University of São Paulo: New Movement Advocates for Wave Rights to Alter Our Relationship with the Ocean
In July of this year, the city of Linhares, in Espírito Santo, became one of the first in the world to recognize its waves as living beings, granting them legal status. The innovative measure was approved by the City Council and was created to preserve the waves at the mouth of the Rio Doce, protecting their physical form, ecological cycles and chemical composition. The legislation also appointed guardians to represent these waves in public decisions, ensuring the integrity of one of the region’s greatest environmental assets.
Environmental lawyer Vanessa Hasson, executive director of the NGO Mapas , specialized in the School of Public Health (FSP) at USP, was one of the organizers of the achievement. Her work, in collaboration with surfer activists and local residents, was essential to the construction of this new legal narrative. “[The population] has been in this fight since 2015, and I connected with them a little later, in 2017,” she recalls.
The bill is inspired by international initiatives that already recognize natural elements as subjects of law. “[The legislation] is pioneering, in general, in relation to the sea. There is a very emblematic one, which was the recognition of the Mar Menor, in the region of Spain. It was the first [to have its own rights]. But a wave does not have them. An emblematic wave that is located at the mouth of an emblematic river for everything it represents in this activity that explores the land”, she states. One of the main objectives of recognizing the waves is to protect the ecosystem, which is still suffering the effects of the toxic mud dumped into the river after the collapse of the Mariana dam.
The Mariana tragedy occurred in 2015, when the Fundão dam in Minas Gerais collapsed, spilling millions of cubic meters of mining waste into the Doce River. The environmental disaster affected several cities along the river and reached its mouth in Linhares, Espírito Santo. In addition to the human lives lost, the collapse seriously contaminated the region’s ecosystem, with heavy metals impacting the fauna, flora and waves of Regência beach, known worldwide for surfing.
For the lawyer, the recognition of the law can also serve as a pedagogical tool: “When you come across a law that recognizes a wave as a living being, it can awaken a new understanding about our interdependence with nature. It is a law that makes you think and act in a more conscious and ecological way.”
“The ocean is one”
Professor Alexander Turra, from the Oceanographic Institute (IO) at USP and a specialist in marine ecosystems, sees the law as an important step towards coastal conservation: “Recognizing the quality of waves and surf reserves, which end up being another conservation strategy, gives us different meanings for the marine environment. These environments need to be protected for several reasons,” he explains, clarifying that, in the case of Espírito Santo, we need to “understand how these waves are formed and especially protect this condition. They can be affected by excessive sediment input or lack of sediment.”
The expert also emphasizes the importance of understanding the ocean as an interconnected system, a fact that we notice, particularly, in the face of tragedies. “When we have a tragedy like the one we had in Mariana, the amount of mud that reaches the mouth of the Doce River ends up modifying the morphology of the coast and, especially, the way the wave interacts with it. In other words, the wave that breaks for surfing is the result of how the wave formed in the middle of the ocean interacts with the morphology of the coast,” explains the expert.
For the professor, the legal recognition achieved by the waves at the mouth of the Doce River can transform our relationship with natural processes: “When we highlight this, it signals that the ocean is important for different types of purposes and audiences. The idea is that we have a single, interconnected, global ocean, which makes us understand that these phenomena affect the whole, even if they are not generated in a single location. On the other hand, we also have glaring differences between ocean basins, including here in Brazil, in how we relate to the ocean, and this brings us concrete elements. An ocean that unfolds into many oceans”, he concludes.