The recognition of rivers and related ecosystems as legal persons or subjects is an emerging mechanism in transnational practice available to governments in seeking more effective and collaborative natural resource management, sometimes at the insistence of indigenous peoples. This approach is developing particularly quickly in Colombia, where legal rights for rivers and ecosystems are grasping onto, and evolving out of, constitutional human rights protections. This enables the development of a new type of constitutionalism of nature. Yet legal rights for rivers may obscure the rights of indigenous peoples and their role in resource ownership and governance. We argue that the Colombian river cases serve as a caution to courts and legislatures elsewhere to be mindful, in devising ecosystem rights, of the complex and interrelated rights, interests and tenures of indigenous peoples and local communities.

中文翻译：

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哥伦比亚的宪法、生态系统和土著人民：生物文化权利和法律主体

承认河流和相关生态系统为法人或主体是跨国实践中新兴的机制，可供政府寻求更有效和协作的自然资源管理，有时是在土著人民的坚持下。这种方法在哥伦比亚发展得特别快，那里的河流和生态系统的合法权利正在抓住宪法人权保护并从中演变。这使得一种新型的自然宪政得以发展。然而，河流的合法权利可能会掩盖土著人民的权利及其在资源所有权和治理中的作用。我们认为，哥伦比亚河流案件提醒其他地方的法院和立法机构在制定生态系统权利时要注意复杂且相互关联的权利，