ABSTRACT
This chapter opens with a brief summary of the looming water problems and severe environmental degradation characterized by water use under the industrial revolution paradigm. It then explores the possibility of changing human water use, especially of rivers, by placing it in a relationship under an ecological governance framework, such as the one commonly known as “Rights of Nature.” The chapter provides two case studies of rivers and springs where this was attempted: one, in New Zealand, successfully; the other, in the United States, less so. The chapter also explores the questions and unresolved issues, both legal and social, that arise when turning to a relationship based on ecological governance to regulate human and river interaction, and provides international examples of some of the unsettled controversies in practice.
