WFHB Correspondent Zyro Roze hosted a conversation with Thomas Linzey, Senior Legal Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights.

This interview was aired as a five-part series of Feature Reports as part of an ongoing collaboration between WFHB Local News and Eco Media Center of Monroe County.

Photo courtesy of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights.

Roze and Linzey discuss the environmental attorney's background, early career, legal triumphs and current court battles to secure civil rights for Ecosystems by conferring personhood to aspects of Nature under the law.

They discuss legal history, the origins of forms of personhood for non-human entities, early Rights of Nature cases, jurisdictional considerations, tribal courts and Treaty law, state governmental control over local decisions, pending cases to protect rivers and other litigation brought by Native American tribes to protect salmon and wild rice.

Co-produced by Kade Young of WFHB News and Zyro Roze of E•MC²