The sea has a seat at the table
The Scottish Association of Marine Scientists (SAMS) is amongst the world’s oldest ocean research agencies. Founded in 1884 by the naturalist John Murray, it connected the early academic mapping of ocean floors with practical economic initiatives. Murray himself partnered with the British government to extract phosphate from oceanic islands. The father of oceanography may have found the latest move of the institution he founded eccentric — the Atlantic Ocean is now a trustee of SAMS. Today, the idea of viewing nature as sentient doesn’t sound as quirky as it might have in Murray’s time. New Zealand has recognised the Whanganui River as a legal person, courts in Colombia recognise the Amazon rainforest as a rights-bearing entity, and Spain’s law has extended personhood to the Mar Menor lagoon. Behind these developments lies a growing recognition that ecosystems have an agency of their own. Now, an institution most dedicated to studying the sea has recognised that expertise alone is not enough: Scientists can explain what is happening beneath the waves, but they cannot always ensure that institutional decisions reflect the long-term health of waters. A fundamental question, though: Who exactly speaks for the sea? The marine ecologist? The fisherpeople? The octopus? The plankton? Perhaps all of them. Even before the era of climate change, the sea was never known for concise interventions. In the coming weeks and months, SAMS will be watched for how its board meetings translate tides and waves to talking points and currents to committee notes.
- 1India has its own precedent for extending legal personhood to natural entities. In 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared the Ganga and Yamuna rivers 'legal persons,' a ruling later stayed by the Supreme Court on practical implementation grounds. This reflects a constitutional theme under Article 48A, a Directive Principle on environmental protection, and Article 51A(g), a fundamental duty to protect the environment.
- 2The rights-of-nature movement gained international traction after Ecuador became the first country to enshrine 'rights of nature' in its 2008 Constitution, followed by Bolivia's 2010 Law of Mother Earth. New Zealand's 2017 Te Awa Tupua Act granting the Whanganui River legal personhood, cited in this editorial, resulted from a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Maori iwi, linking indigenous rights to environmental jurisprudence.
- 3Legal personhood for nature typically functions through a guardianship or trustee model, where designated human representatives can sue or be sued on the entity's behalf, similar to how a corporation acts through directors under company law. Colombia's 2018 Supreme Court ruling on the Amazon rainforest directed the government to formulate an intergenerational pact to halt deforestation, an example of judicially enforced ecological personhood.
- 4SAMS, founded in 1884, remains one of the oldest marine science institutions globally, and its move to name the Atlantic Ocean a trustee is largely symbolic, aimed at embedding long-term ecological considerations into institutional governance rather than creating enforceable legal rights. Ocean ecosystems are estimated to absorb roughly a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions annually, underscoring the material stakes behind such symbolic gestures.