The Forest Fights Back: A Global Movement for the Rights of Nature

by Jessica den Outer

As the world grapples with the escalating climate crisis, ecosystems are collapsing, and the planet’s future hangs in the balance. For centuries, our legal systems have treated nature as something to be owned and exploited, but a bold new movement is challenging this paradigm.



In The Forest Fights Back, Jessica den Outer explores a groundbreaking global movement—Rights of Nature—taking on the legal system to recognise the rights of rivers, forests, and mountains to exist, flourish, and sustain their ecological balance. From the fight for the Whanganui River in New Zealand to the battle for Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon, den Outer highlights the campaigns led by grassroots communities, telling stories of determination and legal ingenuity.



This movement goes beyond law - it represents a cultural shift that could reshape how we live, think, co-exist and advocate for nature.

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published January 20, 2026

Reviews

[Jerry Edward Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should trees have legal standing? That was the entirely novel, and really very provocative, legal idea first advanced by Christopher D. Stone in 1972. It argued for a recognition of legal environmental personhood for certain environmental entities. Environmental personhood would substitute for nature being generally seen as property. The law journal article influenced some legal and political thinkers, including Justice William O. Douglas of the United States Supreme Court. Douglas’ dissenting opinion in an appeal to the court brought by the Sierra Club actually brought forth a seriously derisive reaction in legal circles. The original article and the legal reaction had focused on the use of the historic legal doctrine and requirement of standing. Standing is a requirement of legal and judicial systems like the United States that a party have a sufficient connection to the harm inflicted that a legal action is warranted. This connection establishes that a party to a legal matter is entitled by the law to have the merits of a legal dispute or issue resolved by appropriate legal institutions. So, should trees have legal standing? Stone’s 1972 article argued for a recognition of environmental personhood. The environmental movement for such legal recognition continued to gradually grow. That very idea of environmental personhood is at the heart of this new book. The author asks a similar question: If people and companies can have defined legal rights, why can’t the environment of rivers, forests and mountains? The book sets out the justification for a global Rights of Nature movement, a movement which challenges the tradition of treating nature as property. The author is a Dutch environmental lawyer involved since 2017 in the international Rights of Nature movement. She has championed citizen activism in The Netherlands, with many nongovernmental organizations around the world, and through the United Nations. The focus of this book is on law, morality, and the environment. It highlights grassroots campaigns from New Zealand’s Whanganui River to Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon to the Colombian Amazon rainforest and to activism in Florida and Pennsylvania in the United States. The book has been described as advocating for a broader cultural shift in how humanity relates to and defends nature. This is a challenging call for citizen environmental activism. Highly recommended for all readers but especially for the reader concerned about worldwide environmental justice. It is, however, a book that should be read by the reader concerned with broad environmental issues and by all who are concerned with pressing public policy matters.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Forest Fights Back presents the interesting concept of examining the fights to give the environment legal personhood to help protect it from human exploitation and degradation.

This book I think is probably most useful as a jumping off point, the bulk of the text is 125 pages and covers 11 examples which does have the impact of making all of them somewhat surface level and as a whole the author doesn't seem to really present a case for having an impact moving on once the rights have been granted without considering implementation or efficacy.

It is, however, well written, and the author has succeeded in making several separate legal systems accessible and legible to the reader.

[Susie Dumond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very approachable and engaging introduction to the Rights of Nature movement! If you're looking for hope in the fight for climate change, this is a quick and heartening read.