Question

Historically, Western legal systems have strictly limited the concept of "legal personhood"—the capacity to possess rights and responsibilities—to human beings and corporations. Recently, however, a novel paradigm has emerged in environmental jurisprudence, wherein natural entities such as rivers and forests have been legally recognized as persons. Critics argue that such designations are confusing and primarily performative, doing little to alter the material realities of environmental degradation. But this view is fundamentally misguided. While critics often dismiss the extension of legal personhood to natural entities as a purely symbolic gesture, this legal innovation in fact functions as a crucial pragmatic mechanism, enabling ecosystems to seek direct judicial redress for ecological harm. By possessing independent legal standing, a river can now be represented in court by appointed guardians to sue polluters directly, bypassing the traditionally arduous requirement of proving that environmental damage explicitly caused quantifiable harm to human property or health.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the central thesis of the passage?