Welcome to Standing for Nature
Standing for Nature is a nonprofit organization advancing the legal rights of nature through public education, legal strategy, and legal advocacy.
This website brings together our learning resources, current projects, and updates so visitors can understand the ideas behind this work, see how they are being applied, and follow developments as they unfold.
Learn: Rights of Nature
Education is central to Standing for Nature’s mission. Our learning pages are designed to help visitors move from first principles to practical legal and policy questions.
Our Projects
Standing for Nature’s project pages show how rights of nature moves from theory into legal, policy, and coalition-based work in Washington.
Everett: Snohomish River case
A real-world legal battle over local democracy, watershed standing, and the rights of nature.
Nooksack Water Adjudication
A developing watershed project focused on how law can better account for the needs of a living river system.
Model Legislation
Drafting and research on workable Washington models for protecting living systems.
RONI Coalition
A Washington coalition effort in development for collaboration, education, and connection around rights of nature.
FEATURED CURRENT WORK
Nooksack Water Adjudication
Standing for Nature is developing legal and public education work connected to the Nooksack Water Adjudication, a major watershed-wide proceeding that will help shape how water rights are understood in WRIA 1 for years to come.
Our work is still in the drafting phase. Over the coming year, we plan to pair that legal development with public information events in Whatcom County to help people understand the adjudication, why it matters, and how they can engage with the broader movement for watershed protection.
Current phase: research, drafting, planning
ONGOING WORK
Everett and the Snohomish River Watershed
Standing for Nature played a leading role in defending Everett’s voter-approved watershed rights law in trial court, and the case remains active on appeal.
That work helped establish the legal and public foundation for an ongoing fight over local democratic authority, watershed protection, and whether living systems can be recognized in law.
Current phase: active appeal
Latest Updates
Standing for Nature updates
Rights of Nature news
Why This Work Matters
Environmental law often regulates harm after it has already been proposed, permitted, or normalized. Rights of nature asks a deeper question: what would change if rivers, watersheds, forests, and ecosystems could be recognized as having legally protectable interests of their own?
Standing for Nature exists to help make that case through education, legal theory, and project-based work grounded in Washington’s real landscapes and legal systems.
Get Involved
Standing for Nature is a 501(c)(3) focused on education, legal theory, and defending nature’s legal rights. If you want to learn more about the organization, support this work, or connect with the broader movement, start here.
Join Standing for Washington
Take part in the broader public-facing movement.
