It's a story about surfing that goes way beyond surfing. In Nautilus, Kristen French describes her experience trying to ride a unique wave at a Brazilian beach. In this case, however, "unique" doesn't refer to the wave's physical properties. It refers to the fact that the wave is a person, legally speaking. Over the summer, the city of Linhares granted personhood status to the renowned waves at the mouth of the Rio Doce River, near the small village of Regencia Augusta. As such, it now "has the intrinsic right to existence, regeneration, and restoration and to the natural flow of the river that feeds it," writes French. "With the help of human advocates, it can bring cases against those who harm it."
The push for the legislation stems from a catastrophic collapse of an iron ore mine in 2015 that devastated the region, polluted the river, and changed the physical nature of its mouth—and thus its iconic waves. (Recovery has been slow, but Hakai Magazine notes that the waves began returning after a 2022 flood.) The new law is designed to protect the waves from future environmental degradation, and one of its main architects—local activist and theologian Hauley Silva Valim—sounds nearly mystical in describing the impetus.
"The wave brings to us this kind of request for listening, to listen to the language of nature—to understand the language of nature, which is enabled by the silencing of the human mind," he says. Read the full story in Nautilus about the waves and the law, which French calls "a small victory for the growing rights-of-nature movement around the world." (Seven wins for the planet in 2024.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
