147 environment, shifting our ideology and actions to reflect its importance beyond recreational purposes is vital.2 Presently, to sue an entity for damages to a natural entity, one must do so through the lens of human harm. If a community wanted to sue a corporation for dumping sewage into a lake, they could only do so in the context of “the sewage in the lake harms human quality of life,” and therefore only the humans would receive reparations. Stone’s proposal of personhood would allow “natural objects [to] have rights to seek redress [on] their own behalf” and turn, say, the lake from property to nature again.3 Additionally, Stone outlines the legal proceedings that would be required for a natural entity to be granted personhood, and these as well as alternative routes have been successful in a variety of places. Case Studies: Pennsylvania & India. The legal battle to grant a natural entity personhood is far from easy – but oftentimes it’s a last-ditch tactic to protect a natural entity. Fought by local advocates, these battles historically see higher success rates when Indigenous communities are involved because there is a more comprehensive record of destructive impact on people tied to destruction of the natural entity.4 In Pennsylvania, specifically Grant Township with a total population of just 700 residents5 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) (an oil and gas company) to “inject forty-two thousand gallons of fracking wastewater… including 2 Id 3 Id 4 Kaitlin Sheber, Legal Rights for Nature: How the Idea of Recognizing Nature as a Legal Entity Can Spread and Make a Difference Globally, 26 Hastings Envt'l L.J. 147 https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_environmental_law_journal/vol26/iss1/8 5U.S. Census Bureau; Population and Housing Unit Estimates, 2021 Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021 (CO-EST2021-POP) <https://www.census.gov/data/tables/timeseries/demo/popest/2020s-counties-total.html> (12 November 2022).
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