Nature on the Board: A Tool for Maintenance or Transition Towards an Indigenous-Led Emergent System
Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The global polycrisis has prompted diverse legal and philosophical responses to how humans interact with the living world. Many of these approaches seek to shift away from human-centred systems of extraction and accumulation towards regenerative and distributive systems that recognise humans as part of an ecosystem, not separate. One of these emerging responses, broadly referred to as the “Nature on the Board” (NotB) movement, seeks to instil “the voice, the vote, and the rights of Nature” within organisational governance. As a nascent movement, there is limited research into NotB’s origins, aims and potential. This thesis seeks to fill this gap and specifically consider how NotB’s emergent governance models might be used by non-indigenous organisations to maintain current systems, or contribute to their transformation within settler-colonial contexts. Largely shaped by corporate social responsibility developments and the Rights of Nature movement more broadly, early-practitioners of NotB in America and Europe appear to adopt a universal rights of nature narrative. Although rights-based tools are strategically necessary, Global South, Indigenous, and feminist scholars have long articulated how universal rights narratives perpetuate forms of oppression that are complicit in the ongoing polycrisis. In the spirit of deep solidarity and to keep the innovative impetus alive, this thesis amplifies these critiques and offers potential ways to reframe NotB so that it might facilitate an Indigenous-led emergent system. In considering how NotB might be reframed, this thesis draws on recent research into the implementation of (i) the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court’s most celebrated Rights of Nature decision, Los Cedros, and (ii) Whanganui, Aotearoa New Zealand’s power sharing arrangement for the Whanganui River – Te Pā Auroa nā Te Awa Tupua. These two public law examples potentially counter universal rights narratives by prioritising place-based relationships and authority. Specifically, both examples highlight the complex relationships between peoples and places, and the potential of Indigenous law and values. To be transformative, this thesis argues that NotB must reframe “nature’s rights” as only possible in place-based relationships. With this reframing, NotB invites organisations to contextualise “nature” as a specific place that carries the people who live and work there, and to prioritise the redistribution of power to Indigenous Peoples as legitimate authority holders. Non-indigenous organisations must not only redistribute power to place, but also within place, by engaging with their own guesthood and prioritising Indigenous self-determination and authority to speak for place.
DOI: 10.26686/985r-2p6y
Author: Kristina Hurley
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7154852806