On any given day from the cliffside esplanade of Lima, Peru, passersby can look out to find people dipping in and out of the Pacific Ocean’s clear blue waters. Visited by over 20,000 surfers annually, Lima is home to several of the 43 waves that receive protection in Peru under national law. Following decades of grassroots advocacy efforts led by surfers and environmentalists, the first-of-its-kind “Law of the Breakers” went into effect in 2014, recognizing surf breaks as objects of state property and giving them the right to protection from harmful commercial and industrial development.

Although a variety of indirect legal mechanisms for conserving waves have been identified globally, Peru is one of the only countries with a law dedicated to protecting surf breaks. Amid mounting threats to coastal access—from beachfront privatization and coastal infrastructure projects to the accelerating climate crisis—surfers and community activists inspired by the progress in Peru are joining forces with environmental lawyers to replicate these protections across Latin America. In Chile and Panama, policymakers have put forward surf break bills in Congress, and advocates in Ecuador are gathering signatures from the public to catalyze legislative action in the National Assembly.

If successful, the movement could not only help conserve the coasts through innovative uses of the law, but help solidify a powerful new coalition of environmental protectors.

Between increased sea surface temperatures, rising sea levels, and intensified El Niño cycles, climate change is already altering many of the background conditions that lead to wave formation. Researchers at Stanford found that by 2100, sea-level rise due to global warming could adversely affect or eliminate 32 percent of surf spots in California. By the end of the century the world could lose almost half of its sandy beaches. Moreover, intensified storms and increasing extreme weather events are impacting coastal access, forcing short-term evacuations and even raising prospects of permanent relocation.

While treating a wave as a legal entity may seem odd, the move comes amid a growing acceptance of nature and planet Earth as subjects of the law, entitled to certain fundamental rights. In the last decade, this understanding—long acknowledged in Indigenous cultures—has entered into national legal systems across Latin America. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to include rights of nature in its constitution. A few years later, Bolivia passed a law recognizing nature’s right to exist and thrive, with Panama enacting a similar law in 2022. Individual rivers have also been granted the status of legal persons in New Zealand, India, and most recently, Peru.

Under the Peruvian Law of the Breakers, surf breaks are treated as legal objects. Notably, the law is aimed only at protecting surf breaks specifically deemed apt for surf sports—meaning they possess a certain level of surfable quality.

According to Ed Atkin, codirector of eCoast Marine Consulting and Research, such high-quality breaks are rare; indeed, surf breaks designated as of “national significance” in Aotorea New Zealand—which set an important legal precedent—occupy approximately 0.0003 percent of the region’s coastline by Atkin’s estimate.

As inalienable property of the state, Peruvian surf breaks are protected from privatization and—due to another clause in the law—effectively have a right to preservation against development that could adversely affect their continued existence and well-being. For a surf break to receive such protection, a technical file documenting its existence must be prepared, and followed by the break’s incorporation into a national registry. Today, the “HAZla por tu Ola” or “DO IT for your Wave” campaign has achieved a protected status for nearly one-third of 144 surf breaks it identified.

Carolina Butrich, the campaign’s coordinator, a national windsurfing champion, and the manager of the Conservamos por Naturaleza or “We Conserve for Nature” initiative, said that the campaign has united diverse stakeholders from the public and private sectors. “I think coalition building is our secret sauce, honestly, and the need arises, whenever you’re trying to do something big in a community,” said Nik Strong-Cvetic, CEO of the Save the Waves Coalition.

For Butrich, the focus is now on “safeguarding 100 surf breaks by 2030 in Peru, while also serving as a beacon of inspiration and support for other nations in their efforts to protect these invaluable coastal ecosystems.”