How Can Earth Law Save Florida?

By Liz Drayer, Clearwater, Florida

STATE OF THE STATE – UH OH

Our state of sunshine nurtures an abundance of plants and animals, wetlands and prairie, rivers and white sandy beach. Owls nest in pine trees and panthers still prowl the cypress swamp. But this subtropical Eden faces threats from concrete canyons and strip mall sprawl. We pave over tortoise burrows, raze palmettos to make way for chemical-fed par four playgrounds. More bodies crowd in every day, demanding condos and diesel to power their toys.

PAVING HAPPENS

During the last century, Florida lost millions of acres of forest and wetlands to development. As a result, today dozens of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, coral and other creatures crowd the state’s list of endangered species.

Florida’s crystal-clear springs once drew dignitaries and day trippers seeking cures for their ailments. But the once boiling waters now stagnate, polluted by salt and nitrates, fueling toxic blooms that threaten our health, instead of protecting it.

From the Panhandle to the Keys, growth and booming tourism continue to claim natural areas. Estimates predict the state’s population will double during the next fifty years, putting millions more rural acres at risk. Wildlife and humans will compete for shrinking land and water, and the wildlife will surely lose out. Across the state, lagoons, bays and estuaries are collapsing from chronic pollution and crippled drainage, made worse by alternating drought and El Nino downpours. Ecosystem decline threatens sea grass, fisheries, recreation and local economies. Experts estimate wading birds in the Everglades have declined by 90 percent. Invasive plants and animals have forced out native species. Oil companies threaten to drill in the Gulf on a regular basis. So far public outcry and leadership has thwarted their plans, but for how long?

EARTH LAW TO THE RESCUE

How can we save the nature we have left and revive what we’ve lost? Enter Earth Law, granting legal rights to the Everglades, sea oats and sparrows. No less than the Supreme Court’s Justice William O. Douglas proposed giving rights to nature over forty years ago. Earth Law can help us save crocodiles from extinction, reduce disease, buy time for sinking coastal communities. It can help tourism grow when we beautify beaches and parks, fueling the economy for future generations. How can Earth Law transform Florida?

Jenny From the Block Representing Flipper. Earth Law gives nature the right to flourish and lets citizens enforce that right in court. Imagine sea turtle nests threatened by a new high-rise hotel. A turtle lover could petition the court to stop hotel construction. To persuade the judge, the turtle lover could show that the hotel’s artificial lighting will make it hard for hatchlings leaving the nest to find the sea. She can show how seawalls and sandbags that protect upland construction will degrade turtle habitat. She could argue the litter and tar from hotel operations will pollute frontal zones where baby sea turtles live. Top that off with some photos (courtesy of the Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island) showing the threat simple lounge chairs pose to our native reptiles, and she’s built a strong case. Does all this involve time and effort on her part? Sure, but many facts she needs to argue her case appear online, published by government agencies who should be protecting these creatures in the first place.

Take the case of a new subdivision in East Palatka which brings Hummers and Harleys demanding more parking. Let Palatkans stand up for the live oaks in the bulldozer’s path. Who better to speak for those stately emblems of the south, hardy in hurricanes, granting sweet shade through the sweaty summer? Natives know some of these trees are so large you can see them from space, and the USS Constitution was nicknamed “Old Ironsides” because her live oak hull survived cannon fire.

Neighbors of the oaks can describe their joy watching sapsuckers, turkeys and bears feasting on the trees’ sweet acorns. Just what would those creatures eat in the new parking lot, inquiring minds will demand. They’ll fret for the threatened scrub jay which nests in live oaks, and for the birds which use the moss to build their nests. Why, people will ask, should we trade these delights for more traffic and exhaust fumes?

SLAPP Them Back. What if meanie developers punish citizen advocates with baseless lawsuits meant to silence them? Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPS) have defanged community rights in the past. Earth Law can make them illegal, as many jurisdictions already have done. Over half of US states have enacted anti-SLAPP statutes, including California and Texas, and an effort to pass federal anti-SLAPP legislation is underway.

Show Me the Money. Few average Joes have the cash for lawyers and litigation. To encourage citizens to speak up for nature in court, Earth Law can shift the burden of proving a project won’t do any harm onto those proposing it. Make phosphate mine owners pay for consultants to prove their runoff won’t turn Tampa Bay to green slime. If costs are still too high for individual litigants, they can band together or partner with nonprofits, aided by leverage gained when industry shoulders its share of the costs. At least one US crowdfunding site supports environmental lawsuits, and more are sure to pop up as this method of financing citizen rights grows in popularity.

Oh No You Didn’t. Ideally, granting nature’s rights to ecosystems can help protect them before they’re imperiled. Say your local Earth Law ordinance guarantees residents rights to clean water, clean air and sustainable food. Use this guarantee to prod the city council to plant urban forests. Join with your neighborhood association, and show that trees clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, filter pollutants from water and recharge underground aquifers. Trees that produce fruit and nuts can provide food to the community. 

What if your best efforts can’t protect the eagles and armadillos? Earth Law can empower courts to enjoin harmful acts and order restoration. Boneheaded boaters keep mowing down manatees in the Gulf? Ban motorized vehicles from the creatures’ favorite hangouts, and designate safe zones for boating that won’t harm wildlife. Don’t let developers foul the state’s irreplaceable springs, then cut and run. Make them clean up the mess.

Special Victim Earth. Many polluters treat fines they incur for harming ecosystems as a cost of doing business. To get their attention, Earth Law can expand criminal penalties for the worst wrongs, and make corporate officials think twice before pumping carcinogens through your faucet. The US EPA does impose criminal penalties for certain violations, taking into consideration the defendant’s knowledge and negligence. Still, civil actions are far more common than criminal ones. Earth Law can stiffen the penalties and increase prosecutions. A growing number of countries, including Australia and Canada, impose long prison terms for abusing animals. The case for criminalizing nature abuse may be even stronger; we depend on a clean and healthy environment for our own survival.

YOU CAN MAKE EARTH LAW HAPPEN

But it Won’t Be a Walk in Suwannee State Park. Florida’s still a long way from giving rights to rivers and reptiles. Several countries have tried it, as have dozens of US communities, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Santa Monica, California. Efforts are ongoing to enshrine nature rights in the constitutions of Colorado, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Ohio. Still, nature rights laws have been challenged in court, and thorny issues still need sorting out. Where do rights of whooping cranes end and rights of orange growers begin? How will rights for nature fit in with the maze of laws on the books? There’s little doubt these new rights will be used in ways we don’t foresee. But none of these hurdles should stop us. If we need to amend the US constitution to safeguard natural systems once and for all, we’ll make it happen. When millions of us demand change, once-distant goals move ever closer.

No Pain, No Green. We won’t escape short-term dislocations as we replace dirty businesses with sustainable ones. But we can weather them. Remember the industry doomsayers back in the seventies when we passed clean air and water laws. Business adapted, and will adapt again.

EARTH LAW MUST RULE

Status Quo Equals Suicide. Runaway population growth, overconsumption, and a host of human bad habits threaten not just Florida, but the planet we depend on to survive. Either we save the earth now, or our species is doomed. But if we force a sea change, benefits abound. It’s not too late to fix the damage we’ve done, but we’ve got to get going. What sounds like mission impossible now needs strong leaders and grass roots support. We can win rights for nature, and someday they’ll seem as normal as women voting in elections. Can it be we’ve enjoyed this right for less than a century? Yes, it can. What’s radical one day becomes the routine and we don’t question it. Someday, Floridians will look back at how we abused our great state, and wonder what their clueless ancestors could have been thinking.

Why Earth Law Will Be Good for Puget Sound in Washington State, USA

“There is an ethical consideration that all animals have a fundamental right to healthy habitat… [that] underpins for many the drive for whale conservation and marine protected areas.” — Erich Hoyt

By Darlene Lee and Michelle Bender

What is Puget Sound?

Puget Sound is a transition zone between river and maritime environments. With its complex system of interconnected marine waterways and basins,[i] it is the third largest estuary in the United States, after Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia, and San Francisco Bay in northern California.

In 2009, the collective waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia were named the Salish Sea by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Sometimes "Puget Sound" and "Puget Sound and adjacent waters" refer to Puget Sound proper together with the waters to the north, including Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands region.

Marine Protected Areas in Puget Sound

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have existed in Puget Sound since the early 1900s, although most were established after the 1960s. By 1998, at least 102 intertidal and subtidal protected areas existed in Puget Sound; five managed by at least 12 different agencies or organizations at the local, county, State and Federal level.

A 2009 inventory found a total of 127 MPAs in Washington State, of which 16 percent were no-take areas in which all resource harvest was prohibited. In addition to areas restricting harvest, some MPAs involve habitat protections or restrict non-harvest activities such as vessel anchoring or recreational access. These protected areas account for nearly 600 miles of Washington State’s shoreline; 24 miles are within the national MPA system[HG1] .[ii]

What Challenges Does Puget Sound Face?

From the 1960s onwards, Puget Sound suffered serious pollution. Industrial pipes pumped toxic chemicals into the water; dams blocked the way for salmon; natural resources were overharvested. Those problems still persist, but ecosystem management in Puget Sound has significantly advanced since the 1970s and 1980s.

Scientists now recognize that what happens on the land is intricately tied to the health of the water. We face climate change and unprecedented population growth. Scientists have identified thousands of different human-caused pressures on the ecosystem. New threats include stormwater, emerging contaminants and widespread declines in species and habitats.[iii]

Approximately 23 percent of Puget Sound Basin forestland has moved to human uses, including agriculture and urban lands. Tidal marsh and other river estuarine ecosystem types declined by 80 percent in the last 150 years through a process of diking and draining.[iv]

In the last 100 years, more than 60 percent of Washington State’s old-growth forest was harvested. Much of the remaining old-growth remnants are limited to relatively high elevation public land.

Killer Whales in the Puget Sound

Southern Resident killer whales range in the Salish Sea and along the West Coast. They depend heavily on Chinook salmon for food. In the late-1990s, Southern Resident killer whales experienced a dramatic decline. A precarious food supply, threats from pollution, vessel traffic, and noise continue to jeopardize their survival. As a result, they are federally listed as endangered. [v]

In 2009, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries considered a protection zone as part of a package of vessel regulations to protect these whales. The agency adopted vessel traffic regulations in 2011, requiring that boats stay 200 yards from the whales and out of their path, but it did not finalize a protected zone due to strong opposition at the time.[vi]

The Southern Resident killer whale population in Puget Sound is actually a large extended family, or clan, comprised of three pods: J, K, and L pods. They are visible throughout the year in Puget Sound, but are most often seen in the summer, especially in Haro Strait west of San Juan Island, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and in the Strait of Georgia near the Fraser River.

Threats to Southern Resident killer whales include contaminants, prey availability, vessels, and noise pollution. Additional human activities, such as underwater military activities, have been identified as potential threats for killer whales, particularly on the outer coast. Their small population size (76 individuals at latest count) and social structure put them at risk for a catastrophic event, such as an oil spill, or a disease outbreak, that could impact the entire population.[vii]

The National Marine Fisheries Service described Southern Resident killer whales as one of eight species most at risk of extinction in its 2015 report to Congress, yet stopped short of expanding critical habitat protections for Puget Sound’s orca whale population. [viii]

The Orca Relief Citizens’ Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, and Project Seawolf petitioned NOAA Fisheries in November 2016 to establish a protected zone free of motorized boat traffic to promote recovery of Southern Residents. The NOAA Fisheries sought public comments on a petition in January 2018 calling for a whale protection zone for highly endangered Southern Resident killer whales on the west side of Washington’s San Juan Island. [ix]

NOAA Fisheries recently completed a status review for Southern Residents under the Endangered Species Act. Although the review documented progress in understanding and addressing threats to the whales, it concluded that the Southern Resident population remains at high risk of extinction and should remain listed as endangered.  Population modeling by NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center suggests the possibility of further declines in Southern Resident numbers, with recovery actions needed to reverse the trend.[x]

How Does Earth Law Differ from Existing Environmental Protections?

In most countries, nature has the legal status of property. In contrast, Earth Law argues that nature has inherent rights, and legally should have the same protection as people and corporations. Earth law enables the defense of the environment in court—not only for the benefit of people, but for the sake of nature itself.

Earth Law argues that humans and nature are not at odds, but are deeply connected and dependent on one another. Formal recognition of nature’s inherent right to thrive will enable the restoration of balance in the global environment.

Our planet’s health depends on this paradigm shift in law, which represents the next evolution in environmental protection and conservation.

How Earth Law Can Bolster the Marine Mammal Protection Act

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA-1972) places a moratorium on the “taking” (hunting, harassing, capturing, or killing) of marine mammals in US waters.

The MMPA was enacted in response to increasing concern among scientists and the public that some species or stocks of marine mammals may be in danger of extinction or depletion caused by human activities.

The MMPA was the first legislation in the US to mandate an ecosystem-based approach – an integrated management approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem (including humans) rather than considering single issues, species, or ecosystem services in isolation.[xi]

Its primary objective is to maintain the health and stability of marine ecosystems by (i) preventing marine mammal species and population stocks from declining beyond the point where they cease to be significant functioning elements of their ecosystem, and (ii) restoring diminished species and stocks to their “optimum sustainable populations.” [xii] [xiii]

Earth Law can further the effectiveness of the MMPA. Earth Law gives formal recognition to the rights of marine mammals.

Recognizing the Rights of Marine Mammals Means:[xiv]

• Regulating tourism and shipping traffic to have minimal effect on these species
• Prohibiting extraction or take in their critical habitat— no incidental take permits (if toxic releases damage the whale-supporting ecosystem, it will be in the province of NOAA to refer the matter to the Department of Justice to litigate”[xv])
• Maintaining population levels according to their natural capacity— rather than as “functioning elements”
• Making illegal activities that market or commercialize these species

Additionally, legal rights will affect the enforcement process by giving the marine mammals standing to sue; furthering their protection and effecting protective and restorative activities for species.

For example, the MMPA strictly prohibits the taking of marine mammals within national waters except when permissible by permit. It provides that “any party opposed to such permit, may obtain judicial review of the terms and conditions of any permit issued by the Secretary...”[xvi]

With Earth Law in place in a marine protected area, the marine mammals could be considered a party opposed to such a permit, and humans could express this interest on their behalf.[xvii]

Case Study: Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary in Uruguay

The Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary in Uruguay provides an example of how Earth Law can benefit Puget Sound. Established as a marine protected area in 2013, the Sanctuary needed a management plan to enforce the legislated protections.

Uruguay’s largest multi-use protected area, the Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary was established in 2013. The campaign for legal rights has been promoted alongside the #OceanoSanos (#HealthyOceans) campaign that seeks to protect the country’s marine environment by promoting responsible fisheries and preventing illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Organización para la Conservación de Cetaceos (OCC) partnered with Earth Law Center to draft a governance plan to ensure enforcement of rights and make whale and dolphin protection a legal responsibility. This will include:

• Creating a sustainable relationship with the ecosystem and species within it.
• Making whale and dolphin protection a legal responsibility; notably the Southern Right Whale and the Franciscana dolphin, an IUCN Red List Species.
• Reviewing activities such as port construction, fishing and vessel traffic for their impact on the sustainability of the Sanctuary. 

What Would Earth Law for the Puget Sound Look Like?

Incorporating Earth Law into existing and new marine protected area governance can enhance and restore both the ecosystem of the Puget Sound as well as preventing the extinction of the Southern Resident whales.

Creating a protected area, including rights for the Southern Resident whales and the Puget Sound, means directly addressing threats including; pollution, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, vessel traffic and noise, and oil and mineral extraction.[xviii]

There exist multiple pathways for rights of nature to protect the Puget Sound and its species.

1. Pass a law recognizing the Southern Resident whales as legal entities, with all the rights of a legal person. Action to protect the three pods of the Southern Resident whales could address the high pollution of Puget Sound and provide legal recourse to stop commercial discharges.
2. Incorporate rights of nature into existing marine protected area management plans.
3. Create new marine protected areas in the Puget Sound, forming an extensive network that represents all ecosystems and critical habitats.
4. Designate the whole Puget Sound as a marine protected area with legal rights also protecting the species within the complex estuarine ecosystem.
5. Incorporate rights of nature into the proposed whale protection zone, through its originating statute and management. 

An Earth Law Framework in the Puget Sound would recommend (among others):

• Highly protecting core areas in the form of “no-take” for living and nonliving components
• Banning any industrial discharge and oil or mineral extraction[xix]
• Shifting our approach to aim for populations and ecosystems that are thriving and healthy, rather than focusing on preventing degradation and extinction
• Preventing the further decline of threatened and endangered species with swift restorative action and the strict prohibition of activities contributing to their decline
• Adopting a holistic, rights-based and systems-approach to managing human activities, taking into account the clear land-sea connection.

Earth Law offers a new solution to protect and sustain the Puget Sound—one that balances human and environmental needs in a way that allows all species to coexist in harmony.

What Can I Do About Getting Rights Recognition for the Puget Sound?

Read more here

Sign up for ELC’s monthly newsletter here

Volunteer for this initiative here

Donate to the cause here

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound

[ii] https://www.eopugetsound.org/articles/marine-protected-areas-puget-sound

[iii] https://www.eopugetsound.org/blogs/identifying-greatest-threats-puget-sound

[iv] https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2010/5254/pdf/sir20105254_chap1.pdf

[v] http://www.psp.wa.gov/vitalsigns/in-number-of-southern-resident-killer-whales.php

[vi] http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/stories/2017/11_01122017_srkw_protection_zone_petition.html

[vii] http://www.psp.wa.gov/vitalsigns/in-number-of-southern-resident-killer-whales.php

[viii] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2017/orca-09-25-2017.php

[ix] http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/stories/2017/11_01122017_srkw_protection_zone_petition.html

[x] http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/stories/2017/11_01122017_srkw_protection_zone_petition.html

[xi] “Marine Mammal Protection Act,” Marine Mammal Commission, 2017, https://www.mmc.gov/about-the-commission/our-mission/marine-mammal-protection-act/.

[xii] “Optimum sustainable populations” replaced “maximum sustainable yield,” which sought ensure that species replenish themselves for an adequate harvesting subsequent years, as the grounding principle of US resource management approach.

[xiii] “Marine Mammal Protection Act Fact Sheet,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, updated May 10, 2016, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/mmpa/.

[xiv] Source: Adapted from Hoyt (2011), Whale and Dolphin Conservation, ABC Science and One Green Planet

[xv] Trees, supra at 57.

[xvi] 16 U.S.C. 1374 § 104(d)(6).

[xvii] Trees, supra at 37.

[xviii] Environment Guide, Benefits of marine protected areas (Sept. 1, 2017), http://www.environmentguide.org.nz/issues/marine/marine-protected-areas/; OECD, supra.

[xix] Hoyt, supra at 51-54.

 [HG1]Is it better to say federal MPA system?

It’s Time for an Earth Law Textbook

By Darlene Lee

Earth Law Center (ELC) is creating the first-ever law textbook on the legal movement to establish rights for nature. While targeted to law schools, the textbook will also be available for university courses and elsewhere. The goal is to train the next generation of rights of nature experts.

Background: A movement to Establish Equal Rights for Nature

Will Falk, lawyer and environmental activist asks, “Which corporation provides drinking water to 40 million Americans?” The answer is not a brand name, it’s the Colorado River – since no corporation provides drinking water to 40 million Americans. Yet despite no corporation being able to equal the life-giving activities of ecosystems, corporations under American law are considered “persons” and ecosystems are not. For the past decade, a growing movement committed to achieving legal rights for nature has sought to change this peculiarity.[i]

So What Exactly is Rights of Nature?

Rights of nature (and related movements) is also referred to as Earth Law, Earth Jurisprudence, and Wild Law.

Environmental attorney and author Cormac Cullinan coined the term Wild Law. In his book, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, he explains the rights of nature ethos:

Within the Earth system, the well-being of the planet as a whole is paramount. None of the components of the Earth’s biosphere can survive except within the Earth ecosystem. This means that the well-being of each member of the Earth Community is derived from, and cannot take precedence over, the well-being of Earth as a whole. Accordingly, the first principle of Earth jurisprudence must be to give precedence to the survival, health and prospering of the whole Community over the interests of any individual or human society. Giving effect to this principle is actually also the best way of securing the long-term interests of humans. It is only our failure to appreciate that we are part of the Earth Community has led us to believe and act as if the reverse were true.

Earth Law Center is working with partners to apply rights of nature principles to North American waterways. Some have dubbed this “human rights for rivers,” but rights of persons is a better term. The reason why is explained by David Boyd, author of The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World. In conversation on the show Living on Earth, Boyd noted:

And in our western legal systems we’ve recognized the legal rights of non-human persons for many, many years. So, examples include municipalities and corporations that we designate as legal persons, and then through the law we articulate what are the rights of a corporation, for example. So now what’s emerging around the world in terms of the rights of nature are, what are the rights of a river? What are the rights of a chimpanzee? What are the rights of an ecosystem? So, we have to be quite clear in distinguishing human rights, which we’re not talking about, from the rights of legal persons, which we are talking about.[ii]

How Sierra Club v. Morton Paved the Way for Earth Law

The Mineral King Valley, an undeveloped part of the Sequoia National Forest used primarily for mining, attracted the interest of developers in the 1940s. Walt Disney Enterprises won a bid to start surveying the valley in the hopes of developing an 80-acre ski resort. The size of the proposed resort would require the construction of a new highway and massive high voltage power lines that would run through the Sequoia National Forest.

The Sierra Club filed preliminary and permanent injunctions against federal officials to prevent them from granting permits for the development of the Mineral King Valley. Although the district court granted these injunctions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the injunctions on the grounds that the Sierra Club did not show that it would be directly affected by the actions of the defendants and therefore did not have standing to sue under the Administrative Procedure Act.

At the Supreme Court in Sierra Club v. Morton, Justice William O. Douglas wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the standing doctrine should allow environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club to sue on behalf of inanimate objects such as land. There is precedent for inanimate objects to have legal personality for the purpose of lawsuits, and “[t]hose who have that intimate relation with the inanimate object about to be injured, polluted, or otherwise despoiled are its legitimate spokesmen.” So despite having failed, the case created an important legal distinction. After years of legal battles, the Mineral King Valley was annexed into Sequoia National Park in 1978 and remains undeveloped to this day.

What are the Milestones in the Rights of Nature Movement?

We can gain a greater understanding of rights of nature by looking at its history and how it began. A textbook on rights of nature will be a resource for the understanding of the movement’s development.

The rights of nature movement (in the context of western legal systems) emerged in the 20th century, drawing on the shared worldviews of indigenous peoples around the world.  In addition to the impassioned dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton discussed above, there are several important rights of nature milestones in recent years:

• In the 1920s and 1930s, scientist and ecologist Aldo Leopold developed his ethics of nature and wildlife preservation. Leopold’s work had a profound impact on the environmental movement. With ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land, he emphasized biodiversity and ecology.[iii]
• Starting in the 1970s, theologian and philosopher Thomas Berry called for the restitution of habitat for biodiversity, not simply as a conservation measure but in recognition of the intrinsic value of nature.[iv]
• In her 1962 book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson asked the hard questions about whether and why humans have the right to control nature; to decide who lives or dies, to poison or to destroy nonhuman life. In showing that all biological systems are dynamic and by urging the public to question authority, Carson initiated the contemporary environmental movement.[v]
• In 1972, Christopher Stone’s seminal article “Should trees have standing – toward legal rights for natural objects” mapped out the first legal argument for rights of nature.[vi] It was published in the Southern California Law Review.
• In 1982, over 100 member states of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a “World Charter for Nature”. The Charter formulates general principles and obligations to guide human conduct, laws and practices towards protecting nature. Recognizing the intrinsic value of nature and that humans are part of nature, the Charter calls for humans to be guided by a moral code of conduct that does not compromise the “integrity of those other ecosystems or species with which they coexist.”
• In 1989, Professor Roderick Nash published The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. It was the first comprehensive history of the concept that nature has rights and that American liberalism has, in effect, been extended to the nonhuman world.[vii]
• In 2003, South African attorney Cormac Cullinan published Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. His book shows that the survival of the community of life on Earth (including humans) requires us to go beyond merely changing individual laws. Cullinan argues that we should fundamentally alter our understanding of the nature and purpose of law.”[viii]
• In 2008, driven by popular vote, Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize the rights of nature in its national constitution.[ix]
• In 2009, the first UN General Assembly adopted a “Resolution on Harmony with Nature,” launching a dedicated focus on rights of nature within the UN.[x]
• In 2011, the Provincial Court of Justice of Loja decided in favor of the plaintiff, the Vilcabamba River, which successfully defended its rights to “exist” and “maintain itself.”[xi]
• In 2012, Bolivia's Plurinational Legislative Assembly passed the “Law Under the Mother Earth” which recognizes the rights of Mother Earth in statutory law.[xii]
• In 2012, New Zealand’s national government recognized the Whanganui River as a legal person.[xiii]
• By 2013, Santa Monica passed a biodiversity ordinance that includes rights of nature. This arose from collaboration with Earth Law Center and other partners.[xiv] Santa Monica became the first West Coast city with a rights of nature law, joining dozens of other municipalities that recognized nature’s rights due to the work of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and others.[xv]
• In 2016, Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognized the Atrato River basin as having rights to “protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration.”[xvi]
• In the same year, Te Urewera – a national park on New Zealand’s North Island - became a legal entity with “all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of a legal person.”[xvii]
• In 2017, Mount Taranaki on the west coast of North Island gained legal rights in New Zealand.[xviii]
• Also in 2017, the new Constitution of Mexico City included rights of nature.[xix]
• In 2018, Mexico City passed new legislation granting rights of rivers.

Now is the Time for an Earth Law Legal Textbook

The rights of nature movement has greatly advanced and there are now precedents in its application around the world. A new generation of judges and lawyers in training needs a deeper understanding of rights of nature because the movement is a legal reality in the courtroom.

Earth Law Center aims to create the first ever Earth Law textbook for use in law schools and universities across the United States. The textbook will build on Earth Law Center's years of teaching Earth Law at Vermont Law and other schools.

The team will start by delving into centuries of U.S. case law and other important legal precedents to create a narrative of the legal movement to establish rights for nature.

ELC is currently reaching out to potential publishers and plans to complete the book for Fall 2018.

What Will the Earth Law Legal Textbook Contain?

While still in the early stages of development, the current draft outline includes the following chapters:

A.  Standing Background

1. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (standing to require “such a personal stake ... to assure ... concrete adverseness)
2. Should Trees Have Standing? (Christopher Stone)
3. Sierra Club v Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972) (Douglas dissent on ecosystem standing)
4. Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 883-889 (1990)
5. Recent developments

B.  Shortcomings of Modern Environmental Laws:

1. Endangered Species Act – protecting species only on the brink of extinction (case law examples)
2. Clean Water Act – the “right to pollute” and other limitations (case law examples)
3. Other examples

C.  Precedent of Rights for Nonhumans

Corporate Rights

1. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394, 394 [headnote] (1886)
2. Connecticut Gen. Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 303 U.S. 77, 87 (1938) (Black, J. dissenting: "Corporations have neither race nor color")
3. Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. ___, 130 S. Ct. 876, 913 (2010) (lifting restrictions on corporations’ independent expenditures on political speech.

Animal Rights

1. Tilikum v. Sea World Parks & Entertainment, Inc., 842 F. Supp. 2d 1259 (2012)
2. Nonhuman Rights Project trilogy (v. Lavery, Presti, & Stanley)

Other

1. Ships (United States v. Cargo of the Brig Malek Adhel 42 U.S. 210 (1844)

D.  Precedents in Decisions About Human Guardianship

1. Children
2. Mentally incapacitated
3. Embryo/unborn child

E.  Rights of Specific Ecosystems

Rivers

1. Holmes, J. in New Jersey v. New York, 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931): "A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it."

Other Ecosystems

F.  American Indian Law & Customary Law

G.  International / Foreign Rights of Nature Governance

Ecuador

1. Vilcabamba River case
2. Other cases (e.g., Galapagos)

Bolivia
New Zealand
Elsewhere (India, Colombia, Mexico, etc.)
United Nations

H.  Related Movements

1. Ecocide
2. Animal Rights
3. Rights for Future Generations

 I.  The Future of Earth Law

How You Can Help

Join the movement and support this crucial initiative!

To volunteer with the textbook project, please click here. 

To support the legal textbook, donate here.

If you know of a law school that would like ELC to guest lecture, please email dlee@earthlaw.org.

Click here for more details about our educational programs.

To find out more about ELC, sign up for our newsletter here.

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[i] http://willfalk.org/finally-an-american-rights-of-nature-movement/

[ii] http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=17-P13-00046&segmentID=5

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold

[iv] http://thomasberry.org/life-and-thought/about-thomas-berry/introduction

[v] http://www.rachelcarson.org/

[vi] https://www.amazon.com/Should-Trees-Have-Standing-Environment/dp/0199736073

[vii] https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0456.htm

[viii] https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Law-Manifesto-Earth-Justice/dp/1603583777

[ix] https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/ecuador-constitution-grants-nature-rights/

[x] http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/chronology.html

[xi] https://therightsofnature.org/first-ron-case-ecuador/

[xii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_Rights_of_Mother_Earth

[xiii] https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/innovative-bill-protects-whanganui-river-with-legal-personhood/

[xiv] https://globalexchange.org/2013/04/11/legalizing-sustainability-santa-monica-recognizes-rights-of-nature/

[xv] https://celdf.org/community-rights/

[xvi] https://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/433/colombian-river-gains-legal-rights

[xvii] http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2014/0051/latest/DLM6183601.html

[xviii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/new-zealand-gives-mount-taranaki-same-legal-rights-as-a-person

[xix] http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/rightsofnature.html

Evolving California’s Water Governance

By Earth Law Center

History of Water in California

For millennia, California’s native peoples understood that the environment had intrinsic value – even that it possessed thoughts and feelings. “Nature was neither the enemy nor simply a means to an end or a commodity to be exploited for wealth or power.”[1] In particular, native Californians deeply respected the health of rivers and streams, often considering them sacred. It was particularly unthinkable that water – essential to all life – could be bought or sold.

But things began to change in the 1700s as the Spanish introduced to California the perspective that nature – including water – was “property” to be subdued. According to historic Spanish law, “Man has the power to do as he sees fit with those things that belong to him according to the laws of God and man.”[2] But even Spanish law respected environmental limits, and no person was given a superior right to water that was to the detriment of another.

When the 1849 Gold Rush began, emerging state water laws all but eliminated environmental considerations. With gold mining requiring vast amounts of water, the massive influx of settlers turned to a “first in time, first in right” rule to allocate it.  This is called the “appropriative” doctrine. The “riparian” water rights doctrine also emerged around the same time, allowing a landowner to use a portion of the water that flows adjacent to his or her land. The appropriative and riparian water rights doctrines make up the “dual water rights system” of California.

Contrary to native Californian custom, the new legal system encouraged waste and permitted ecological degradation. And contrary to Spanish legal traditions, equity and justice were no longer primary considerations. Above all, the idea of water as a private “good” or “resource” became engrained into law and culture.

The Result of Flawed Water Governance

Flashing forward to modern times, California’s water laws have remained stagnant, and the same flawed legal principles subsist today as then – including the steadfast notion of water as property rather than a shared necessity for all. And while there are new legal protections for waterways, such as the Clean Water Act, they have failed to reverse the tide of environmental degradation. A primary reason is that such laws still operate within the same flawed paradigm of waterways as economic engines.

The result of this system has been the vast over-allocation of water across California – with very little (or sometimes none) left for waterways themselves. In fact, the amount of surface water allocations on paper exceeds California’s actual freshwater supply by about fivefold.[3] Although not all of these water rights are utilized, there is a clear imbalance between the amount of water allocated for human uses – those that are wasteful and unnecessary – and waterway needs.

Reduced freshwater flows to California’s inland waterways, estuaries and coastal habitats have resulted in serious ecological impacts. In fact, over 70% of California-native freshwater fish species are threatened or endangered mainly due to flow changes caused by over-diversions.[4]  For example, reduced freshwater flows to California’s inland waterways, estuaries and coastal habitats have contributed to reductions in population of five steelhead and five salmon species now listed as threatened or endangered.[5]  Moreover, marine predators such as the Southern Resident killer whale and the Southern DPS (Distinct Population Segment) green sturgeon are also endangered due to reduced populations of the California-native freshwater fish they depend on for food. 

Report on 21st-Century Water Governance

Considering many of these challenges, in February 2017, Earth Law Center (and collaborators at Stanford) released a report on evolving California’s water governance, titled “Re-Envisioning California Water Law and Policy for the 21st Century” (available at: https://www.earthlawcenter.org/california-waterways/). The report offers a blueprint for a sustainable water future. Specifically, it addresses California’s flawed water allocation and management system and presents alternatives that would maximize the social and environmental well-being of both humans and nature.

The report addresses many of the flaws in California’s water governance. For example, the state of California often touts water markets as a potential solution to water overuse. However, this approach will only further entrench our dysfunctional water system by directing water towards the most profitable use – i.e., the use with the highest bidder – rather than the most socially and ecologically beneficial use. A market approach treats water as "property" to be bought, sold, and profited from. Water should instead be treated a life-sustaining and inherently public entity.

Rather than a goal of selling water to the highest bidder, California’s approach to water governance must answer the question: “how should our state share something that is fundamentally essential to the life and vitality of all Californians and California’s ecosystems and species?” The answer requires holistically transforming our relationship with water based on a new water ethic – one that takes a holistic view of water as life sustaining and a public and environmental good. And we must implement this ethic through new water governance.

Next Steps

The report describes several approaches that can be taken to evolve water law in policy in California. These include the following:

• Applying readily available but vastly under-utilized protective legal doctrines, such as the waste and unreasonable use and public trust doctrines;
• Developing and prioritizing instream water rights, to ensure that waterways’ needs are highlighted in decision making;
• Funding comprehensive data-gathering efforts on surface flows, groundwater levels, and water withdrawals and uses;
• Enforcing water use rights violations, including allowing for direct penalties for violating water right permits, and creating a streamlined process to act on violations of the waste and unreasonable use doctrine; and
• Simultaneously increasing agricultural and urban water efficiency and reducing demand, so that efficiency savings are not simply translated into more use.

As described above, until only very recently, California embraced a water ethic that respected and shared rivers and streams. This ethic can be met once again if we evolve our laws and choose to create a water future in California that works for all – beginning with the above recommendations. Together, we can transform our current governance system into one that embraces the values of environmental stewardship and harmony with nature, to the benefit of everyone.

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[1] Norris Hundley Jr., The Great Thirst: Californians and Water—A History, Revised Edition (2001).

[2] Las Siete Partidas (1265 codification of Spanish Law).

[3] Kat Kerlin, "California Has Given Away Rights to Far More Water than it Has," UCDavis (Aut. 19, 2014), at: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/california-has-given-away-rights-far-more-water-it-has.

[4] Johnson, James, “Imperiled Freshwater Fishes,” National Biological Service; referenced in Pacific Rivers Council Report, supra.

[5] See California Department of Fish and Wildlife, "Threatened and Endangered Fish," at: www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/nongame/t_e_spp/fish.html.

Rights of Nature for the Great Lakes

Sunrise on Lake Michigan

By Melannie Levine

The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on Earth. Few people realize that the Great Lakes hold 84 percent of North America's surface freshwater.[1] Only the polar ice caps contain more.[2] From west to east, spanning over 750 miles (1,200 kilometers), the lakes are: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.[3] Each comprise their own unique ecosystems and together form a larger, integrated whole.

The Great Lakes Basin is rich in biodiversity as well, with over 3,500 species of plants and animals. This includes an array of rare, threatened, and endangered animals, including aquatic species such as lake sturgeon.

Despite the Great Lakes being an area of vast biodiversity and rich habitat, its natural ecosystems are being diminished. Threats include pollution, over 180 non-native and invasive species, human alteration of water flows, and more.

To address these and other threats, Earth Law Center (ELC) seeks U.S. and Canadian recognition of the Great Lakes as a legal entity possessing rights. Legal status would ensure permanent and rights-based protections for the Great Lakes, creating legal structures that require that these ecosystems be restored to health. By contrast, our current legal structure treats the Great Lakes and its nonhuman inhabitants as property, incentivizing its destruction.

The Great Lakes touch eight states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York) and the Canadian province of Ontario. When taking the watershed into consideration, over 30 million people rely upon the water from the five lakes, equating to “10 percent of the U.S. population and more than 30 percent of the Canadian population.”

Climate Change Hurts the Great Lakes

Climate change is having significant negative impacts on the Great Lakes and worsening the impact of other longstanding environmental harms. The situation highlights the need to establish a new legal and cultural relationship with this watershed.

One climate change-driven harm comes from rainfall patterns. Higher-than-average rainfall accumulation in the region over the previous summer season[4] is part of a growing trend. The Great Lakes have seen a 10.8 percent annual increase in precipitation from 1900 until 2012, with a 37 percent increase of heavy storm precipitation over the last half century.[5] While replenishing water levels, the high rainfall also causes flash floods, destroys shorelines, boosts toxic algal bloom, increases sewage overflows, and washes chemicals and agricultural waste residing on topsoil into lake water.[6] This adversely affects ecosystems at both the lakes’ edge and water basin.

The average temperatures along the lakes also have increased. From 1900, the annual average temperature in the Great Lakes region has gone up by 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and this is projected to increase to 11.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. This increase brings about several concerns, including the 71 percent reduction of annual average ice coverage between 1973 and 2010, more algae growth, additional dead zones lacking oxygen, and wildlife species continuing to go extinct.[7] In fact, out of approximately 250 fish species residing in the Great Lakes[8], more than 13 wildlife species have gone extinct since the Europeans first started settling the region.[9]

While temperatures increase, so too does usage of electricity, creating a destructive feedback loop for climate change. Daily water extraction from the lakes to generate electricity went from about half of all water extraction, or 240 million cubic meters, to 95 percent of all daily water extraction, or over 3 billion cubic meters, between 1985 and 2002. “Power plants in the Great Lakes basin [in 2002] withdrew more water for hydroelectricity generation in an hour than was withdrawn in a day in 1985.”[10] This heavy reliance upon electricity only furthers warming air and water temperatures, making the issue worse.[11]

Great Lakes Health Declines Despite 2012 Bilateral Agreement

A recent commission found that the U.S. and Canada have a long way to go toward ridding the Great Lakes of pollution. Inadequately-treated sewage, industrial chemicals and farm runoff still flow into the five lakes, the International Joint Commission said in its first checkup report since both nations last updated the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 2012.

"While significant progress has been made to restore and protect the lakes, the governments of Canada and the United States and Great Lakes civil society as a whole are living with the costly consequences of past failures to anticipate and prevent environmental problems," the report says. "By now, it should be clear that prevention makes environmental, economic and common sense.”[12]

As more people depend on the Great Lakes, the less likely it is that the lakes will replenish.  Human uses of the Great Lakes are many, including  “drinking, cleaning, flushing, crop irrigation, creating electricity, refining, bleaching, distilling, and cooling.”[13]

University of Michigan researchers published a report detailing the greatest stressors found on and around the Great Lakes in the Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping (GLEAM) project in 2013. These stressors are caused by manmade interventions or activities for either recreational or commercial purposes, also known as ecosystem services. As seen in Figure 1, a map of stressed locations, the harms to these lakes are pervasive and severe.[14]

Figure 1

Pollution Worsens in the Great Lakes

Lake Erie suffers from toxic algae, fed by phosphorus from fertilized farms, cattle feedlots and leaky septic systems. The algae’s toxin, called microcystin, causes diarrhea, vomiting and liver-function problems, and readily kills dogs and other small animals that drink contaminated water. A small bloom of toxic algae even formed directly over Toledo’s water-intake pipe in Lake Erie, miles offshore. Beyond the dangers to people and animals, the algae cause tens of billions of dollars of damage to commercial fishing and to the recreational and vacation trades.[15]

The Great Lakes don’t just have algae to contend with. Legacy contamination plagues the Great Lakes since it can take the lakes decades to rid themselves of toxins.[16] Most of the commonly found pollutants result from improper disposal over decades.[17] The contamination also increases with shoreline construction, erosion and digging (to accommodate larger vessels).

Mercury levels in some species of Great Lakes fish are stable but are increasing in others. Chemicals like the fire retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) have been found  in the water, air and sediment and also in the wildlife and people who live near the Great Lakes. Exposure to PBDEs has been linked to thyroid disorders, birth defects, infertility, cancer, and neurobehavioral disorders.[18]

Canada’s government promised to spend nearly CAN$9 million to upgrade, renovate and improve the water plant in Neskantaga First Nation, a northern Ontario community that has been without safe tap water since 1995. "For more than 20 years we haven't been able to drink water from our taps or bathe without getting rashes," says Neskantaga Chief Wayne Moonias. Nearly 40 other First Nations in northern Ontario are also without safe drinking water.[19]

These threats to communities underscore the inescapable reality that degrading our ecosystems undermines our own wellbeing. Humans are part of nature and cannot survive without its nourishment. Until we modernize our legal and cultural relationship with nature, our own health will continue to suffer alongside the health of all species.

The Great Lakes Drown in Plastic Pollution

The U.S. and Canada together discard 22 million pounds of plastic into the waters of the Great Lakes each year, according to a new Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) study. Most of it washes up along the shores, accounting for 80 percent of the litter found there.[20]

Plastic pollution in Lake Michigan equals 100 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles dumped into the lake every year. "Every piece of plastic entering our watersheds is an example of a serious design flaw: we are manufacturing products that have no recovery plan or value after they leave consumer's hands," said Anna Cummins, co-founder and global strategy director of 5 Gyres Institute. "Just as we demand that people dispose of their trash properly, we must also demand that companies take responsibility for the end life of their products."[21]

Unfortunately, the plastic doesn’t go away, but rather gets broken down into microplastic particles of less than one millimeter in diameter, creating a Garbage Patch of microplastic in the Great Lakes. Testing suggests that in terms of concentration there are twice as much microplastic particles in the Great Lakes as there are in oceans across the globe.[22] Rivers flowing into the Great Lakes also contain high levels of microplastics.[23]

Efforts Made to Halt the Decline of the Great Lakes

Many international agreements, like the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement[24] between the U.S. and Canada, and federal regulations, like the Clean Water Act,[25] as well as state and local water quality standards, now exist.

Other examples of initiatives related to the wellbeing of the Great Lakes include:

• The Remedial Action Plan, which works to reverse the downward trend the Great Lakes have been facing by forming regional partnerships to identify “Beneficial Use Impairments” (BUI) that are causing sections of the lakes to be listed as “Areas of Concern” (AOC)[26]
• The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal effort initiated in 2009 that funds hundreds of projects at high ecosystem stress sites, representing the largest investment in the Great Lakes over the past two decades[27]
• The Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO), which coordinates U.S. efforts with Canada under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem[28]

Despite the good intentions of these efforts, we must realize that they have yet to restore the Great Lakes to health. ELC argues that such programs do slow down the degradation of Great Lakes ecosystems, and that without such efforts the rate of environmental degradation would have been much worse. However, a new approach recognizing the rights of nature is necessary to restore the Great Lakes to health and ensure their long-lasting protection.

Rights of Nature for the Great Lakes

A growing movement in the U.S. and worldwide seeks to recognize and enforce fundamental rights for nature. Like other rights-based movements before (e.g. women’s rights, anti-slavery, and so forth), the movement to establish rights for nature seeks to ensure that the rights of ecosystems are both recognized and enforced in a court of law.

Establishing legal rights for the Great Lakes would provide long-lasting protection for this unique, important ecosystem. It would also ensure that nature’s needs are always met rather than only when it is convenient. An entity that is treated as mere property lacking rights, as nature is now, will never have its interests fully represented. ELC seeks to change this dynamic for the Great Lakes in partnership with Sacred Land Sacred Water.

“The Great Lakes ecosystem is globally imperiled by pollution, water withdrawal, invasive species, agricultural runoff and the nuclear industry. The Great Lakes holds one fifth of the world's fresh water...ONE FIFTH. Initiating Rights of Nature legal structures is the best way to work within a legal/regulatory system that sees fresh water only as a commodity and not a commons” nots Juliee de la Terre, from Sacred Land Sacred Water.

Legal rights for the Great Lakes will allow local communities and indigenous tribes to serve as guardians of nature to enforce the inherent rights of the ecosystem. So, for example, if pollution is destroying a local waterway, a member of the community can sue the polluter on behalf of the waterway and seek a court order calling for its restoration to health (and an end to the excessive pollution) as a legal right. 

Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Great Lakes

To advance this campaign, ELC has worked with environmental leaders throughout the Great Lakes Region to uphold its rights. This document describes the fundamental rights to which all waterways in the Great Lakes Region are entitled. The document, once finalized (feedback is still welcome), will serve as a blueprint for local communities, tribes, regional and state governments, and, eventually, national governments (i.e. USA and Canada) as they work to recognize and implement the rights of nature within the Great Lakes Basin. We encourage you to review, give feedback on and support us to protect this essential ecosystem!

As the next step, ELC and partners are asking for feedback from interested communities, tribes, and other entities about putting the rights of the Great Lakes into law.

As with any rights-based movement, early adopters are essential to giving momentum to the movement. We are confident that these rights will begin to be put into law in 2018, and that the entire Great Lakes Basin will have legal rights in the near future – to the benefit of humans and nature. 

Does your community want to establish legal rights for the Great Lakes? Contact gwilson@earthlaw.org to learn more.

Want to get more involved?

• Read about ELC’s  online
• Give feedback on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Great Lakes
• Volunteer for the Rights of Nature for the Great Lakes Campaign
• Stay informed
• Support Rights of Nature for the Great Lakes

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[1] https://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/great-lakes-facts-and-figures

[2] https://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/great-lakes-facts-and-figures

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes

[4] https://binational.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/GL-Summer2017_Final.pdf

[5] http://glisa.umich.edu/media/files/GLISA_climate_change_summary.pdf

[6] https://binational.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/GL-Summer2017_Final.pdf

[7] http://glisa.umich.edu/media/files/GLISA_climate_change_summary.pdf

[8] https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/education/ourlakes/facts.html

[9] https://books.google.com/books?id=g1u9BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=978-1-55365-197-0&source=bl&ots=jhAuBHfCWK&sig=OWi7OcRiKo3P0wY-4ses2CUbq7k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFkdqKw6_XAhUCxYMKHdcnC10Q6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=978-1-55365-197-0&f=false

[10] https://books.google.com/books?id=g1u9BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=978-1-55365-197-0&source=bl&ots=jhAuBHfCWK&sig=OWi7OcRiKo3P0wY-4ses2CUbq7k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFkdqKw6_XAhUCxYMKHdcnC10Q6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=978-1-55365-197-0&f=false

[11] https://books.google.com/books?id=g1u9BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=978-1-55365-197-0&source=bl&ots=jhAuBHfCWK&sig=OWi7OcRiKo3P0wY-4ses2CUbq7k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFkdqKw6_XAhUCxYMKHdcnC10Q6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=978-1-55365-197-0&f=false

[12] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-great-lakes-pollution-20171128-story.html

[13] https://books.google.com/books?id=g1u9BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=978-1-55365-197-0&source=bl&ots=jhAuBHfCWK&sig=OWi7OcRiKo3P0wY-4ses2CUbq7k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFkdqKw6_XAhUCxYMKHdcnC10Q6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=978-1-55365-197-0&f=false]

[14] https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/pollution-great-lakes

[15] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/us/lifting-ban-toledo-says-its-water-is-safe-to-drink-again.html

[16] https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/education/ourlakes/facts.html

[17] http://www.regions.noaa.gov/great-lakes/index.php/great_lakes-restoration-initiative/toxics/].

[18] https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/chemical-pollution-great-lakes.html

[19] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/neskantaga-water-plan-1.4225889

[20] https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-great-lakes-2157466316.html

[21] Plastic pollution in Lake Michigan is approximately the equivalent of 100 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles dumped into the lake every year.

[22] http://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2013/04/12/new-concerns-about-plastic-pollution-in-great-lakes-garbage-patch/].

[23] https://www.usgs.gov/news/widespread-plastic-pollution-found-great-lakes-tributaries

[24] www.on.ec.gc.ca/glwqa/facts-e.html

[25] www.epa.gov/watertrain/cwa/

[26] https://www.epa.gov/great-lakes-aocs/restoring-great-lakes-aocs

[27] http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/21040-environmental-threat-map-highlights-great-lakes-restoration-challenges

[28] https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-great-lakes-national-program-office-glnpo

Rights of Nature at the International Level

In Peace & Harmony mural addressing environmental issues, by Leo Tanguma

By Darlene Lee

Believing ourselves to be separate from nature affects how we behave

Over 4.5 billion years of evolution have built Earth’s incredibly complex network of interdependent systems. Everything connects to everything in an ancient balancing act. Humankind’s recent and rapid rise to success has disrupted that system. With our population at over 7 billion and hungry for “resources” (largely commoditized natural systems), many of us have played a major role in creating eco-instability.[1]

The dominant attitude in industrialized western societies, of humankind and nature as separate from one another, views nature as a material resource for people to use. We often behave as if we believe ourselves to be independent of nature and above it.

Indigenous hunter-gatherer societies believed the opposite, recognizing non-human animals as sentient beings with equal status to humans. Even when hunted, the animals deserve the respect of their hunters. These indigenous societies see themselves as within nature. People comprise a part of a natural community of living beings.[2]

The idea that humans live in a supra-natural sphere developed when we gained greater control of nature through herding and agriculture. Once thought of as “ancestors or embodiments of sacredness,” wild species devolved to become perceived as “predators […], quarry for human hunts, competitors for space and resources, vermin, or spectacles….”[3]

Industrial urbanization has reinforced the belief that humanity and nature live in separate worlds. Nature has become a recreational resource in the city, a place where the worship of convenience and efficiency justifies controlling and profiting from non-human life.

Believing ourselves to be part of nature changes how we behave

After the Second World War environmental degradation became increasingly obvious. Nuclear testing, mass consumerism and global pollution moved citizens to act. By the 1960s a national environmental movement had emerged, hoping to undo the damaging effects of human activity and protect nature in the future. Then between 1970 and 1972, nine major pieces of environmental legislation helped to curb runaway environmental degradation. But these advances have still not gone far enough.

Despite the growth of environmental laws, the way the legal system thinks about protecting the Earth remains imperfect. The current legal framework approaches environmental harms from a “threshold” perspective, which legalizes environmental destruction up to a certain point. “Maximum pollutant” guidelines have not countered the continued net destruction of our natural world, as such guidelines continue to allow destruction to continue.

National environmental protection laws typically consider “human’s needs first” and “nature’s needs last.” Today we can see from the continued destruction of Earth’s natural environment that this approach does not tackle the root cause.

Environmental laws must evolve and adapt to changing global conditions. The situation grows urgent. According to the World Health Organization, between the years 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to directly cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per annum. These will be from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.[4] Lancet Medical Journal goes further and estimates that one out of every six premature deaths in the world in 2015 — about 9 million — could be attributed to disease from toxic exposure. The financial cost from pollution-related death, sickness and welfare is equally massive, the Lancet report says, costing some $4.6 trillion in annual losses — or about 6.2 percent of the global economy.[5]

Rights of Nature laws address the underlying cause of environmental degradation by giving legal equality to non-human life. Rights of Nature laws also remind society that humans form a part of nature – as opposed to separate from nature, as assumed by our current suite of modern environmental laws. By recognizing the innate rights of the natural world, Rights of Nature laws treat the disease, not the symptoms.

The global Earth Rights movement recognizes the inherent benefits of treating the Earth as a rights-holding entity with a stake in the decisions that affect it. By focusing future environmental regulations on the health and wellbeing of the planet itself, governments will be better able to protect nature and ensure sustainable human life.

Shifting the paradigm: changing our beliefs about our place in nature

The United Nations General Assembly widely acknowledges that depletion of nature and rapid environmental degradation both result from unsustainable consumption and production patterns. These patterns have led to adverse consequences for both the planet and humanity.

The scientific community offers well-documented evidence that our consumption and production patterns have severely affected the Earth's ability to support life. [6] Loss of biodiversity, desertification, climate change, and the disruption of a number of natural cycles number among the many costs of humanity’s disregard for nature.

Technology is often seen as the answer to all environmental problems. But to meet the basic needs of a growing population within the limits of Earth's finite resources, we must not rely on further attempts to control nature (which have largely failed). Instead, we need to devise a more sustainable model for production, consumption and the economy as a whole – one that places humans squarely within the larger community of nature.

Since 2009, the aim of the General Assembly, in adopting its five resolutions on ‘Harmony with Nature,’ has been to base this newly found relationship on a non-anthropocentric understanding of nature. The resolutions contain different perspectives regarding the construction of a new, non-anthropocentric paradigm in which the fundamental basis for right and wrong action concerning the environment is grounded not solely in human concerns.

Earth Law Center (ELC) partners with the UN Harmony with Nature Initiative to expand Earth Law education and to promote legal and economic paradigms in which humans and nature can thrive together.  We work within other UN processes, with a recent statement on ocean rights during the UN Ocean Conference in June 2017 and a new resolution that established a committee of experts in Earth Jurisprudence adopted by the UN in 2016.[7]

Follow the link to read a chronology of Harmony with Nature milestones.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

According to the IUCN, “We live in a world where we are subject to environmental and economic effects that transcend national boundaries. Increasing globalisation has led to a greater recognition of the need to address these issues.”[8]

The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an environmental network comprised of government and civil society organizations – including over 16,000 experts and 1,300 Member organizations. It serves as a “trusted repository of best practices, conservation tools, and international guidelines and standards.”

Every four years, the IUCN convenes to discuss the “status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it.” At the 2012 World Conservation Congress, IUCN members recognized nature’s rights by passing Resolution 100, “Incorporation of the Rights of Nature as the organizational focal point in IUCN’s decision making.”

This resolution called for nature’s rights to be a “fundamental and absolute key element in all IUCN decisions,” and invited the Director General and IUCN Members to promote a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature. Read the resolution here: http://bit.ly/RES100. ELC also worked with IUCN leaders to ensure that rights of nature was included as part of the IUCN’s 4-year work programme, from 2017 to 2020.

ELC partners with the IUCN on a variety of initiatives to define and advance rights of nature concepts at the international level. For example, ELC’s Directing Attorney, a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law, is working to advance educational online training on rights of nature, as well as to define and educate on recent rights of rivers advancements. ELC looks forward to making several announcements on these initiatives in early-2018.

Join the global movement for rights of nature:

•  Stay Informed
•  More about ELC’s work with the United Nations and IUCN
•  Volunteer
•  Donate

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[1] https://you.stonybrook.edu/environment/sample-page/

[2] http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-01-17/the-indigenous-and-modern-relationship-between-people-and-animals/

[3] http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-01-17/the-indigenous-and-modern-relationship-between-people-and-animals/

[4] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/

[5] http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/study-world-pollution-deadlier-wars-disasters-hunger-50598932

[6] http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/

[7] https://earthlawcenter.squarespace.com/united-nations

[8] https://www.iucn.org/theme/environmental-law

Earth Law Clubs at American Universities: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

University of Michigan:  Teach-In + 50

By Melannie Levine

How do you start a movement?

According to entrepreneur Derek Sivers, a movement requires the power of two people. One person dancing is a “lone nut” but with two there is a leader and a follower. When a third person joins in on the growing action, the dancing becomes a crowd. As Sivers says, “a crowd is news.”

If the second person never rises to the occasion, then that lone nut does not become a leader starting a movement [1].

Students and faculty in the 1960s and 1970s across the United States rose to protest numerous lack of rights. Activists campaigned for civil rights, free speech and the rights of women, gay people and African Americans. Student activism also critiqued the United States’ involvement in South African apartheid and the Vietnam War. These movements captured media attention, prompting the public to respond to the causes to which they related.

More recently student activists have been campaigning on issues such as student debt, climate change, gender and racial equality, and sitting political leaders.

Below are a few examples of successful and influential student-led movements in the United States over the last several decades. By thinking about what made these movements successful, we can develop ideas for building the Earth Law movement on campuses across America.

“Question Authority!”

At San Francisco State University (SFSU) students realized that their actions could influence political decisions in the university and the city. However, it was in 1963 that SFSU students could speak openly about current politics on American university campuses - a first for the country.

This advancement in freedom of speech on campus created a place to react to the issues of the following years. Topics enabled for student-led groups, including the Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front, to come together for a common cause. The pinnacle of the groups’ collaboration occurred with the suspension of George Murray, a Black Students Union member and Black Panther. Student concern about racial bias and exclusion boiled over with SFSU’s decision, experiencing it as a truly racist action representative of the times [2].

On November 6, 1968, a five-month strike began on the SFSU campus. Seeing that the classroom did not reflect the current political situation, students demanded a change in the curriculum and an increase in the student diversity. Black students didn’t learn about their history or current struggles. Other students did not see their education encompass their own individual ethnicities. Some of the faculty joined the strike as they believed that the concerns raised by the students were valid. They also added their own issues such as renegotiating labor requirements and increasing wages [3].

Both the Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front submitted lists of demands to the school’s administration. The students asked the school to pay full-time wages to all full-time professors regardless of skin color; to institute a Bachelor’s Degree in Black Studies; to create a School of Ethnic Studies degree; and to expand the number of non-white students attending the university to full capacity.

On March 20, 1969, the student-led groups and college administration reached an agreement. Not all of the demands were met, but the strikers were appeased by the schools’ proposed resolutions and ceased their protest [2].

This strike set in motion protests both on many other college campuses (University of California Berkeley, for example) and in public spaces. Campaigners highlighted the mistreatment of African Americans and minorities, the country’s actions in the Vietnam War, and other related issues of institutionalized racism.

An Educational Protest

On March 24, 1965 the first “teach-in” took place at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbour Campus – marking the “first large-scale student movement” in the US. The teach-in, coordinated by the student-led group called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), protested against the Vietnam War. Formed just five years earlier, SDS enjoyed high name, mission and manifesto recognition within two years of its establishment. The group valued “participatory democracy as a political process that would realize civil rights and egalitarianism” [4].

Organized as an all-night affair so as to not disturb the school day, the protesters taught “injustice in political policy” instead of a traditional protest, which might have led to the firing of the involved faculty. This positive protest actually received the university’s approval. Three thousand people attended the “lectures, debates, film viewings, musical performances and workshops, with a large rally to finish off the event the following morning” [4].

Had this teach-in occurred only at the University of Michigan, the coordinators and participants would have been the lone nuts or outliers. Instead, they became leaders that started a movement. On the following day, Columbia University held a similar event. Within a week, 35 schools followed suit, growing to 120 American colleges hosting equivalent teach-ins by the end of the school year, becoming a nationwide phenomenon.

The Power of Cutting Ties

In the late 1990s the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) started to actively encourage college students to intern with them. The Union aimed to garner the enthusiasm, energy, and power of university students, as seen in previous decades, and apply it to improving conditions in the sweatshops that made their schools’ clothing. They figured that if students fought the sweatshop conditions, change would happen faster on both campuses and among the general public [5].

Tico Almedia, the first student to start campaigning against sweatshops, studied at Duke University had been one of UNITE’s summer interns in 1997. Almeida returned to school in the fall to form the student group called Students Against Sweatshops (SAS). SAS asked the university to require companies making school clothing or products to follow a newly created set of standards which created safer and better paid working conditions for sweatshop workers.

With an intensive email campaign and sit-in at the president’s office, SAS members established the forum for a code of conduct to be written and followed by the school’s administration. The new policy included improved wages, benefits, and work-environment conditions, the ability to form a union without repercussion, and the university having the right to check company compliance. Any company found to be violating these terms would have their contract with the school cancelled if they did not comply immediately [6].

Within a year of implementing this code of conduct at Duke University and then Georgetown University, SAS grew so much that it had representatives on over 300 campuses and parent organization, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), established [7].

Students employed various tactics including marches, petitions, showcasing exhibits, teach-ins, sit-ins, speeches, rallies, debates, and onslaughts of email and paper communication to the students, faculty, and administration [5]. The general public also started discussions about sweatshops, which added to the momentum of the cause [8].

Years later, the power of these codes of conducts continued when companies such as Nike and Russell violated the policies, jeopardizing their relationship with the universities [9, 10]. By having the policies in place students have ensured that their schools follow through with the agreement. Students have protested and gone on strike if need be to maintain the morals that they want on their school campuses.

Going Forward: Earth Law Clubs

Students today seem to realize more deeply the critical juncture faced by humanity as the climate continues to warm, species disappear and oceans fill with plastic. The time is ripe for another student-led movement; this time, though, focused on climate change and advocating for the environment’s rights.

The lessons of previous student movements give us the opportunity to build Earth Law activism on a tried and true working system. When we establish Earth Law Clubs on school campuses across the United States, we will be joining a healthy tradition of American student activism.

The lessons of previous student movements:

Lesson #1: Student-led movements work.

Lesson #2: Positive forms of protest (teach-ins, mass communication, exhibits, and so on) gain university’s administration and general public support more effectively than violent demonstrations.

Lesson #3: Student-led movements do not need to originate from students or college campuses but can exponentially expand once students take up the cause.

Lesson #4: Student-led movements take months, if not years, to achieve their desired goals.

Lesson #5: Powerful movements involve many schools, corralling the collective interest and pressure of thousands of students.

Earth Law Club intends to help create a platform where environmental justice and Rights of Nature discussions can occur. We want to include student voices to shift the paradigm of environmental protection from one where humans see nature as a resource to one in which humans see nature as equal partners.

Alicia Follord and Melissa Zajicek recently formed Vermont Law School’s first Earth Law Club. Outreach continues to indigenous groups, law schools, universities, colleagues and local nonprofit organizations to connect student groups already focused on the environment or start their own Earth Law Club.

Working together with other similarly-focused groups, as the Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front did at SFSU, will create the momentum to turn individual group aims into a collective movement.

Earth Law Center invites students to intern over the summer and get involved with specific legal initiatives aimed at creating new laws recognizing the Rights of Nature. Earth Law Clubs provide the opportunity for student-led action and participation, whether starting up a new legal initiative or petitioning local governing bodies to incorporate Earth Law for protection of nature.

Interested in volunteering? Email Melannie Levine at mlevine@earthlaw.org. Otherwise, find more information on Earth Law Center’s website.

Join the movement for Earth Law and give Mother Nature a voice!

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References

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement

[2] http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=STRIKE!..._Concerning_the_1968-69_Strike_at_San_Francisco_State_College

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20141202124236/http://www.library.sfsu.edu/exhibits/strike/case7-text.html

[4] http://schugurensky.faculty.asu.edu/moments/1965teachin.html

[5] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/georgetown-university-students-campaign-against-sweatshops-1997-1999

[6] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/duke-students-campaign-against-sweatshops-1997-1999

[7] http://usas.org/about/mission-vision-organizing/

[8] http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antisweatshop/exhibits/show/exhibit/origins/usas

[9] https://nikesweatshops.org/

[10] http://usas.org/campaigns-old/sweat-free-campus/dont-pay-the-fla/about-the-fla/corporate-cover-up-2-russell-athletic/

If Corporations Have Rights, Shouldn’t Nature Too?

Image: public-domain-image.com

By Alyssa Wethington and Helen Louis George

If Earth’s 4.6 billion years were scaled down to 46, humanity would be 4 hours old. In the one minute since the industrial revolution we’ve lost 50 percent of the world’s forests, [1] endangered 75 percent of coral reefs, and overfished 90 percent of fish stocks.[2] Clearly something is out of whack.

Despite increased efforts to protect the environment, the destruction continues. To restore balance, nature needs legal rights too. In some places it is already happening.

In America, the passing of the Biodiversity and Rights of Nature Ordinance in Santa Monica[3] means that local community residents and other stakeholders can directly sue to protect the municipality’s natural environment. Elsewhere in the world, courts have recognized legal rights for four major rivers; the Whanganui in New Zealand, the Ganges and Yamuna in India, and the Atrato in Colombia. Going forward, anyone who damages these entities (which now hold their own legal rights) will be treated in law as if they have injured a person.

What are rights for nature?

Rights of nature is a movement committed to securing legal rights for nature. It shares a perspective with the many indigenous cultures that believe all living things are interconnected. We are not separate to nature, we are part of it, connected to every living thing. Rights of nature seeks to expand justice until all life on Earth is protected by the law.

As with human rights, rights of nature holds that nature has intrinsic rights to exist, to thrive, and to evolve. Unlike the current environmental laws, rights of nature does not see nature as the property of humans or as existing only to satisfy human wants. Nature does not exist simply to be a resource for us, but has its own rhythms and needs. In a rights of nature legal system, we — the people — have the legal authority and responsibility to enforce these rights on behalf of ecosystems.[4]

What are rights for corporations?

Rights for non-humans exist already. Around the world, corporations maintain many of the rights assigned to individual people. In its most general sense, corporation refers to a group of people acting as a single entity for a designated purpose. It’s likely the Catholic Church was one of the first corporations[5]. Acting as a single entity to ensure resources remained in the Church rather than with individuals was crucial to its survival. The word corporation applies to everything from nonprofits to startups to giant multinationals.

Of course, we know a corporation is not really a person in the same way as a human. Corporations don’t take walks in the park or settle in with popcorn on movie night. They also don’t go to jail when they do something criminal. Yet in the eyes of the law, corporations enjoy many of the same rights and protections afforded to individuals  — including free speech and religious expression. In the U.S. in particular, this useful legal fiction of a corporation as a single legal person, has continually expanded. Over the past 200 years, and particularly in the last five, the Supreme Court has repeatedly found that not only are corporations people, but also that being people gives them the same constitutional rights as other Americans.[6]

A 2013 report from the Congressional Research Service details the constitutional protections afforded to corporations:

“Corporations have no Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. On the other hand, the courts have recognized or have assumed that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech; a Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; a Fifth Amendment right to due process and protection against double jeopardy; Sixth Amendment rights to counsel, jury trial, speedy trial, and to confront accusers, and to subpoena witnesses; and Eighth Amendment protection against excessive fines.”[7]

How are rights for nature and rights for corporations connected?

Let’s start by establishing that corporate activity requires natural resources: fuel for transport, raw materials for manufacture, energy to keep the lights on, at the minimum. Of course some industries use nature more intensively than others;  just 100 fossil fuel using companies produce 71 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.[8] In any case, in all these scenarios one party has rights (the corporation) while the other party does not (nature). As a result, one party consistently gets what it wants, while the other party suffers without possibility of defense or compensation.

So if corporations enjoy the rights, privileges, and protections granted to individuals under the Constitution, shouldn’t nature get the same rights too?

Experts argue that the 6th Mass Extinction has begun with animal species disappearing at an accelerating rate due to a combination of habitat destruction, climate change, and pollution. Experts also predict that virtually all fish stocks will be commercially depleted by 2048. Population growth and global agriculture cause some scientists to predict serious water shortages well before 2048. Although many remain optimistic that technology will save the day, humans haven’t figured out how to replenish many of the world’s depleted resources. Once fish go extinct, they’re gone forever.

Why the focus on corporations, you might ask. An environmental impact report from the United Nations analyzed the activities of the 3,000 biggest public companies in the world and found the estimated combined [environmental] damage was worth US$2.2 trillion every year.[9] More than 60 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the size, power, or influence of major corporations and the federal government.[10]  Worse still, these environmental damages cost the global economy an estimated US$4.7 trillion per year in health and social costs, lost ecosystem services, and pollution.[11]

How do we give nature a seat at the table?

To have a real chance at reversing the damage that’s been done nature needs rights too, alongside corporations. A balance of rights creates an opportunity for sustainable relationships. When a conflict arises between corporate interests and nature’s interests, the legal system can step in because both parties have legal rights. The courts can help resolve these conflicts since rights conflicts happen all the time.

Recognizing the intrinsic rights of nature will also help counter the trend of corporations suing governments for protecting people and nature. One example of this is Bayer Syngenta suing the European Union for its proposed ban on three neonicotinoid pesticides linked to the deaths of millions of bees.

Nature’s rights benefit human rights. Where the environment is harmed, people suffer from disease, violence, and land loss. ELC has published two reports highlighting the deep connection between nature’s rights violations and human rights violations.[12]

What’s the evidence for there being a rights of nature movement?

The rights of nature movement saw its first big win in 2008, when Ecuador revised its constitution to include rights of nature, stating that nature, “has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.”[13] The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) worked with Ecuador to establish those rights of nature laws, and has been fighting since 1995 to help municipalities and townships achieve self-governance that includes rights of nature.[14]

Over 40 municipalities have partnered with CELDF to pass rights of nature laws. These include Grant Township in Pennsylvania. Their charter reinstates a ban on injection wells, contradicting a recent ruling from a federal judge that had overturned portions of earlier legislation. The people of Grant Township spoke loud and clear: they have rights, they will protect those rights, and nobody — not a corporation, not the state government, and not a federal judge — has the authority to tell them to accept toxic frack waste in their community.[15]

CELDF works on rights of nature initiatives in India, Nepal, Australia, Cameroon, Colombia and the United States.  

In 2011, Bolivia amended its Constitution to include rights of nature, followed by Mexico City in 2017. For a complete list of global initiatives around rights of nature, see the United Nations Harmony with Nature initiative’s updates from around the world: http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/rightsofnature.html.

Earth Law Center has launched multiple initiatives to secure legal rights for rivers in Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Patagonian Sea, the Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary in Uruguay, as well as in the municipality of San Francisco.

The Global Alliance for Rights of Nature hosts a Rights of Nature Tribunal in Bonn, Germany, in November 2017 to investigate cases of environmental destruction and violation of the rights of nature.

Nature's Rights in the UK has launched a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) — a democratic mechanism open to citizens of the EU — to propose to add the rights of nature to the EU legislative agenda.[16]

In the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon the Pachamama Alliance is working with indigenous tribes to permanently protect the Sacred Headwaters region. When this is achieved nearly 50 million acres of rainforest will be under indigenous management. The management will oversee the key social, economic, and political aspects of the area and place a complete ban on all industrial extractive activities.[17]

Show your support for nature

According to the World Economic Forum, climate change ranks within the top ten biggest global challenges.[18] Tackling climate change may seem daunting, but consider how much people have already changed the world. The abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and LGBT+ rights all come from people calling for change.

You have an opportunity to join the Earth Law movement:

• share Earth Law news with your friends
• join your local rights of nature groups
• email info@earthlaw.org to learn about volunteering with Earth Law Center.

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Write to your government representatives.

Here is a suggested message that you might like to send your government representatives.

Dear ______________

The law community has found a pragmatic solution to the environmental crisis. I would like you to learn about this great idea and support it today.

Earth Law will help ensure a future for your voters’ grandchildren by giving nature the same rights as people and corporations. You may have heard Earth Law described as “rights of nature.” In an Earth Law system of jurisprudence, nature will have a voice in the law courts.

• There is no time to lose. Scientists predict that a quarter of mammals and 40 percent of amphibians may go extinct in the foreseeable future. This extinction rate is a thousand times the average across history.
• The World Bank recently studied the potential impacts of a 4 degree centigrade increase (an increasingly likely scenario). It found it would create a “transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown inhuman experience.” The World Bank also warns of “unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods.

What can you do in government to stabilize this unstable situation? You can tell your colleagues about Earth Law. By doing so, you will promote stability.

Earth Law is a practical solution that will protect communities by creating balance between corporations and nature. It will strengthen the economy by legislating for sustainability. It will safeguard the environment we all depend on.

Earth Law is not a new idea. It is a reality in parts of the United States and elsewhere.

The idea has been tried and tested by more than thirty US municipalities and Mexico City. All have included references to rights of nature in their laws. Earth Law is already enshrined in the national constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia.

You may have heard about Santa Monica, California. It recently adopted a Sustainability Rights Ordinance; in part to protect its Sustainable City Plan from destructive economic interference. The ordinance states that, “natural communities and ecosystems possess fundamental and inalienable rights to exist and flourish,” and provides citizens with enforcement authority to protect these rights.

• Thanks to Earth Law, the people of Santa Monica possess rights to clear air; a sustainable food system that provides healthy, locally grown food; clean water from sustainable sources; marine waters safe for recreation; and a sustainable energy future based on renewable energy sources.
• Santa Monica’s new law also states that “corporate entities … do not enjoy special privileges or powers under the law that subordinate the community’s rights to their private interests.”

Together we face an uncertain future but there is hope. Earth Law is a positive, forward thinking, and clear headed response to a crisis situation. Please learn more about it and do what you can to support it in government.

With thanks,

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[1] http://greenpeaceusa.tumblr.com/post/93508666790/the-earth-is-46-billion-years-old-scaling-to-46

[2] https://www.ecowatch.com/one-third-of-commercial-fish-stocks-fished-at-unsustainable-levels-1910593830.html

[3] https://www.earthlawcenter.org/land-ordinances/

[4] http://therightsofnature.org/what-is-rights-of-nature/

[5] http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution

[6] https://consumerist.com/2014/09/12/how-corporations-got-the-same-rights-as-people-but-dont-ever-go-to-jail/

[7] https://consumerist.com/2014/09/12/how-corporations-got-the-same-rights-as-people-but-dont-ever-go-to-jail/

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

[9] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

[10] http://www.gallup.com/poll/159875/americans-similarly-dissatisfied-corporations-gov.aspx

[11] http://www.planetexperts.com/companies-pay-environmental-damage/

[12] https://www.earthlawcenter.org/co-violations- of-rights/?rq=Co- Violations

[13] https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/ecuador-constitution-grants-nature-rights/?mcubz=0

[14] https://celdf.org/community-rights/

[15] http://celdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Susquehanna-Fall-2015.pdf

[16] http://www.theecologist.org/essays/2988863/natures_rights_a_new_paradigm_for_environmental_protection.html

[17] https://www.pachamama.org/about/accomplishments

[18] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/what-are-the-10-biggest-global-challenges/