We spoke to pioneering barrister Monica Feria-Tinta about her work advocating for rivers, forests and endangered species, ahead of her appearance at Wealden Festival 2026. Find out more about her event and book tickets here.
Your book asks a fascinating question: can nature itself have rights? What first drew you towards thinking about the law and the natural world in this way?
What opened me to the idea of legal rights for nature? Deep down, it always felt wrong that the destruction of life, namely the extinction of entire species, could be deemed “legal” simply because it didn’t cause direct harm to humans. Surely, the diversity of life on Earth carries its own intrinsic value and deserves legal protection. My heritage was the foundation of this conviction. I was raised with a worldview where a mountain isn’t just rock, but a mother. In the Andes, where my roots are found, there is a shared cosmology which centers on Pachamama, fostering a deep, foundational respect for all the living. The Earth is alive and sacred.
In A Barrister for the Earth, you take readers inside ten landmark environmental cases. Was there one case in particular that changed the way you think about justice or our relationship with nature?
I think the Los Cedros case was a turning point for me because it entailed a purely eco-centric way to apply the law. It required me to use everything I knew in environmental law to advance an eco-centric perspective. This was not a merely theoretical way of interpreting a Constitutional provision but to understand what place such an approach had within a bigger framework of law (which included investment law). It required an understanding of how those principles (the Rights of Nature) applied in practice.
Up to that moment I had argued environmental cases in which there were human beings affected; so arguing a case advocating directly for the right of moths, fungi, frogs, monkeys, to exist was deeply transformative, as an advocate.
A lot of people still find the idea of a river or forest having legal rights quite surprising. Do you feel attitudes are beginning to shift as the climate crisis becomes more visible in everyday life?
Yes, I believe people are changing their way of thinking. For example, stingless bees in the Amazon have become the first insects in the world to be granted legal rights, established through municipal ordinances in Satipo, Peru, last year. Why? Because people have realised their fundamental role. They are the primary pollinators for 80% of the Amazonian plants and trees. They have a unique role as “guardians of the Amazon”. Imagine: you understand that a small insect is more important as species for sustaining life on Earth than you ever thought possible. The recognition of their inherent right to exist responded to an urgent need to protect them from extinction.
In the UK rights of rivers are gaining momentum precisely because of the crisis rivers are experiencing, and I am not surprised about it. Rivers are key ecosystems, so by defending the rights of rivers, communities are protecting entire ecosystems in the UK. I have just been invited to a ceremony relating to the Charter of Rights of the River Wye. The Ouse, the Loddon, similarly have been acknowledged rights by local councils. There are many more communities working to protect their rivers: the river Medway, the river Teifi, the river Severn and the Clyde (in Scotland).
Although the issues you write about are global, there’s also something very local about environmental justice – people fighting for a particular river or woodland that they care deeply about. How important are those local stories in creating wider change?
Local stories are crucial. In the book I tell the story of a community in Essex fighting for a single tree not to be cut down. The town itself has almost no canopy. The resistance of the community to the council’s cutting down a London plane, the last tree surviving in a tree-less street, was highly educational for me. It said a lot about communities waking up to the significance even of a single tree in their everyday life. Of what is ‘human’ today. We need that constant interaction with Nature. A tree-less street is not just unhealthy, or needing climate adaptation but not the habitat that is human. Humans have co-existed with other species and need that co-existence.
And finally, what are you most looking forward to about appearing at Wealden Festival?
I am looking forward to discussing all these ideas in such beautiful surroundings. It is my first time at Wealden Festival, located in a ‘living, breathing’ natural environment. What an ideal place to be speaking about Rights of Nature and how to live our lives on Earth, nurturing a positive relationship with the natural world.
