LUMEN: New Model Laws for a Legal Ecosystem that Recognizes the Rights of Nature
New regulatory proposals transform the ecosystem approach into innovative legal instruments, recognizing the Rights of Nature and supporting more equitable and sustainable policies.
How can law contribute to addressing the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene? And how can knowledge emerging from local communities, Indigenous traditions, and integrated ecological approaches be translated into concrete, coherent, and applicable legal norms? These are some of the questions addressed by LUMEN – Law of natUre and huMan Ecosystem approach, a PRIN 2022 PNRR project that explores the potential of the ecosystem approach as a cornerstone of a global, transcultural legal system capable of encompassing both the human and non-human dimensions.
LUMEN aims to demonstrate how the ecosystem approach—originally developed for biodiversity protection—can become the foundation for a global, transcultural, and transnational eco-legal system, drawing on a shared cultural heritage that transcends the presumed divide between humans and nature, which lies at the heart of the Anthropocene crisis. The roots of the ecosystem approach—an interpretative and management paradigm for natural and social systems that views ecosystems as wholes, integrating humans, non-human components (flora, fauna, soil, water, atmosphere), and their interactions—lie in systems ecology developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Ecologists such as Eugene and Howard T. Odum highlighted its complexity, showing how ecosystems are dynamic systems of interactions between biotic and abiotic components.
The LUMEN project, coordinated by the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna in partnership with the Department of Legal Sciences of the University of Florence and the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Trieste, is built on a strong premise: although current environmental law is insufficient to address the complexity of the ecological crisis, law remains a strategic lever for guiding social, cultural, and economic transformations. By fostering dialogue among Europe, Latin America, and Africa, the project reconstructs the common ground shared by different ecological cultures, and translates it into innovative legal instruments designed to support public policies and future legislation.
The Model Law Laboratory lies within this vision, and compiles a set of open-access templates developed throughout the project to transform the ecosystem approach into regulatory tools that can be directly used by public bodies, local administrations, and territorial communities.
The Model declaration of the Rights of the River introduces an innovative legal framework that recognizes rivers as living beings endowed with rights. Designed to be attached to river contracts—participatory governance instruments aimed at protecting and enhancing rivers and their watersheds—the document consists of a preamble summarizing the values that emerged through participatory processes, a section dedicated to river rights in line with the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers, and a final part outlining the commitments of all actors involved in the protection of the river ecosystem. It thus serves as both a legal and educational tool to foster an empathetic and responsible relationship with water bodies, promoting their long-term protection.
The Model for the recognition of the Rights of Nature provides a regulatory framework intended for adoption by municipal administrations. It recognizes Nature as a subject holding rights, and safeguards the ecological integrity of local ecosystems, while also valuing traditional knowledge and community-based forms of territorial management. It defines guiding principles, the fundamental rights of Nature, and the duties of public authorities, proposing practical instruments and legal responsibilities that encourage cultural and institutional change oriented toward sustainability and civic participation.
The Model law for peasant agriculture, agroecology, and agrobiodiversity introduces a legal framework that promotes peasant agriculture as a form of production that is sustainable, equitable, and capable of preserving agro-ecosystems. It recognizes peasant agriculture as intangible cultural heritage to be protected and transmitted, regards local varieties as commons freely accessible to all, safeguards farmers’ rights to select and share seeds, and assigns institutions the responsibility of ensuring the conservation of plant genetic resources and traditional knowledge. The resulting proposal centers food sovereignty, biodiversity, and the resilience of agricultural systems.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Venetian Lagoon and the responsibilities of its inhabitants and users recognizes the Venetian Lagoon as an ecosystem endowed with intrinsic value and a unique biocultural history. The text protects its ecological integrity, biodiversity, life cycles, and cultural heritage, granting the Lagoon the rights to exist and evolve according to its natural rhythms, to be free from pollution and waste, and to transmit to future generations the historical and environmental heritage accumulated over the centuries. It also defines the responsibilities of inhabitants and users in caring for the ecosystem and establishes the body of the Lagoon Guardians, tasked with monitoring its health and representing its interests.
Alongside the development of the Model Laws, LUMEN also carried out a rich range of outreach activities and public engagement initiatives. Among the project’s most significant outputs are its “video pills”: short interviews and dialogues with scholars, researchers, and community representatives, designed to present experiences, places, and perspectives in an accessible format. The project’s video pills offer a series of conversations and interviews addressing issues related to the Rights of Nature, the ecological crisis, and the ecosystem approach. The first episodes explore the role of institutions and law in environmental protection, the connection between legal principles and sustainability, and strategies for adapting to climate change. Other episodes delve into the management of marine ecosystems, the legal personhood of natural environments, and the protection of complex ecosystems, while later videos highlight the importance of local and Indigenous community participation, consultation protocols, and the value of traditional knowledge. The final episodes show how these perspectives can inspire resilient and sustainable models of ecosystem-based management.
In addition to the interviews, the project promoted permanent tools for dialogue and dissemination, such as social media campaigns on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, and its blog, which collects news, reports, and reflections. Other outputs include the agenda, documenting events organized by LUMEN and related initiatives, and the project publications, showcasing the results of its analytical work. Over the two years, LUMEN also fostered collaborations with other organizations and projects, generating seminars, workshops, and co-design spaces.
Among these activities, the final conference “You Need a Seed to Make a Table: Ecosystem Approach and Rights of Nature for Resilient Territories and Communities,” held on October 10-11, 2025 at the Forlì campus of the University of Bologna, brought together students, researchers, and local communities to reflect on ecosystem approach, territorial resilience, and ecological justice. It opened with the session “The Energy at the Basis of Life,” in which expert researchers illustrated concepts of energy and emergy, as well as scientific models for understanding and protecting ecosystems as complex systems. In the session “Voices from the World,” international activists shared experiences and practices for defending environmental, ecological, and cultural rights in Ecuador and Senegal, underscoring the role of local communities and women in sustainable development. The conference then featured a participatory presentation of the project’s results, with contributions from the research units, associations, and civil society representatives involved over the two years. The session began with an ecological walk guided by citizens through the areas of the Romiti district in Forlì most affected by the 2023 floods, aimed at observing and reflecting on the sites of the environmental disaster. The following presentations shared tools and practices for protecting river basins, conserving lagoons, and promoting the Rights of Nature, highlighting the potential of the ecosystem approach to build resilient territories. The project’s final output will be published in 2026: a series of training podcasts for judges, parliamentary groups, and other institutional actors, designed to make the ecosystem approach applicable through legal and comparative tools useful for environmental governance.
The outputs produced by LUMEN aim to demonstrate how the ecosystem approach can serve as the foundation for a legal system capable of integrating scientific, cultural, and community dimensions, overcoming the limits of traditional environmental law. Through a comparative and interdisciplinary methodology and a transcontinental dialogue, the project provides concrete tools to innovate environmental policies, inspire national and local legislation, and strengthen the connection between human beings, ecosystems, and cultural heritage. In this sense, LUMEN aligns with a broader global framework consistent with the objectives of the Pact for the Future by the United Nations and other international instruments for biodiversity protection, the Rights of Nature, and socio-environmental sustainability, contributing to the translation of global commitments into concrete practices at local and transnational levels.
At a historical moment in which the ecological crisis demands systemic responses, the project’s outputs represent a pioneering contribution to imagining and building a more just, sustainable, and shared legal future, one capable of combining research, community participation, and international governance.
LUMEN is a PRIN 2022 PNRR project funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) – Mission 4 Education and Research – Component 2 From Research to Enterprise – Investment 1.1, PRIN 2022 PNRR Call DD no. 1409 of 14 September 2022, proposal code P20222H49L – CUP J53D23018680001.