But that regional authority would have to be a legal person, too, in order to do anything via the legal system. This doesn't avoid the problem of personhood at all, so much as it changes who/what the nonnatural person actually is. Like, say we did it your way. We make a regional authority that's only raison d'etre is looking after the ecological interests of the lake. That's going to be either some NGO or non-profit or government agency, all of which are considered persons under the law.

Yes it totally avoids the problem, because the hypothetical authority is made up of people, thus granted (some of) the legal rights of persons.

Nonnatural persons aren't granted rights under the law because they're made up of people though. In America they're granted those rights because it makes dealing with them much easier. That's it. That's why it's so confusing which rights are reserved only for natural persons and which apply to all persons.

https://books.google.com/books?id=4K0CWvR2FNEC&pg=RA1-PA284&...

I'm trying to link to the section that starts just barely on the page before "Indeterminacy of the Personhood Designation"

But it does avoid the problem of having a legal person that lacks a well-defined intent, which is probably the weirdest aspect of this.

I like the personhood issue.

If a corporation can be a person for purposes of law, then why shouldn't the resources it wants to exploit be a person for purposes of law as well?