Utah Senator Proposes Law Banning The Great Salt Lake From Achieving Personhood

(Salt Lake City, UT) — A possible path to protecting the Great Salt Lake may be stopped before even being considered. A bill banning personhood to various non-human entities like bodies of water, land, artificial intelligence, weather, plants and animals will be presented on the house floor. Republican Representative Walt Brooks says that the bill was not originally intended to be about the Great Salt Lake, but rather protections against groups “weaponizing” personhood. In a 2023 poll by Utah State University, 60-percent of Utahns support granting the Lake its own rights. The idea of giving rights to nature has been gaining steam the past decade with the Yurok Tribe in California successfully granting legal personhood to Klamath River in 2019. The tribe has since been able to take legal steps against polluters on behalf of the river.