Protection through property: From private to river-held rights

This contribution explores how private owners can protect bodies of water through private property rights. The research question answered is twofold: 1) What is the potential of using private property rights for protecting bodies of water and what are the limitations?, and 2) Can a shift to nature-held property rights overcome these limitations? The aim is to evaluate whether the latter approach has advantages over the first. This will be done by comparing (conventional) property rights in New Zealand and the Netherlands to the novel approach in New Zealand whereby a river owns itself.