The Rights of Nature Slowly Making Progress - Stay Tuned

It appears that the Rights of Nature movement is finally, ever-so-slowly making progress in this country. There are a number of countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, India, and some European countries who embrace the concept of the Rights of Nature and have enacted laws establishing those rights. Ecuador went so far as to add the Rights of Nature to their constitution. Not the U.S.

Periodically one can find an article (usually well hidden) about the success of communities enforcing the Rights of Nature, often with the help of the Community Environment Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). Now before you sign off, CELDF simply believes that nature should not be polluted, despoiled or ransacked, and that people have the right to clean air, water and a healthy environment. Is this too much to ask? Citizens should have more say about their communities than corporations.

 Lincoln County, Oregon, successfully adopted the first-in-nation ban on aerial pesticides, elevating "community rights" over "corporate rights." The community's win took place "despite campaign contributions from timber and chemical corporations who spent nearly $300,000 to defeat the measure." Residents fought back with $16,000. CELDF is preparing for a lawsuit expecting that industry will want to overturn the will of the citizens.

Five counties in Florida want to preserve nature and drinking water by granting legal rights to their rivers. Florida is following the lead of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights passed in February 2019.

The Rights of Nature movement is slowly growing in this country even though this idea is well established elsewhere. For example, “Bangladesh became the first country to grant all of its rivers the same legal status as humans." The Bangladesh Supreme Court ruled that the rule is meant "to protect the world's largest delta from further degradation from pollution, illegal dredging and human intrusion."

The Rights of Nature basically asks that we (all nations) treat our environment and its inhabitants (which includes mammals, fish, fowl and any other kind of critters) respectfully and stop raping, pillaging and destroying the environment. 

 

People are fed up with a "corporate-run America" that focuses only on profiteering at the expense of

the environment and its citizens.

To learn more about the Rights of Nature, I urge you to read The Rights of Nature, by David R. Boyd. 

When will SeaWorld recognize this right and stop imprisoning orcas in swimming pools?