This lawyer wants to give Table Mountain rights, but how do you know what Table Mountain itself wants?

(Translated from the original article in Trouw )

If Mount Taranaki in New Zealand and Antarctica can be declared a legal entity, why not Table Mountain? A leading South African environmental lawyer is on a mission.

Cormac Cullinan (63) is one of the lucky few who can look out of his window each morning and see one of the world’s most beloved rock formations. Table Mountain in Cape Town, with its iconic flat top, is a constant presence in the lives of five million residents — and in that constancy, according to the internationally acclaimed environmental lawyer, lies a profound opportunity for humanity.

Cullinan wants the mountain to be declared a legal entity. No longer an object, but a subject — and he is entirely serious. “For many people it’s still a provocative, even strange idea,” he says via webcam from his office in a leafy Cape Town suburb. “But it’s already happening elsewhere in the world. In New Zealand, Mount Taranaki has just been recognised as a legal entity — the third natural entity there in eleven years, after a rainforest and a river. Legislation has been passed. We wouldn’t be the first in the world, but we would be the first in Africa.”

The ambition emerges from the Rights of Nature movement — a global network of lawyers, scientists, Indigenous leaders and activists spanning more than a hundred countries, all working from a radically different understanding of law. Cullinan is a co-founder of the movement and articulated its philosophy in the manifesto Wild Law. “Rather than law simply regulating extraction and exploitation,” he explains, “it can guide humanity to live as citizens of an Earth community.”

Wild Law formed the basis for Ecuador’s constitutional amendment, which now recognises the rights of nature and allows ecosystems to be defended before the country’s highest court. Similar legal provisions have since been adopted in Panama, Spain and New Zealand.

Cullinan received Britain’s prestigious Shackleton Medal last year for his work advocating legal protection for Antarctica, including efforts to shield it from the combined threats of ice melt and mining.

Okay — so Mother Nature has her own interests, not necessarily aligned with ours, and wants her own voice. Is Table Mountain, in this analogy, the stage that could command global attention?

“I wrote Wild Law in an upstairs office overlooking the mountain that has shaped my thinking,” Cullinan says. “I’m acutely aware of Table Mountain’s presence in my life — like everyone in Cape Town. It starts with the clouds that bring us rain, and with the rivers that drew Indigenous peoples here and later led the Dutch East India Company to settle. Without Table Mountain, the city wouldn’t exist.”

Every day, residents and visitors climb the mountain’s steep rock faces to the summit — via some 65 routes — while around a million people take the cable car up each year. A lucrative tourism industry has grown around the massif, generating hundreds of millions in revenue, providing vital employment and securing income for the municipality through tourist spending.

“The mountain is an incredibly inclusive platform,” Cullinan says. “A place where everyone in Cape Town — regardless of race, class or gender — can connect. And there’s also the psychological impact of something this immense. I know people who’ve gone through divorces and felt the mountain was a benevolent presence, helping them through that time.”

Cullinan himself proposed to his wife on the slopes of Table Mountain.

So the mountain has potential — but the plan still feels vague and abstract.

“That’s exactly the point,” he says. “In my work I’ve learned that not everyone can engage with ideas at an abstract level. People become motivated when something is tangible. Table Mountain is perfect: it’s always there, its silhouette is in the city’s logo, and during the drought years people queued for water from its underground springs. Everyone I speak to about this gets excited and wants to be involved.”

How does it work legally — declaring a mountain a legal entity?

“There are several pathways,” Cullinan explains. “Through legislation, a constitutional amendment, or the courts. Our forum intends to pursue all of them.”

South African law already allows environmental cases to be brought before the courts. Cullinan was part of the legal team that won the landmark 2022 case against Shell, which resulted in the company being barred from conducting seismic oil exploration off the country’s pristine east coast. “And in India,” he adds, “the courts have ruled that the Ganges and Yamuna rivers are legal entities.”

“What’s particularly interesting here is customary law — African customary law — which is legally recognised in South Africa, provided it doesn’t conflict with the Constitution or municipal bylaws. The San and Khoikhoi, the first inhabitants of the Cape, understood the mountain as a living being. They didn’t share our modern concept of ownership. From that perspective, granting legal standing to Table Mountain aligns closely with Indigenous customary law.”

The mountain would need legal representatives.

“Yes,” Cullinan nods. “Those representatives could participate in planning and development processes as formal stakeholders.”

What does Table Mountain want — and how does it make itself heard?

“Last April we went up the mountain with Indigenous leaders to consult it,” he says. “We knelt beneath a tree, and a Venda elder — a descendant of traditional healers — spoke to the mountain. She was praying, really. We each took turns speaking. When it was my turn, I wanted to ask for permission for the project. But then, as if the mountain were speaking through me, a thought came: you don’t need permission — this project is about your people, not me. It completely surprised me. Instead of asking permission, I asked for guidance.”

An ecologist, he adds, can also “read” the mountain. Forests flourish or decline; water flows freely or becomes obstructed. That is how feedback is given. Ideally, water should move downhill unimpeded, trees should grow without constraint, and Table Mountain should be protected from fires and arson.

You’re advocating a cultural shift — a fundamental change in worldview.

“Western thinking is deeply colonial,” Cullinan says. “It’s oriented toward ownership and exploitation. From that perspective, a mountain is just an inert pile of rocks. Even much of the environmental movement remains trapped in materialistic thinking — carbon targets, protected areas, technical fixes. I believe biodiversity collapse and climate change are symptoms of a deeper cultural problem: we see ourselves as superior to nature.”

He traces this insight back to his involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. “The logic was the same: a small group of white people claimed the right to dominate, exploit and deny rights to the rest of society. That thinking inevitably leads to disaster. Only when rights were extended to everyone could we move forward.”

To put it bluntly: progress is slow.

“Yes,” he agrees. “You have to mobilise enormous numbers of people to challenge a dominant global culture. That work always begins with ordinary people. I was involved in the United Democratic Front — a coalition of churches, students, workers and civic organisations — which at one point wielded more influence than the ANC. There were moments when overthrowing the government seemed impossible. They had the weapons, the army, the money — everything.”

“If no one had resisted, if no one had sacrificed their lives, nothing would have changed. Many people never lived to see the new South Africa. But without their struggle, democracy would not exist.”

How do you help people recognise the ecological importance of a mountain?

“With celebration,” Cullinan says. “Imagine a mountain festival — a way for Cape Town to honour its relationship with Table Mountain. It’s extraordinary to have a mountain at the heart of a city. I’d love for Cape Town to develop an even stronger mountain-centred culture — though it’s already there, to some extent. I’d even like us to return to animism: to experience the world not as dead and inert, but as alive.”