300-Mile Walk to Secure ‘Rights of Nature’ for Rio Grande Gorge

By Todd Wynward

former board member of New Mexico El Paso Interfaith Power & Light

Starting April 10, I’m joining a diverse band of people to walk part of a month-long, 300 mile water walk along the Rio Grande watershed–from Santa Fe to its headwaters outside of Creede, Colorado. 

This month-long pilgrimage is dedicated to securing “rights of nature” and legal personhood for the Rio Grande Gorge watershed and its tributaries.

I’m disrupting my “business as usual” to join a wildly diverse group of other water walkers because of the seriousness—and the sacredness—of our historical moment. If we humans do not treat the Rio Grande as kin—as a precious member of our interdependent community with her own legal protection—then we are going to lose her to extraction, pollution, exploitation and our own short-term thinking. If we keep treating the Rio Grande watershed simply like a resource to control, purchase, and diminish, you and I both know that she won’t be here to nourish and support our children and our children’s children and all the life that teems in this precious watershed we call home.

We are a diverse group of nonprofits, activists, citizens, students, educators, artists and religious groups seeking legal personhood and Rights of Nature for the Rio Grande and its tributaries. Our mission is to create change in the legal system so that these rivers are treated as vital and protected members of our society. Throughout time people have seen nature as part of their communities deserving of respect, rights, and well-being. It is time we re-learn and restore this right relationship between human society and the Rio Grande. It is time we change our hearts, our habits, our laws and our economies. It is time that our local, state and national governments adopt this same reverence for the Rio and its tributaries, leading to a healthy future for our bioregion and our species. It is time.

Would you like to get on board with the Rio Grande Water Walk yourself? I hope so! We need all of us to make the change. Here are seven ways to do so: 

• Learn about the Walk and register at water-walk.com
• Engage in a Zoom on-boarding meeting this Tuesday, April 5 at 6 PM.  Respond to this email to tell me you want the link. We can connect then!
• Participate in public events and gatherings: April 8 at the Santa Fe Railyards; April 9 at the Santa Fe Roundhouse; and Apr 22-23 over Earth Day Weekend in Taos. 
• Join the walk yourself for some specific legs, like I’m doing. The schedule within the “Walker Packet” can be downloaded soon at water-walk.com. As for me, I plan to join the start of the walk for the first two days coming out of Santa Fe April 10-11, join it south of Taos as it reaches the Horseshoe Overlook April 16, and take part in the many events the Water Walk is hosting in Taos over Earth Day April 22-23, and then engage as it arrives in Questa April 26. We’ll be offering a “rest and learn” opportunity there, sharing how we’re transforming a neglected trailer park into a vibrant village.
• Donate at this Water Walk GoFundMe Link to help with the essential costs of hosting such an ambitious walk such as support buses, food and kitchen expenses, liability insurance, rentals, event promotion and educational materials.
• Be an ambassador for the Walk: repost, reshape, recruit and report! I and others will be posting from along the journey as the water walk travels north. I’ll do so on my Facebook, Instagram and email. Others will be too! Let me know if you want to take the role ambassador seriously, and that you’re willing to spread the news within your expanded networks in a disciplined way.
• Educate yourself about the growing “Rights of Nature” legal movement that is emerging across the globe and re-shaping how we humans relate to our precious earth. To start, you can google topics like “Rights of Nature New Zealand,” “Rights of Nature Ecuador,” and “Rights of Nature: Can an Ecosystem Bear Legal Rights?” Also, as an author I have been writing for several years about the rights of nature and what it means to become a person of place in today’s dis-placed culture. In the near future I will be sharing a few of my thoughts on the subject.

From Santa Fe to Taos, this Rio Grande Water Walk is walking alongside the Global Peace Walk, which has done so for 27 years. Come and join our great confluence!

Walk for the Water. 

Walk for the Rivers. 

Walk for our Future. 

Walk for Peace.