"The new law will allow the people of Toledo to act as legal guardians for Lake Erie – as if the citizens were the parents and the lake were their child – and polluters of the lake could be sued to pay for cleanup costs and prevention programs. It is one of the first of its kind in the US, as it grants human rights to a body of water that is 10,000 sq miles in size, provides drinking water for 11 million people and has four states and two countries along its 870 miles of shoreline."
I found this article in a print copy left on the bar of the Free Trade Inn, Newcastle in reading week. Interesting to think about the laws surrounding both the human and non-human.
But doesn't this also show the lack of legislation to protect nature, if a Lake needs to be elevated to a human status?