The second largest river in Corsica, the Tavignanu provides many services to biodiversity and people over its 88.7 km length.
But a waste landfill center project threatens this balance, according to several local associations.
After a lost first legal battle, a meeting with the lawyer Valérie Cabanes, in September 2019, gave them another idea.
That of having the legal rights of the river recognized, starting with that of defending oneself in court.
The bill of rights for the Tavignanu river that these associations have just published is only symbolic for the moment.
With the help of Our Common Business, the next step is to make it legal.
It would be a first in France.
The right to exist, to live, and to flow.
The right to respect for its natural cycles.
The right to perform its essential ecological functions.
The right not to be polluted… And, above all, the right to take legal action, that is to say the right to bring actions before the courts and to defend oneself when one is the subject of legal proceedings.
In Corsica, three associations - Tavignanu Vivu, Umani and Terre de Liens Corsica - took up the pen to draft a declaration of rights for one of the natural treasures of the Isle of Beauty: the Tavignanu river.
With the idea of obtaining the status of legal personality, which would be a first for a natural ecosystem in France.
A landfill center project as a catalyst
The Tavignanu fully deserves it according to this collective. From Lake Ninu, in the center of the island, where it takes its source, to its mouth, in Aléria, on the east coast, the second Corsican river provides many services over its 88.7 km length. Already to biodiversity. Its lower valley is classified as a Natural 2000 site and a natural area of ecological interest for the rich flora and fauna that it shelters. Then to men. “We take 4 million cubic meters of water from it per year,” explains Pascale Bona, from Tavignanu Vivu. Both to supply drinking water to a large part of the eastern coast of Corsica, and to irrigate the crops of the eastern plain, one of the main agricultural regions of the island, the leading producer of clementines in France. "
An ecosystem in danger?
This is the sentiment of the three Corsican associations since a project for a waste landfill center in the town of Giuncaggio was made public in June 2016, supported by the company Oriente environnement.
“It would extend over 60 hectares in the hollow of a bend in the river,” describes Pascale Bona.
The land is known to be unstable and waterlogged.
However, 80,000 tonnes of household waste and 120,000 tonnes of asbestos-containing waste are stored there *.
"
Join the nature rights movement
On April 21, the Council of State rejected the appeal formed by the collective and the community of Corsica against the decision of the administrative justice authorizing Oriente environment to start work. The end of a long legal battle. But maybe not the last. A meeting with Valérie Cabanes, jurist in international law and co-founder of Notre Affaire à tous, in September 2019, gave hope to the three associations.
They learn that several countries have already granted legal rights to their natural heritage. Ecuador started the ball rolling in 2008, adopting a new Constitution that makes Pasha Mama (Mother Earth) a subject of rights to be respected and even repaired in the event of damage. Bolivia, New Zealand, the United States followed with comparable initiatives, carried at the national or local level and attributing the statutes of living entities to rivers, lakes, forests. "Or even the animal kingdom in India", details Marine Yzquierdo, lawyer and referent for "rights of nature" at Notre Affaire à tous.
In a book she is preparing on the subject, Notre Affaire à tous has identified around sixty cases in around twenty countries.
A non-exhaustive list.
"It is still a very recent movement and Europe has fallen a little behind," notes Marie Toussaint, MEP and co-founder of the NGO.
There is nevertheless a striking example in Spain, where a popular legislative initiative is underway to give legal personality to the Mar Menor [in the region of Murcia].
Europe's largest saltwater lagoon is home to rich biodiversity, but which is under serious threat from urbanization and intensification of agriculture.
Give legal value to their declaration
From this conference with Valérie Cabanes, the three associations emerge convinced that they too must aim for legal recognition for Tavignanu. Their declaration of the rights of the river, published at the end of last July and drafted with the help of Notre Affaire à tous, is only a first step. The document still has only symbolic value. "But it has already enabled us to make people talk about us, to mobilize Corsican elected officials and also to push to change the outlook on Tavignanu", estimates Pascal Bona. Not nothing, insists Marine Yzquierdo. "It would already be a great step forward if mayors undertake to apply this declaration, for example by annexing it to their local urban plans", she points out.
But the ambition is to give this declaration real legal value. In other words, to make it a legally binding text and in particular opening the way to possible new legal remedies against this landfill center project. It is this second stage that the collective and Notre Affaire à tous opened this Thursday, from Marseille, on the sidelines of the IUCN World Conservation Congress. Not easy. “These battles to have the rights to nature recognized are still very recent and the ways of getting there are different from one country to another, Marine Yzquierdo. The plan, for Tavignanu, would be to obtain in the medium term the organization of a local referendum, in the communities of communes crossed by the river, on this question of granting it or not legal rights."In the same way that the State had organized a local consultation on the airport project at Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique)", illustrates Marie Toussaint.
Not a miracle tool ... but one that already has some victories to its credit
The objective also, for Notre Affaire à tous, is for this Corsican initiative to have a snowball effect in France.
"We have already been contacted by an associative Pyrenean collective wishing to launch a similar process for a local river", assures Marine Yzquierdo.
These recognitions of rights are not always sufficient to protect against environmental damage, including in Ecuador, pointed out the professor of law Laurent Neyret, specialist in environmental law, in the columns of Geo in March 2017. “Instead of recognizing all of them ecosystems as living entities, I would rather be in favor of extending human duties towards them, ”he added. "One does not prevent the other", answers Marine Yzquierdo. "All jurists interested in environmental protection agree that the legal arsenal available to us is too weak to effectively protect nature and that it must be consolidated in all possible ways" , adds Marie Toussaint.
The recognition of ecocide as an international crime is one of them.
"The attribution of rights to nature is another, complementary one, which has the advantage of being able to be thought out locally and initiated by citizens anxious to regain control of their relationship to their environment", continues the MEP.
If it is not a miracle tool, admits Notre Affaire à tous, it already has some great victories to its credit.
"In Ecuador, an intensive shrimp farming project in the Cayapas-Mataje reserve was thus blocked, the judge having upheld the rights of nature over the property rights of the project promoters", illustrates Marine Yzquierdo.
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* This asbestos-containing waste would notably come from the Bastia region, where asbestos is naturally present in the soil)
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