Healthy Soil. Better Clothes.
Rivers with personhood. Forests protected as beings. A new way of seeing the world and our place in it.
THE PROBLEM ISN’T OWNERSHIP — IT’S RECOGNITION.
For centuries, we’ve treated nature as property something to use, trade and exhaust. But what if forests, rivers and mountains had the same rights as people? In some corners of the world, they already do. Granting personhood to nature isn’t about politics, it’s about perspective. It asks us to see the living world not as a resource but as a relative.
''What if forests, rivers and mountains had the same rights as people?''
ARTICLE #4
Reading time 2 minutes
When we walk through a forest, it often feels alive, rooted, breathing and connected. But what if that feeling meant something more than just metaphor? What if trees, forests, rivers and landscapes were recognised not as property but as beings with rights in their own right?
In New Zealand a shift is underway. The concept of “rights of nature” is moving from philosophy into law. Forests and rivers have been granted legal personhood for example Te Urewera (a former national park) and the Whanganui River have been treated as indivisible, living entities with rights, duties and protections.
What’s changing is less about adding another layer of law and more about reframing our relationship with the world. Traditional legal systems often view nature as “resource” or “property”; the rights of nature movement flips that nature becomes subject, not object.
So yes. In the case of New Zealand, nature does have rights now. The law recognises that the health of forests, rivers and landscapes is intimately tied to human wellbeing. When a forest is granted personhood, decisions about its fate can no longer treat it as simply land to exploit or own. The shift is profound.
For us at GROWN, this matters. Because our work isn’t just about making clothes. It’s about acknowledging the world we wear, the world we borrow from and must give back to. If the forest has rights, we must choose fibres and materials that respect that forest. If the river is a living whole, we must honour its flow by minimising impact. This is why we choose organic cotton, slow production, natural fibres because we’re not building clothes for the planet to pay for.
The Long View
Recognising rights for nature isn’t about us, it’s about respect. Every fibre and every stitch shapes how we live with the land. At GROWN, that respect runs deeper than clothing. Each order plants a native tree, helping restore Ireland’s coastline and the wild spaces that inspired us.
In 2026, we’ll take it further, expanding our planting projects and introducing new natural materials like wool, hemp and linen. Every step, every tree, every fibre brings us closer to balance.
. - Thank you for rolling slow with us.
