Instead people should just assign the copyright to some sort of trust or non-profit dedicated to the forest.
Good thing they got that covered, then. As per the article:
> In a historic ruling, the legal personhood of the Los Cedros biological reserve was recognised by Ecuador’s constitutional court in 2021, when it determined to cancel mining permits in the reserve.
> Instead people should just assign the copyright to some sort of trust or non-profit dedicated to the forest.
People can be corrupted and bought. Someone who acts on behalf of another can betray the latter for personal gain. See for example the stories of Britney Spears and Brain Wilson.
On the other hand, if the entity owns itself, you can’t legally harm it without consent, which can’t be given. See also The Tree That Owns Itself.
By the same token, the forest can't exactly start a lawsuit either (unless someone acts on its behalf, in which case we are back at the same person).
Just because they declared it a legal person, doesn't mean it actually is, in terms of how that phrase is normally used. At the very least a legal person normally can enter into contracts, buy and dispose of property. Like you said, the forest can't consent, and being able to consent is what it means to be a person.
They only act through the stewardship of natural persons who serve in their interest.
You could do the same for a forest by electing some trustees or whatever.
From a philosophical point of view, I'd argue that trees and life have much more of the ability to make choices and even express creativity than inanimate objects like a rock or even a computer.
IIRC in some courts recently, it was decided that the output of LLMs cannot be copyrighted.
It will be interesting to see how this legal case goes.