 10 rights of the Tins river and 14 commitments of residents so that these rights are respected. The declaration of rights is not binding in the legal sense because it is not accompanied by an ordinance that establishes sanctions if it is not complied with, but it is binding in political terms. The intention is that it will serve as a framework to guide environmental public policies related to the management of river space.

The Declaration establishes 10 rights of the Tins river, including: (1) to life and existence as an ecosystem in balance; (2) to be clean and free from pollution; (3) to regeneration and to evolve naturally without interruptions caused by human activity; (4) to protection and conservation; (5) to flow freely; (6) to be respected; (7) to maintain and recover its banks and its riverside forests; (8) to the intergenerational cultural and biocultural heritage that it houses; (9) to reparation and restitution for any damage, past, present or future, that has been caused by human action or omission, and that violates the rights established in this Declaration.

This Declaration is the result of a participatory process promoted by the ReNatur_Outes project. The text of the declaration was drafted and agreed upon by the citizens of Outes, including members of local associations, students, university researchers, environmentalists, and political groups. Back in March 2023, citizens gathered to assess the ecological and biocultural importance of the Tins river, with participants imagining what they would like the Tins river to look like in 10 years (year 2033). That dialogue helped shape a series of commitments, reflected in the subsequent Declaration, which were agreed upon and finalized in a governance session held on December 15, 2023. Participants state that “the importance that the Tins river has for its riverside communities and the general population motivated the citizens’ initiative to embody the recognition of the rights of the Tins river as a living ecosystem in an institutional declaration.” Participants discussed each of the 10 proposed rights, analyzed how they are currently being violated, and what actions would be necessary to ensure compliance. Citizens then agreed upon a final draft of the Declaration of the Rights of the Tins River, which presented to the municipal plenary and formally adopted by the municipality.