Jessica den Outer is nature’s lawyer. ‘Rivers, forests and seas must be given rights’

It is winter, but mild when we walk through the Oostvaardersplassen. This unique nature reserve is exposed due to the mild but very wet weather conditions. The hiker’s feet sink deep into the mud. Jessica den Outer walks with a completely different feeling than before through the area that has become a true bird paradise, a home for impressive numbers of water birds, reed birds and wading birds.

This new wilderness is located just outside the city limits of Lelystad, where the young woman grew up. “Every weekend I went into the new woods with my parents and brother. I romped in the mud. We skated here in the winter.”

She mainly got her love for nature from her now deceased grandfather. “He planted the seed to continually amaze me about nature and to pass that on to others.” During her childhood, she and her grandfather would crawl on all fours through the grass to study all kinds of creatures that crawled and climbed there. “Discovering the wonderful world of insects was one big adventure.”

‘I have a great sense of justice’

That was then. Everything was equally beautiful. Now a walk in the green has a completely different meaning. She now notices the human hands. Not just the nature experience center and the many bird watching huts. In the new forests she sees: “It is all monoculture. Many trees have a dot. Is there something wrong with it? On X I once read ‘Netherlands kapland’.”

Large grazers walk in the distance in the unique nature reserve. They were already there in Jessica’s childhood. But, she now sees: “They are so thin.” The Flevolijn, put into use less than a decade before its birth, is located on the east side of the Oostvaardersplassen. The train approaches in a rhythmic thundering cadence. “I didn’t see it as a child, but now I notice that the passing train disturbs the peace.”

Jessica den Outer was 17 years old when she left Lelystad, like the godwits, the ruffs and the redshanks. She headed south, towards the North Sea, to study international and European law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. “I have a great sense of justice and I really enjoy reading. It was an easy choice.”

She adds that most of her fellow students were driven by a sense of justice in their choice of study. Now she sees: “Most people now do something that is not in line with their initial motivation.” She wondered if she wanted to follow the same common path. She was missing something. “I was happy to discover that there was such a thing as environmental law. Here I was able to combine my love for nature and my interest in law.”

Aristotle already placed man above all other life

Environmental law. Good thing it’s there. But: “While I memorized dozens of laws and regulations about nature conservation and climate change, I heard and read signs again of how bad things were going for the earth. How did it exist? We had so many rules at our disposal. Didn’t they help?” This got her thinking and she concluded: “Our worldview is closely linked to the law.”

How did that come about? Aristotle already placed man above all other life and we have been living, especially in the West, for centuries with the Christian worldview of stewardship. “We see rivers, forests and seas as objects that we can use, exploit, deplete.”

A statement by the writer Alice Walker captured her imagination: ‘Animals are no more made for people than black people are made for white people, or women for men’. “I didn’t know if I wanted to continue with environmental law. Did I really want to continue in the existing system? Or would I just be busy sticking plasters on it? Wouldn’t I rather use my legal knowledge to see how things could be done differently?”

Her drive took wings

Until the penny dropped. The year she had to choose a topic for her senior thesis, she lingered in the newspaper on a news article about the Whanganui River in New Zealand that had become a legal entity. Huh? During her training she had learned that certain types of companies, municipalities and water boards can have legal personality. But a river? It could be even crazier.

When she looked into it further, she learned that New Zealand had granted rights to the Te Urewera forest area on the North Island three years earlier. “Now it involves indigenous peoples and young people in policy.” This was something completely new. Finally, Den Outer had found something with which society could be reorganized. Her drive took wings. “I wanted to write something about this!”

She read everything that had to do with the environment and law and, how could it be otherwise, ended up with the Rights for Nature movement. She became acquainted with the ideas of the lawyer Christopher Stone, who had already laid the foundation for this in 1972. He then published an article under the headline Should trees have the right to speak? Stone believed that ‘we’ should represent the interests of nature as ‘we’ do for multinationals and babies, which ‘we’ all find perfectly normal.

She spread her wings further

The reason for the article was Disney’s construction of a resort in a Californian valley. The nature conservation organization filed a lawsuit against this but was dismissed. “You are not the injured party,” the judge ruled. Stone was met with scorn. What ridiculous, romantic ideas that man had. But the seed had been sown. It would take a while and in 2006 something special happened: the American mining town of Tamaqua Borough granted nature rights. First. Den Outer discovered that there are many more places in the world where people recognize that nature has a right to exist and should be protected (in 2023 there are preferably more than four hundred).

She spread her wings further, towards Nottingham in the middle of England, where her mother’s family comes from, to study international environmental law. Back in the Netherlands, after two years, she wanted to continue with it. But how? And where?

Fortunately, Den Outer has parents (mother is a nurse, father is a security guard) who believe that a person should follow his passion. Her parents wanted to take her under their wings again. Soon after returning to her old home, she took the plunge and wrote to the United Nations. Could she possibly participate in the ‘Harmony with nature’ program? She had the wind behind her. “The United Nations, like New Zealand, wants to involve indigenous peoples and young people in writing reports and pointing out directions. “Each affiliated country provides nine or ten experts, I am the only young professional.”

I decided to make Rights for Nature my life’s mission

That was the moment when she really wanted to go for it. “I decided to make Rights for Nature my life’s mission.” She was surprised at how little known the Rights for Nature movement was in the Netherlands. She committed herself to the Maas Cleanup, Amelisweerd, the North Sea and the Wadden Sea. But she was young and naive and no one wanted to hear her.

That has changed in recent years. In 2021, Den Outer decided to write a pleasantly readable and digestible book to introduce the reader to the Rights for Nature movement. “Around the world, concerned citizens, indigenous peoples, environmental clubs and politicians are working on it.”

She is occasionally asked if she has ever been to all those distant countries she writes about, such as Ecuador, where Rights for Mother Earth have been included in the Constitution since 2008, and Colombia, where the rights of the Amazon rainforest have been recognized. Den Outer does not fly if it is not necessary. She did train to The Hague countless times to talk to politicians, from left-wing parties to the far right, about Rights for Nature. “For the sake of future generations and of all life.”

Everyone can defend the interests of nature

Her voice is being heard: D66 wrote a bill for the legal personality of the Wadden Sea, and the Party for the Animals came up with a constitutional proposal. “As many as seven political parties mentioned rights for nature in their election manifestos.”

According to Den Outer, everyone can defend the interests of nature. She points to the self-proclaimed IJssel lover Wim Eikelboom, who spoke in the Zwolle municipal council on behalf of his beloved river. “The city council was completely silent. It was a historic moment. The population has even more resources at its disposal: start a petition, write a letter to politicians or draw attention to it in the media.”

On the day after the House of Representatives elections, she informed her followers on LinkedIn, from Amsterdam, where she has now settled: ‘This morning we woke up in the Netherlands to an uncertain political climate. I thought about how it has always been local actions by citizens that have led to justice for nature.’

Now she says: “Local initiatives deserve more attention.” She wants to draw attention to them through greater use of social media. “That will be my mission for 2024.”