Rights of Nature

Bridget Algiere
openphotonet_butterfly_apple.jpg

Over the past year, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund was invited to assist the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly to develop and draft parts of their new constitution to include rights for nature, or ecosystem rights. Drawing on their experiences assisting communities in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia to change the status of ecosystems from being regarded as property to being recognized as rights-bearing entities, the new laws are leading the way for other countries to change how we view and protect our natural resources and habitats.

Article 1 of the new "Rights for Nature" chapter reads: "Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies."


Story suggested by Michael Brownstein

Image: "Butterfly fruit" by nic on openphoto.net courtesy of a Creative Commons license

Comments

Right on!

Submitted by Maya on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 11:44.
This is amazing news, I love to hear stories of countries leading the way in environmental liberty. I hope this will spur a gradual chain reaction.

gradual

Submitted by Bridget Algiere on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 16:47.
Thanks Maya! I think we would hit some major idealogical road blocks here in the USA. When people and companies own land they really feel they own it in every way, and you surely can't tell them what to do with it! With the right amount of love and understanding, and def a gradual approach, I think we can do it!

"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld

It starts with one

Submitted by Maya on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 17:04.
It starts with one. One shiny example of how certain ideologies and ways of thinking/acting/being in a particular culture is healing to its people and to its environment. We need many examples like that here in the states to realize that maybe we don't know it all, and maybe we can learn from others.

One can easily become one million!

Submitted by Bridget Algiere on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 18:23.
Agreed! It will be interesting to see how Ecuador chooses to enforce this as well. Do they fine them, take the land away, what? It could get crazy...

"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld

Hopeful

Submitted by cirenosille on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 03:40.
It's nice to see a turn like this. We see protests to protect lands and what not, but this is a new step it seems. Way to use the system against the ones who rape the environment.

Me 2

Submitted by Bridget Algiere on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 18:15.

And in the case of Ecuador, they are the closest country to the Galapagos, so that may have had something to do with their decision to add these rights to their constitution (?) 

 

"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld

Humans have the right to give Nature rights?

Submitted by Devilsclub on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 23:08.
What a bizarre species we humans. We should be thanking Nature for letting us live on/in/off and/or amongst her at all.. but since man is still under the impression that his laws are governing Nature.. I suppose writing up a constitution for her is one step in the right direction. Solomon's Seal

bizarre indeed

Submitted by Bridget Algiere on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 18:07.

and better than letting our fellow man continue to rape Her without some kind of recourse!

 

"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld

Beautiful!

Submitted by Franklin LaVoie on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 12:56.
It's refreshing to see steps in the right direction. I've witnessed the destruction of healthy orchards to make ugly strip malls that didn't survive a decade. I've seen the videos of South America where every in-road has resulted in the forest disappearing...as if humans are merely a cancerous aberation. But humans are potentially the eyes and ears and hands of the cosmos. Now, in the 21st Century, as we teeter on the edge of catastrophies everywhere we look; how important it is to take a stand for Nature, for all species. A stand against economic excuses for waging pan-genocidal business as usual. Let us start growing our own food, insulating our own little shelters, and demanding cradle-to-grave technology for every industrial process on earth, like the good little human beings that we are.

good little humans

Submitted by Bridget Algiere on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 18:19.

Yes we like to think that we are good, and a great many of us are, but it only takes one rotten apple... Thankfully the majority of Ecuadorians value Nature before even their own prosperity, or even see that the two are linked!

 

"The only thing constant in life is change" -François de la Rochefoucauld