Rights of the River Medway
Rights of the River Medway - Successes so Far
A living river deserves living rights. This campaign documents our journey to secure legal personhood for the River Medway - from grassroots pilgrimage to landmark council resolutions.
Why this matters
Rivers are not resources. Treating them purely as economic infrastructure has led to decades of pollution, over-abstraction, and ecological collapse. The Medway is one of England's most ecologically significant waterways, flowing through the High Weald - an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - down through the heart of Kent to the Thames Estuary. It deserves to be recognised as a living entity with inherent rights of its own.
The rights of nature movement is not radical: it is a proven path to protection. The Whanganui River in New Zealand gained legal personhood in 2017. Ecuador enshrined rights of nature in its constitution a decade before that. Rights of nature laws work by appointing human guardians to speak for a river in legal and political processes, giving local communities real power to defend their waterway against pollution, over-development, and neglect.
Securing rights for the Medway sets a precedent for every river, chalk stream, and wetland across England.
The journey: Securing the river’s rights
Before the pilgrimage: Wealden Council acknowledges the Medway
Through sustained engagement with Rachel Millward, co-founder of Friends of the River Medway and now Deputy Leader of the Green Party, we inspired Wealden District Council - the upper catchment authority in the High Weald - to formally acknowledge the rights of the River Medway ahead of our pilgrimage. This lent crucial institutional credibility to the walk and demonstrating that political change was possible before we had even set out.
The pilgrimage: walking source to sea
Walkers joined us along the length of the Medway, from her source in the High Weald to the tidal estuary in Kent. The pilgrimage was not only a spiritual and ecological act - we organised a conference, bringing together legal experts, ecologists, councillors, and local communities, to discuss river rights as a model to protect the River Medway.
At the heart of the pilgrimage was a historic conference we organised. It was the first time councillors from across the entire Medway catchment had been brought together in one place. Representatives from councils spanning the full length of the river sat alongside leading legal experts, ecologists, and community voices to hear the case for river rights as a model for protecting the Medway - and to share what their own councils were already doing, or could do, to advance that work. It was a rare moment of joined-up thinking across boundaries that rivers themselves have never recognised.
After the pilgrimage: Maidstone's Rights of Nature Bill
The conference did not end with words. Maidstone Borough Council, energised by the dialogue and the momentum our campaign had built, by working on an innovative Rights of Nature Bill - the first legislation of its kind in the UK. The bill proposes formal legal protections for the Medway within the council's jurisdiction, establishing guardian roles and enforceable ecological standards. It is a landmark step, and a direct demonstration of what becomes possible when communities, experts, and elected representatives come together around a shared commitment to their river. Find out more about the bill here.
Why these moments matter
The acknowledgement by Wealden and the bill brought forward by Maidstone represent something important: proof that communities, when they walk alongside their rivers and speak on their behalf, can shift the politics of place. Neither happened by accident. Both were the result of years of relationship-building, public education, and the simple, powerful act of turning up - on the riverbank, in the council chamber, and on the road.
Rights of nature are not a destination. They are a practice: a commitment to recognising that the living world has standing, and that we are responsible for defending it.
What comes next
With Wealden's acknowledgement and Maidstone's Rights of Nature Bill now on record, we are working toward county-wide adoption, legal challenge powers for river guardians, and national advocacy for a UK rights of nature framework. The Medway's story is just beginning.