Utah Advances Anti-Rights of Nature Bill with Implications for Artificial Intelligence

By Madeleine Debele and the ELC Team

The Utah state legislature has in recent months advanced the anti-Rights of Nature legislation H.B. 249, which now awaits the governor’s signature. The bill, known as the “Utah Legal Personhood Amendments,” would explicitly prohibit state governmental entities from granting legal personhood to bodies of water, land, plants, nonhuman animals, and other categories—including artificial intelligence. 

Florida, Ohio, and Idaho have taken similar anti-Rights of Nature stances in recent years, passing bills that preemptively reject localities within their states from passing Rights of Nature legislation or ordinances. The Utah legislative effort has prompted debate between proponents of a “Salt Lake Bill of Rights” and detractors. “I don’t want to live in a place where corporations can have legal personhood but living organisms cannot,” said Denise Cartwright, a founder of the group Save Our Great Salt Lake, in this article in Utah News Dispatch. By contrast, Utah representative Walt Brooks, who introduced the legislation, said, “This bill wasn’t intended about the Great Salt Lake at all when it first came up. It was just the sheer fact that state after state and all over the world, we’re seeing people abuse the situation of personhood to use it as a weapon.”

Earth Law Center (ELC), an advocate for the legal rights of ecosystems, stands in opposition to such anti-Rights of Nature laws. ELC upholds the importance of recognizing the intrinsic value of nature and emphasizes the possibility of acknowledging nature’s rights without the kinds of economic and legal harms these anti-Rights of Nature bills envision. 

The Landscape of Legal Personhood for Nature

Legal personhood for nature involves recognizing the rights of ecosystems, including giving them standing to bring legal actions via legal proxies or guardianship bodies. Municipalities, counties, and a few states around the U.S. have explored this avenue as a means of bolstering environmental protection, in some cases passing Rights of Nature ordinances or resolutions. For example, the town of Nederland, Colorado recently passed into law an innovative guardianship structure for Boulder Creek. 

Such legal initiatives show popular support in many areas, including Utah. According to a 2023 poll conducted by Utah State University, 60.1% of respondents “somewhat support” or “strongly support” the idea of changing water rights laws “to grant the Great Salt Lake its own rights to water to guarantee a consistent amount gets to it.” Nevertheless, Rights of Nature developments, such as the formation of grassroots groups and the passage of local ordinances, have provoked a backlash at the state level in Florida, Ohio, Idaho, and now Utah.

The Utah legislature’s rejection of legal personhood for nature is grounded in the belief that it could pose a threat to industries vital to the state's economy. As this legislative trend gains momentum, it sparks broader questions about the values that underpin our legal frameworks and the implications for the balance between economic prosperity and environmental well-being. In reality, Rights of Nature is not anti-business but instead seeks to harmonize business practices with the needs of nature in a way that benefits all humans and other species.  

ELC joins other ecocentric organizations in vehemently opposing Utah’s anti-Rights of Nature legislation and similar legislative efforts across the United States. By prioritizing human interests over the well-being of ecosystems, such legislation perpetuates the view that nature is merely a resource to be exploited, rather than a complex and interconnected system deserving of protection. The consequences of such aggressive anthropocentrism will continue to be dire.

Great Salt Lake May Disappear in Coming Years, Leaving Toxic Legacy

That a conservative legislature such as Utah’s would take an anti-Rights of Nature stand at this moment is vexing but not surprising, since it is responding to new waves of environmental activism. Save Our Great Salt Lake and other advocacy groups argue that according rights to the lake might be a necessary step to prevent its total disappearance. All that is necessary for that disappearance to happen is for the lake to continue shrinking at the rate it has been for many years now. In other words, maintaining status quo water usage amidst increasing levels of warming and drought in Utah likely ensures that the lake will be drastically reduced or gone in a matter of years.

“Scientists predict that the loss of the Great Salt Lake, driven by human activities that divert water away from replenishing the lake as well as drought, could catalyze cascading ecological changes affecting the viability of multiple species, from birds to aquatic life,” notes environmental journalist Katie Surma in this article for Inside Climate News. “As the lake dries out, particulate matter, arsenic and other toxins in the lake bed are released into the atmosphere, affecting local communities.”

Advocates for legal personhood for natural bodies emphasize that it offers a mechanism to protect the environment, giving nature a voice in legal proceedings. ELC contends that this perspective goes beyond mere recognition of the instrumental value of nature. Granting legal personhood is a transformative step toward acknowledging the intrinsic value of ecosystems, a recognition that can foster a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment—perhaps ultimately saving threatened ecosystems like the Great Salt Lake.

Balancing Human Needs and Ecological Preservation

The debate surrounding legal personhood for nature encapsulates broader considerations about the balance between human needs and ecological preservation. Proponents of laws restricting legal personhood argue that these measures are necessary for economic growth, supporting industries vital to the well-being of communities. ELC and other critics, however, underscore the long-term consequences of prioritizing short-term economic gains over environmental sustainability.

This balancing act is not just a legislative challenge but a philosophical and ethical one. It requires a careful examination of our relationship with the environment and a recognition that the well-being of ecosystems is intertwined with human prosperity. Although advocates for legislation such as that currently being considered by Utah often caricature Rights of Nature as implausible or absurd—for instance, attempting to frighten people with the idea that they’ll be sued by their own pets or plants—this perspective fails to account for the current existence of competing rights.  For example, fundamental human rights recognized in the U.S. Constitution, such as the freedom of religion and free speech, often come into conflict and need to be processed in culture and at times adjudicated by the courts. There is no reason to think that such compromise and adjudication could not be extended to include Rights of Nature.

As a case in point, the legal development of Rights of Nature is perhaps more advanced in Ecuador than anywhere else in the world. Yet Ecuadorian environmental laws have not put a stop to economic development. Like with most laws that have give and take, the courts are working to strike functional balances between the interests and rights of differing parties, including nature. As Ecuadorian mining continues, so does litigation. There will always be push and pull, but current anti-Rights of Nature legislation advocates for push alone. 

Implications for Artificial Intelligence

As the legal landscape around the personhood of nature unfolds, it has begun bringing forth implications for artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in environmental management. The Utah legislation is the second (following Idaho), though likely not the last, anti-Rights of Nature bill to attempt to fold these issues together, denying personhood both to nature and to forms of artificial intelligence. Whereas such laws are responding to the already existing movement to accord personhood and rights to nature, the blockage of such moves for AI is at this point purely speculative. Very few AI experts claim that an artificial general intelligence has yet been created, much less that it should be accorded personhood and rights if and when it does.

Even so, AI personhood could become an increasingly relevant issue as the technology develops. Some people are worried about a range of societal challenges arising from AI—including, at its extreme, an existential threat faced by humans. (Whether preemptively stripping AI of access to personhood and any potential rights would reduce these risks is unclear. Some pundits argue that it could have the opposite effect, by creating an “us versus them” dichotomy that would work against humans in the future.) Others believe that humans should learn from the failures of our commodification of the natural world and change tack, establishing a reciprocal relationship with advanced AI rather than treating it as our property. This perspective is more open to ideas such as AI rights or personhood.

Regardless one’s perspective on AI, it seems that technologists, futurists, and Earth law advocates have become bedfellows as targets of state-level efforts to preempt the extension of legal personhood or rights to entities that currently lack them.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Earth Law

This is the first blog post in a new series, “Advice of Counsel,” by Earth Law Center’s general counsel and director of education, Tony Zelle.

Have you ever met an Earth lawyer? Since attending the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2023, I have been describing myself as an Earth lawyer. During the prior 7 years, I served as chair of the Earth Law Center (ELC) board. With Grant Wilson, ELC’s executive director, Herman Greene, founder of the Center for Ecozoic Studies, and Rachelle Adam, an Earth law practitioner and educator, we conceived of and published the first (and, as of this writing, only) coursebook on the subject of Earth law: Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners. I now serve as ELC’s director of education and its general counsel. 

My mission as an Earth lawyer and ELC’s education lead is to make Earth law and Earth lawyers. To that end, I invite you to read “Advice of Counsel,” my periodic contribution to Earth Law Center’s blog and newsletter. I also invite you to participate in ELC’s 2024 Summer Class and to ask questions about Earth law at info@earthlaw.org.

To begin our dialogue, I will share my answers to some frequently asked questions. Like the subject of Earth law itself, the answers to these questions are emerging and adapting to the constant changes of Earth and the Earth community. There are few, if any, who consider themselves an authority on the subject of Earth law. While I consider myself a practicing Earth lawyer, an educator, an entrepreneur, and a voice for the voiceless, it is with the utmost humility and gratitude that I share my ideas, which I am always interested in reconsidering.

What is “Earth law”?

Earth law is the emerging body of law that will protect, stabilize, and restore the functional interdependence of Earth's life and life-support systems at the local, bioregional, and global levels. Earth law may be expressed in constitutional, statutory, common law, and customary law, as well as in treaties and other agreements both public and private. 

Earth law is a practice of law that has sprouted from the principles of “Earth jurisprudence,” a term coined by cultural historian, poet, and geologian Thomas Berry, who is known as the “father of Earth jurisprudence.” The Gaia Foundation is a proponent of its development and explains What You Need To Know. Judith Koonz describes Earth jurisprudence as Key Principles to Transform Law for the Health of the Planet.

How is Earth law different from environmental law?

Environmental law has many definitions. For example, a body of law intended to protect the environment by regulating activities that cause pollution, such as fossil fuel emissions and the dumping of wastes; by prohibiting certain uses of land designated as protected by the landowner or sovereign, e.g., national parks, land conservation trusts; and by providing regimes of protection for endangered species.

Environmental laws that permit pollution and the degradation of Earth and Earth’s life-supporting systems conflict with Earth law principles.

What do “ecocentric” and “anthropocentric” mean?

“Anthropocentric” means centered on human beings. 

“Ecocentric” means centered on Earth's ecosphere, which includes the air, water, and land. In scientific terms, the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere comprise the ecosphere. The biosphere is the thin layer of Earth occupied by living organisms.

Earth law looks at anthropocentrism as the centerpoint of a metaphorical sphere held in balance by the relationships of all other life and life-support systems contained within the sphere, the outer perimeter of which is ecocentrism. Ecocentric law seeks to balance these interests. By way of illustration, when a river is the subject of a legal proceeding or legislative action, a purely anthropocentric viewpoint considers only the human needs for the water, such as to drink, use for irrigation of crops, use as a place to discharge waste, and/or conserve for aesthetic and recreational interests. An ecocentric viewpoint considers, in addition to human interests, the role of the river in its ecosystem and the sufficient minimum flows and water quality necessary to protect, stabilize, and/or restore the functional interdependency of the community of life (including human life) and life-support systems that comprise the ecosystem. 

How does Earth law relate to the Rights of Nature legal movement?

The terms “rights” and “nature” are both simple to understand and difficult to explain. They are expansive terms that are highly subjective. It is folly to attempt to define them without a context. To understand them in the context of Earth law, one must begin with the understanding that humans are nature. “Nature” may be defined as the world as it presently exists. It includes the human species and all that the human species has created. It is the state of Earth today, which includes human beings and our creations, as well as nonhuman nature, the rest of the Earth community of life and life-sustaining systems. Earth law rejects the ontology of separation, a concept that considers human beings to be above and apart from the web of nature that weaves together all that exists in the Earth community.

The concept of “legal rights” is relatively new in the history of humankind. Before law was defined by rights, it was defined by relationships. While rights-based legal frameworks currently predominate the fabric of law, from the local to the global, Earth law seeks to reinstill concepts of relationality and responsibility in the law and legal systems. Indigenous legalities, from cultures in the Amazon to Aboriginal Australia to Africa to the Americas, are based on relationality and responsibility.

Earth law distinguishes between rights conceived and codified by human beings and the inherent Rights of Nature, which include the rights to exist, to have a habitat, and to evolve as part of the Earth community. In the context of Earth law, “Rights of Nature” are defined by the human laws and legal systems that give nonhuman nature rights or compel nature’s interests to be considered. By way of example, in a judicial proceeding, to assert a legal right or claim protection from the violation of a right depends on “standing.” Standing is not an inherent right of humans or nature. In the United States, it is a right established by the Constitution. When written, the U.S. Constitution limited standing to white men who owned property. While the Supreme Court has extrapolated the constitutional meaning of “standing” to confer this legal right on women and nonhuman beings, such as corporations, government agencies, trusts, and inanimate objects such as ships, there continues to be strong opposition to conferring nature with standing.

In contrast, the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia recognize both procedural rights (such as standing) and substantive rights of nature that compel judges and lawmakers to consider nature’s interests. “Pachamama” is the term used in these constitutions. Typically translated as “Mother Earth,” in Bolivia, “Pachamama” is defined in law as “a dynamic living system comprising an indivisible community of all living systems and living organisms, interrelated, interdependent and complementary, which share a common destiny.” “Living systems” are defined as “complex and dynamic communities of plants, animals, microorganisms and other beings and their environment, where human communities and the rest of nature interact as a functional unit under the influence of climatic, physiographic, and geological factors, as well as production practices, Bolivian cultural diversity, and the worldviews of nations, original indigenous peoples, and intercultural and Afro-Bolivian communities.”

Constitutional recognition of Rights of Nature in Bolivia and Ecuador are examples of how Earth law relates to the global Rights of Nature movement. They are human laws at the constitutional core of their national legal systems that give nonhuman nature rights and compel nature’s interests to be considered.

In the context of Earth law, what is the role of planetary boundaries?

To determine whether law tends to protect, stabilize, and restore the functional interdependence of Earth's life and life-support systems, there must be criteria for decision-makers to consider. Among these criteria are the planetary boundaries established in 2009 by the Stockholm Resilience Center and dozens of collaborators. The planetary boundaries establish scientifically measurable standards for nine processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system. They are:

• Climate change

• Ocean acidification

• Stratospheric ozone depletion

• Interference with the global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles

• Rate of biodiversity loss

• Global freshwater use

• Land-system change

• Aerosol loading

• Chemical Pollution

Irrespective of any Rights of Nature that may be recognized by human law, the laws of nature that establish the planetary boundaries will determine the future of the Earth community. The pace of the development of Earth law will accelerate as human laws and legal systems pay increasing attention to the laws of nature.

How is Earth law related to climate change?

The development of Earth law will be an effective means to stem the changes in Earth’s climate, particularly those changes caused by human systems. However, because the law is itself one of those systems, its role in stemming changes in the Earth’s climate has thus far been quite limited. As laws and legal systems become more ecocentric, balancing rights and interests that are exclusively human with the interests of the Earth community, which is essential to support human life, they will more effectively address the causes and consequences of climate change. 

How can you contribute to the advancement of Earth Law?

Earth law is for everyone. We are all Earthlings. The world wide web is not just another name for the internet. It is all humankind, along with the flora and fauna of the forests, the oceans, the soils, and the sky. The world wide web is the gift of life and life-sustaining systems we have inherited from Mother Earth and Father Time. To contribute to the advancement of Earth law begins with gratitude. Our book, Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law— A Guide for Practitioners, is dedicated to protect Earth, “in gratitude for the home you provide for us, the sustenance you give us, the magnificent beauty with which you surround us, and for your wondrous diversity of life and life supporting systems.”

This writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer is foundational in the advancement of Earth law. In her essay “Returning the Gift,” she writes: 

We are showered every day with the gifts of the Earth, gifts we have neither earned nor paid for: air to breathe, nurturing rain, black soil, berries and honeybees, the tree that became this page, a bag of rice, and the exuberance of a field of goldenrod and asters at full bloom . . . the job of a human person is to learn, “What can I give in return for the gifts of the Earth?”. . . 

For much of humans’ time on the planet . . . we lived in cultures that understood the covenant of reciprocity—that for the Earth to stay in balance, for the gifts to continue to flow, we must give back in equal measure for what we are given. Our first responsibility, the most potent offering we possess, is gratitude.

With gratitude, I welcome you to the wonderful world of Earth law and encourage you to wonder. Wonder is an essential element of an Earth lawyer’s practice, as are curiosity and imagination. That is how we can effect change, because we have to conceive the inconceivable and make the impossible possible.

Launch of Earth Law Portal to Transform Ideas to Action

Launch of Earth Law Portal to Transform Ideas to Action

Every day we see troubling news of climate change impacts or environmental degradation around the globe, reminding us that we need to transform ideas to action for a healthier planet. Flooding in Pakistan. Areas of the Amazon rainforest and Earth’s climate reaching new tipping points. 

Earth Law is the body of law that evolves legal and governance systems to view Nature as a living being, recognizing our human responsibilities to and interdependent relationship with the environment. This legal movement is emerging worldwide with frequent new developments. Just this year: Panama passed a Rights of Nature law, Mar Menor ecosystem was recognized as a legal entity, and the Convention on Biological Diversity increased support for the Rights of Mother Earth. But to further momentum, we need a method to scale these efforts and provide access to robust and effective legal models.

Earth Law Portal 

Earth Law Center and partners will launch a portal called Earth Law: Transforming Ideas to Action for a Healthier Planet in summer 2023. This will be a digital portal and repository of Earth Law legal models and templates. Here, legislators, activists, and others can customize and download Earth laws—much like other law template sites, but for the planet! 

This new initiative will generate a user-friendly website to mainstream Earth-centered laws (e.g. Rights of Nature, Rights of Future Generations, Right to a Healthy Environment, Indigenous Inherent Relationships, Rights of Mother Earth, etc.). Many of these movements are already advancing around the world. Our vision for Earth Law is to amplify these efforts and partner with organizations and allies to make best practices and resources accessible to all—-to empower communities, governments and everyone to take action for Nature. 

In addition, the portal will provide educational resources to grow awareness and understand how to implement these templates. By seeking to restore balance to our relationship with Nature, we collectively protect human well-being by contributing to the protection of ecosystems that support all life.

ELC is excited to advance this initiative, and will keep readers informed with updates as it progresses. If you have any questions about Earth Law, or your organization has interest in partnering with us (to share your templates or resources within the shared portal), we invite you to send queries to info@earthlaw.org.

How can you help? 

• Make a monthly contribution of $5 to protect our only home

• Connect with us on social media and Sign up for the ELC Newsletter 

• Volunteer

Rights of Nature, Animals Rights: What’s the Difference?

Rights of Nature, Animals Rights: What’s the Difference?

Though seemingly similar or even interchangeable at first glance, rights of nature and animal rights are concepts that are different in practice, yet do intersect and support each other. As Earth law develops around the world, understanding these perspectives in which rights are viewed is crucial.

Animal Rights: Individuals

The idea of animal rights has long been involved with ideas of animal welfare and protection. This movement stresses that animals have inherent value and don’t exist to be used by humans. Focuses of the animal rights movement might range from tackling the ethics in the consumption or captivity of animals to recognition of human-like cognitive and emotional abilities. Although, this varies significantly among nations, influenced by factors such as their economies, religions, etc.

The Nonhuman Rights Project has also done extensive work in this area, advocating for the legal personhood of animals and the right to not be imprisoned/experimented upon. Mainly, they have helped in cases of mistreatment of chimpanzees and elephants in captivity through petitioning for writs of habeas corpus in challenging the detainment of these animals. One of their longest running cases concerns Happy, an elephant kept alone in the Bronx Zoo (since 1977) who was ruled in June to not be a legal person, though two dissenters stressed Happy’s rights of liberty and autonomy.

Looking at legislation, the recognition of animal sentience is another emerging trend, although this does not go so far as to establish rights for animals. In the UK, the recently passed Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act states that vertebrate animals, along with decapods and cephalopods (e.g. lobsters, octopus) are seen as sentient. This would allow for future considerations of animal welfare in policy development.

Rights of Nature: Ecosystems

Rather than focusing on individual animals and their well-being, the Rights of Nature recognizes the rights of entire ecosystems. This means considering all the biotic and abiotic features and the right of these ecosystems to thrive and flourish without human alteration or damage. Put into action, a focus is on giving ecosystems legal guardianship and personhood.

One example of this is with rights of rivers. To assert these rights, giving rivers legal personhood helps protect them as they can then be represented in court. This has occurred with all the rivers in Bangladesh and the Atrato River in Columbia, and many others. These actions have often been motivated by growing concerns of pollution in the environment and support from Indigenous nations.

Rights of Nature may also be addressed on a larger scale on the national level. Most recently in 2022, with the input and support from Earth Law Center in the drafting process, a law signed by the President of Panama now includes provisions for people and corporations to protect and be able to defend the Rights of Nature, while stressing the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous peoples in this process. Similar laws in Bolivia and Ecuador also reform the way nature is viewed, shifting away from seeing nature as existing for human use.

Interconnectedness is Key

In many ways, the animal rights movement is connected to the Rights of Nature and the two often work towards similar goals. A recent ruling by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court concerning a woolly monkey named Estrellita exemplifies this. The librarian keeping Estrellita had filed a petition for her return after authorities seized and relocated Estrellita to a zoo due to the keeping of wild animals being illegal. The court ruled 7-2 in applying the Rights of Nature to this case. 

While Rights of Nature values overall ecosystem health, considering things such as keystone or invasive species, this case showed that such principles can be applied to animal rights issues too.

As both animal rights and Rights of Nature continue to be relevant and important in today’s world, it is through reconciling them with each other, with regard to human rights movements, that progress will be furthered.

Wild Rice Gets its Day in Court

By Adelaide Duckett

Wild rice sues the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for violating its rights. That’s right, a species of wild rice itself has brought a suit against a state agency, marking the first time that a plant has brought a lawsuit in US tribal court. The White Earth Band of Ojibwe consider this species of wild rice, Manoomin, sacred. As they describe in the lawsuit, they consider it a “gift from the Creator,” the species playing a central role in “traditional stories, teachings, lifeways and spirituality since the earliest times to the present day.” Manoomin plays a key role in the Ojibwe creation story, where a prophecy guided their people to Minnesota to find food growing on the water. Since this migration, the Ojibwe have been inextricably connected with Manoomin and its freshwater habitat.

In 2018, The White Earth Band adopted a resolution recognizing the rights of Manoomin to exist, flourish, regenerate and evolve, as well as its rights to freshwater. With this resolution, the White Earth Band granted legal rights to wild rice and now  defend the rights of this sacred plant. Through this lawsuit, the group aims to halt construction plans for the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands crude oil pipeline, a project whose construction threatens Manoomin’s habitat. Current construction plans, approved by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, call for billions of gallons of water to be drained from Manoomin’s natural habitat. 

So, what are the rights of nature? While the concept of wild rice filing a lawsuit in court may seem strange to some, communities and activists across the globe have fought for more than a decade to codify the rights of nature. Rights of nature laws establish environmental personhood, or standing in court, for nature. This enables ecosystems, rivers, plants and animals to have legal representation. Earth Law Center fights for a future where nature will be able to defend its rights in court, just like people can. In 2013, ELC supported the city of Santa Monica in passing a sustainability rights ordinance recognizing “the rights of people, natural communities and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish” within the City. And in 2018, ELC consulted with the town of Crestone, Colorado, assisting the Crestone Board of Trustees in passing a resolution recognizing the rights of nature. 

Currently, ELC is working with several Indigenous Nation partners on their efforts to implement ecocentric law. With each new government that ELC assists in codifying rights for nature, we aim to catalyze a global movement to realign the human relationship with nature. Only when humans recognize and respect our own interdependence with the natural world can we build a sustainable society. Through initiatives like supporting the upcoming Global Freshwaters Summit and publishing tool kits and templates to support rights of nature advocacy, ELC works every day towards a more ecocentric world. 

The White Earth Band, too, is leading the way with their effort to force the Minnesota government to recognize their crucial relationship with Manoomin. Through threatening this sacred plant, the Minnesota government violates the rights of the White Earth Band as well as of Manoomin itself. Rights of nature advocates will watch this case closely to see if Manoomin and the White Earth Band will succeed in their effort to defend their rights and halt the current construction plans for the Line 3 pipeline.

How You Can Help

• Join ELC’s Ambassador Community

• Sign up for the ELC monthly newsletter

• Volunteer for ELC

• Donate $5 to ELC

About the Author

Adelaide Duckett is an environmentalist and recent University of Chicago graduate from Southern California. She is heading to law school in the fall and hopes to become an environmental attorney and continue advocating for the rights of nature.

Local Rights of Nature in the Rocky Mountains

By Emma Hynek

In recent years, three communities in Colorado have prioritized environmental protection by recognizing the inherent rights of their surrounding natural ecosystems. Crestone, Nederland, and Ridgway, Colorado, have all created resolutions with the collective goal to give Nature a voice in local government and, eventually, result in statewide action to permanently protect and restore Colorado’s ecosystems.

Rights of Nature in Colorado

With the help of Earth Law Center and others, Crestone, Colorado, passed a resolution in 2018 to recognize the Rights of Nature in the town. The resolution acknowledges the role Nature plays in Crestone’s deep spiritual culture and explains the responsibility humans have to act as environmental guardians. By recognizing the Rights of Nature, the community collectively invested in protecting its ecosystem. Specifically, the recognized Rights of Nature with the goal of protecting the North Crestone Creek and Burnt Gulch aquifer, the source of the majority of Crestone’s water. Crestone is also a Dark Sky community, with its successful application emphasizing the Rights of Nature as a motivation to protect dark skies. Dark skies are necessary for many species and ecosystems to flourish.

In July of 2021, the town of Nederland, Colorado, became the first in the state to recognize the rights of a body of water: Boulder Creek and its accompanying watershed. ELC partnered with Save the Colorado (which has a rights of rivers program), Boulder Rights of Nature, and others to make the resolution possible. According to a Daily Camera article, while the resolution is not legally binding, it does allow for guardians of the creek to be appointed so that it has representation in legal decisions. Ensuring Boulder Creek has the ability to flow and be pollution-free was a major goal in the resolution, as was preserving the creek’s cultural significance.

Ridgway, Colorado quickly followed in Nederland’s footsteps, recognizing the rights of the Uncompahagre River just a few months later. The Uncompahagre River is located on the border of downtown Ridgway and according to the resolution, provides the town with clean water, cultural connections, a diverse array of plants and animals, and more. The resolution outlines a plan to consistently ensure the river is adequately protected, a plan that includes implementing effective policies and programs, appointing a legal representative of the river, and opposing actions that would violate the river’s rights.

How Does Recognizing the Rights of Nature Help Conservation Efforts?

There are many places around the world that have recognized the Rights of Nature in some capacity. The Magpie River in Canada was granted legal personhood and basic rights and protections in early 2021, animals in Spain gained legal protection this year, and the Atrato River in Colombia gained legal rights in 2017, to name a few. The hope is that as we see these efforts more often, they will expand into additional cities, states, and countries, giving us a new way to adequately protect Nature.

Each of these three Colorado communities has acknowledged the fact that in preserving Nature, we are also preserving the health and wellbeing of humans. The two are intricately connected. By ensuring that the ecosystems we depend upon are protected, we are protecting our own livelihoods in more ways than one. Our physical and cultural wellbeing depends on nature.

A special thanks to Save the Colorado and Boulder Rights of Nature for their work in this field! They are essential partners to ELC and are amongst the most dedicated supporters of the Rights of Nature in the world. 

Next Steps

The common goal in passing these resolutions is to mobilize other communities in Colorado to do the same, instilling the Rights of Nature into the local community and eventually leading to support at the state level. For example, the fifth section of Ridgway’s resolution is a call to action that asks the state government of Colorado to implement legal policies that would further protect Colorado’s bodies of water. Currently, ELC is working closely with Save the Colorado in conversation with over ten other communities who envision passing similar resolutions to those passed in Crestone, Nederland, and Ridgway.

How Can You Help?

Donate to ELC

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About the Author

Emma Hynek lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and is the Marketing Manager at North Media, a strategic communications and consulting firm. She has a passion for all things animals and nature, and you can often find her running the trails of North Carolina or reading a good mystery novel.

Hot Ecuadorian Mangrove News You Might’ve Missed

By Jason Effmann

If you want an example of how a relatively small entity can produce a wallop of an environmental impact, find yourself a mangrove. Although covering only 0.1 percent of the earth’s surface, mangrove forests store more carbon per square mile than any other ecosystem on earth—depending on what study you’re referencing, up to four times more carbon than your “traditional” terrestrial forest. (Turns out, perpetually wet coastal soil is an uber-efficient carbon storage facility.) 

Additionally, mangroves help reduce the harm caused by coastal storms (including hurricanes and tsunamis), maintain the structural integrity of coastlines, and despite their fairly homogenous appearance provide habitat for a wealth of species. 

So it seems like a good idea to keep mangroves around. Only: Mangrove forests have been reduced at a rate between 1% and 2% per year, with a total loss rate of 35% over the last 20 years. Much of this is the result of development and agriculture—both of whom then tend to suffer, long-term, from a lack of the very thing they cut down in the first place. 

Fortunately, we have another example of how a relatively small entity (or two) can produce a wallop of an environmental impact, and it’s found in Ecuador, home of the world’s tallest mangrove forest in the area known as Reserva Majagual. 

This past September—after a legal contest that lasted more than three years—Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the Rights of Nature for mangroves, declaring as unconstitutional a rule that allowed for activities and infrastructure that interrupted mangroves’ functions and threatened their wellbeing. 

In short: Mangroves are now protected to the same degree as other high-profile ecological zones in Ecuador. 

Earth Law Center was among the organizations filing amicus curiae briefs in the case, providing expertise as to the benefits of mangroves and the fragility of these environments. It’s just one of several cases in the country where ELC is helping nature make strides: Already the Constitutional Court halted mining concessions in Los Cedros Protected Forest for violating the Rights of Nature. Three more amicus submissions on a variety of cases within the country await. 

As to why these types of cases are so successful within Ecuador, having the Rights of Nature baked directly into the country’s constitution doesn’t hurt. Another factor is the consistent presence of environmental advocacy groups like Earth Law Center, who are able to assist in bringing cases forward and providing conclusive evidence in favor of protecting and even expanding those baked-in rights. This is one of the ways donations to ELC help—keeping people in close proximity and working within the country’s legal system to ensure the right thing gets done. 

With the rights of mangrove forests now declared in writing, the ELC and other advocates for the Rights of Nature move on to fight the next case. Meanwhile, those mangrove forests will keep doing what they do best: fighting climate change. Right on, mangroves. 

And speaking of doing what you do best, there are plenty of opportunities for you to help the Earth Law Center. You can volunteer, donate, become a moderator of our online community, or simply sign up to receive our newsletter. Thanks for being a part of this community, and our efforts to secure nature’s rights, everywhere. 

One Health for One Planet

Introduction from Earth Law Center

This week’s guest blog is from Jonathon Keats, a longtime collaborator and now resident philosopher at Earth Law Center (ELC). At ELC, we believe that Earth-centered (or ecocentric) law is essential to restoring the interconnected health of ecosystems and local communities, especially marginalized communities, which experience disproportionate impacts of the environmental crises. To safeguard human rights, such as the rights to life, food, and water, Nature must be restored, which makes sense because humans are part of Nature. ELC works to operationalize this understanding in the legal system by writing legal briefs, informing new laws and constitutional amendments, supporting ecocentric business leaders, and educating future leaders on how the legal system can work better to protect the interconnected health of humans and Nature. Learn more here.

Ecocentric Policy is Crucial to Personal and Planetary Wellbeing

By Jonathon Keats

Contending with ever-changing variants of the novel coronavirus, governments are increasingly acknowledging the need for a pandemic treaty that can coordinate efforts to monitor and thwart the spread of COVID-19. Public discussion about this treaty has renewed interest in the One Health Initiative first proposed by the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2008 and subsequently endorsed by organizations ranging from the US Center for Disease Control to the World Health Organization.  

The American Veterinary Medical Association defined the One Health Initiative as a “collaborative effort of multiple disciplines – working locally, nationally and globally – to attain optimal health of people, animals, and our environment”. These goals are laudable. The fact that the health of humans is related to animal and environmental health is evident in shared threats ranging from habitat loss to global warming, yet has still not been taken seriously by most doctors and policymakers. The tragic impact of COVID, and widespread recognition of the risk posed by zoonotic diseases, provides an opportunity to implement One Health as more than an empty promise. 

However, like ‘ecosystem services’, One Health might easily be operationalized to serve humans alone. The belief that animals and the environment pose a threat may even amplify human efforts to assert control over planetary systems, and to eradicate any lifeform or phenomenon deemed ‘unhealthy’ to humans. Given the momentum to enforce the principles of One Health through an international treaty, it’s urgent now to define One Health from an ecocentric perspective. From this point of view, “people, animals, and our environment” must be construed as nested systems. People are animals, and animals are constituents of the environment as a whole. In other words, One Health is the health of the environment, which is imparted on all who comprise the environment, including people. 

This shift in perspective has both methodological and political implications. 

If human medicine is a specialized branch of ecology, then doctors must first be trained as ecologists (much as cardiologists are first trained as doctors). Medical textbooks must begin with geography before addressing anatomy. Human ailments must be diagnosed as ailments of the environment. Although healing acts may be localized (as heart surgery is a local intervention), the treatment needs to extend outward to the surrounding ecology (much as treatment of heart disease also includes changes in diet and exercise). A healthy diet puts the body in good shape to repair and maintain damaged tissue. A healthy ecosystem puts the environment in good shape to restore and sustain the person as a whole.

There is a notable precedent for this point of view. As early as the 5th century BCE, Hippocrates posited that “nature is the best physician”, Even the word physician has natural connotations: The Greek root phusikós means “pertaining to nature”.

As Hippocrates recognized, and as his followers believed for the next two millennia, even the wisest doctors have their limitations. The wisdom of non-human healers should therefore also be consulted in healthcare. Plants, for instance, should not only be administered as medicine but also respected as medical practitioners. 

Plants dispense the medicinal substances needed for the survival of other organisms including humans because they depend on the health of those organisms for their own wellbeing. In its purest state, medicine is a product of symbiosis, a chemical trace of caretaking. Instead of merely extracting and refining the chemicals, we should observe the conditions in which they are offered as instructions for use, and we should symbiotically reciprocate as caretakers of the beings who take care of us.

More broadly, the reciprocal relationship can provide a basis for interspecies diagnosis. Ecologists routinely assess the health of a biome by observing indicator species. The wellbeing of these organisms indicates the wellbeing of the entire living system to which they belong. The trees in our gardens and our houseplants are likewise indicators of our domestic ecosystem and all beings within, including ourselves. We need to learn how to interpret the suffering of a rosebush in terms of what is not well with us – and we can come a long way toward healing ourselves by healing the shrub.

But we cannot turn inward at the expense of the world. This is especially the case when considering preventative medicine, which must extend out from the individual to the whole planet. Keeping in shape must be reframed as a collective effort to do good in the world.

As a political matter, One Health requires a refocusing of public health to maximize the wellbeing of life. Factors such as biodiversity need to be taken into consideration. Practices that support biodiversity must be prioritized with input from every organism, setting health policy by consensus. 

The challenge of attaining consensus is nontrivial, but the importance of doing so exceeds the difficulties. Humans have assumed too much for too long, leading the planet from extraordinary habitability to anthropogenic climate change and mass-extinction.

The conditions of wellbeing on Earth are best understood as conditions that support planetary biodiversity through deep time. Biodiversity is best understood to encompass multiple dimensions of difference, such as genomics, niche, and biological complexity. 

Crucially, there is no universal optimum that endures over the long term. Before humans came to be predominant, biodiversity was constantly negotiated. Consensus emerged as a matter of self-organization, which had to be dynamic because planetary conditions were unstable. We might take initial steps toward reviving that process by convening a planetary wellbeing convention in which the expressed and observed needs of all species are considered collectively, to assess whether their common interests are being met and to negotiate terms for maximal habitability in the environmental conditions of the moment. As an annual event, the convention could decide environmental policy.

Given all the evidence that people are healthier in a healthy environment – as the scientifically-trained heirs to Hippocrates recognize today – the human benefits of planetary wellbeing are undeniable. But departments of health and the World Health Organization should not be guided by those secondary advantages. One Health must remain oriented toward one patient. That patient is Earth.

Jonathon Keats is a research associate at the University of Arizona Desert Laboratory and Consulting Philosopher for Earth Law Center. He is also the author of six books, most recently You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, published by Oxford University Press.

How Environmental Law Spreads Across the World

By Alissa Lampert

An Introduction to the Spread of Legislation around the World

Environmental law has spread around the world into many countries’ legal systems. By studying the different policies each country has adopted to protect their lands and resources, we can see a resemblance between legal themes, the way that governments protect their nature, and where there is room to grow.

Consider the spread of environmental law through the impact-assessment laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Practically, what NEPA means is that federal agencies must consider environmental consequences in their decision-making. For example, if the Department of Transportation wished to build a new highway, they would have to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) outlining how humans might be harmed from the pollutants, as well as if any protected plant or animal species would be further put in harm’s way from the project.

Countries outside the United States, like Mexico, China, and India, along with many others, adopted environmental impact assessments in the decades following NEPA, or structured their environmental policy programs to include them. Requiring EISs has dipped to international law, too. The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit, included a principle stating that environmental impact assessments should be used for proposed activities that are likely to have a significant negative impact on the environment. EISs are now commonly included in multilateral environmental agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Convention on Biological Diversity, amongst others.

Laws that protect specific parts of the environment have also spread internationally. We can look to the U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA) as an example. In practice, the CWA empowered the EPA to review individual states’ water quality targets and ensure they are sufficient to keep the water swimmable and pollutant-free. After its passage, the Hudson River went from a waterway filled with pollutants and garbage to a much cleaner river that has seen growing numbers of aquatic species over the past decades.

Many countries use similar playbooks to the CWA for regulating water pollution, such as EISs or requiring water discharge permits for polluters which prescribe the amount of pollutants that can regulate a waterway. Additionally, the United Nations Environment Programme promotes nature-based solutions for wastewater and pollutant management, with the goal of protecting overall water quality. They also administer Sustainable Development Goal target 6.3.2, which aims to help countries understand, measure, and report on water quality.

 How Earth law might spread throughout the world

Earth law is an emerging field whose goal is to shift the focus of environmental law from a human, or anthropocentric, focus, to a more eco-centric focus. The task is vast but begins with the combined efforts of many dedicated stakeholders such as Earth Law Center (ELC).

The Rights of Nature movement is one of the most promising in building Earth law. It encompasses the wider goals of Earth law of integrating ecocentric laws into national and international legislation. It broadly aims to have governments and citizens consider the inherent rights of Nature to exist and thrive as its own legal entity. In the context of American and other legal frameworks, this includes granting Nature standing, which would allow it to act as a party in legal disputes and be granted legal personhood.

The movements that grant rights to Nature must be collaborative attempts, as Nature itself does not know political boundaries. As we have seen over the past couple of years, wildfires do not stop at the U.S.-Canada border just because they started in the U.S.

The Rights of Nature movement is spreading across the world. In 2017, New Zealand recognized rivers as rights-bearing entities and granted them legal personhood status. Similar actions have also been taken with the Atrato River in Colombia and the Vilcabamba River in Ecuador. A court in India held in 2018 that the animal kingdom is a legal entity with rights. A court in Colombia held in 2018 that the state must protect bees as pollinating agents.

These values pervade international legal entities. The United Nations Secretary General wrote a report emphasizing that animals have rights to live and flourish as people do.

The way these Earth laws spread shows how the world stage can inspire development and cooperation. The global and regional international organizations such as the UN, NATO, EU, Organization of American States, etc., ensure that countries will periodically convene to discuss the state of their affairs and how they wish to see things change around the world. In the context of the environment, these discussions are happening more frequently as countries continue to realize the threat of climate change and environmental degradation.

What can you do to support Earth law and Rights of Nature?

Support for Rights of Nature and Earth law has been steadily growing. More countries, spurred on by the support of their citizens, are starting to include Earth law values in their legislation. ELC has worked tirelessly to enhance these efforts across the globe by providing people and stakeholders with information and toolkits to promote Earth law in their home nations.

Earth Legislator is a work-in-progress by ELC, which aims to provide legal templates for Earth law. Earth Legislator will change the face of the Earth law movement. Like LegalZoom, in which a user can enter their information in and receive a legislative template that they can present to their local governments, ELC and the Earth Legislator project aims to make templates for Earth law widely available to the public. Then, private citizens and groups can take more active roles in the Rights of Nature movement. We hope this to be a collaborative effort so that shared resources can be widely accessible to practitioners within the Earth law field. We invite partners to get in touch with us to collaborate on this project.

To receive updates about the Earth Legislator project and steps ELC is taking to promote Earth Law, sign up for the ELC newsletter, or consider donating to ELC to ensure we can continue fighting for Nature’s rights. You can also sign up to volunteer with ELC to make an impact on your local community. If you would like to get in touch with us, email info@earthlaw.org.

Alissa Lampert is an intern at ELC and a senior at Barnard College majoring in environmental science.

Animals Gain Legal Protections in Spain

In a huge win for the Earth Law Movement, the Spanish Congress of Deputies recently declared that nonhuman animals (animals), including household companions and members of wild species, are sentient beings.

Animals in Spain will no longer be considered as “objects” by the law thanks to new legislation passed on Thursday by Spain’s lower house, the Congress of Deputies. From now on, animals will be treated as “sentient beings,” and as such will have a different legal standing than an inanimate object. They will no longer be able to be seized, abandoned, mistreated or separated from one of their owners in the case of a divorce or separation, without having their wellbeing and protection taken into account.

Earth Law advocates for  ecosystem rights to exist, thrive, and evolve—and that Nature should be able to defend its rights in court, just like people can.

This holds true as much for non-human animals as for rivers and forests. Despite decades of environmental protection, Earth’s health continues to decline. Earth Law takes the view that Nature is not just a source of free resources for humans but entities deserving of being considered subjects in the eyes of the law. This gives them protection in the courts and consideration when decisions impact their life and well being. National recognition of non-human animal rights helps rebalance the human-Nature relationship such that we legally care not just about humans but about all life who call Earth home.

Evolution of the Lobster

Did you know? During the mid to late 1700’s, plentiful lobster supplies meant prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children routinely ate lobster while in Massachusetts, some servants allegedly sought to avoid lobster-heavy diets by including clauses in their contracts that they would only be served the shellfish twice a week.

Today, the UK government recognizes octopuses, squids, crabs and lobsters as sentient beings as part of a new law proposed (which already includes all vertebrates). Driven in large part by a new report from the London School of Economics about sentience amongst invertebrates, cephalopod mollusks (octopuses, squids and cuttlefish) and decapod crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, shrimp and crayfish) — will now be included on the list of sentient beings, which means considering their welfare in future government decisions.

Other Examples of Animal Protections

In the U.S., Oregon is the only state so far to specifically cite animal sentience in its laws, in 2013. However, politicians from U.S. states including New York, Massachusetts and Nevada are currently advocating through proposed legislation a greater recognition of animals' intrinsic worth when they are harmed.

Many groups continue to work tirelessly for the welfare of animals. People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) continues working to prevent animal abuse. The Nonhuman Rights Project has secured the world’s first habeas corpus hearings on behalf of nonhuman animals in their chimpanzee and elephant rights cases. There are many additional groups working to recognize rights of animals.

Earth Law Center’s work in partnership with elders from the Lummi Nation to free an orca named Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (also known as Tokitae) upholds the same worldview on animal sentience and their inherent rights.

ELC’s ecocentric approach has always included animals, including farmed animals. Going vegan is another way to respect animals. 

Want to be part of the solution today?

• Join ELC’s Ambassador Community

• Sign up for the ELC monthly newsletter

• Volunteer for ELC

• Donate $5 to ELC

• Sign The Align with Nature Petition
  

How Does Beef Production Affect Climate Change?

By Vivian Pham

Prices are a normal part of the dining experience, but it’s not always apparent what the true cost is until the very end. No, I’m not talking about sales tax. I’m talking about the unwritten costs that you don’t know about and that the food industry doesn't care to inform you of—the cost to Nature.  

Certain foods have always been harder on the planet than others. This is especially the case with beef, an expensive dish in terms of animal welfare, natural resources, land, and climate change.

What if Animals are Sentient?

All animals are sentient and experience pain. They experience emotions like fear, joy, anxiety, and sadness. And cows are no different. Studies show that cows actually enjoy learning new things, hold grudges, and can even recognize cow and human faces. 

For example, mother cows who are separated from their young cry for weeks at a time. Calves are also affected by this separation both mentally and physically and can carry this trauma with them through life. These are just a few ways cows demonstrate their intellectual capacity and emotional depth.

What If We Could Feed More People If We All Went Plant-based?

Each time energy is passed down from one being (like a plant) to another (like an animal), about 50-90 percent of it is lost. 

Cows are fed a diet of grass and grains. Therefore, beef represents a costly meal that if replaced with plant-based foods could conservatively feed twice as many people. One study estimates we could save 8 million people from starvation if everyone went vegan today.

What If More Land Could Be Rewilded?

Certain foods were never meant to be produced en masse. And the more people indulge in these foods, the more these inefficiencies are magnified. 

Currently, meat and other animal by-products take up 76 percent of the land we use to grow food globally. Beef alone led to the deforestation of hundreds of thousands of square miles of the world’s rainforests—land that would have otherwise captured CO2 and helped to protect Earth’s ozone layers.

What If We Could Slow Global Warming?

Farm animals in general are responsible for up to 18 percent of global methane emissions.

Cows are the worst of the bunch, releasing 60 kg of greenhouse gas emissions for each kg of meat produced. Cows also release methane gas which is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

If all this doesn’t sit right with you, there are ways to help:

What If Plant-based Diets Are Healthier?

The U.S. consumes three times more meat than the global average. If everyone in the country were to go vegan, we could cut our food-related greenhouse emissions by up to 73 percent. 

Eating veggies is also healthier for you. In general, vegetarians and vegans consume fewer calories and less fat, weigh less, go out into nature more often, and are less likely to have a heart disease. One 2017 Jama study revealed that replacing just 3% of animal protein with plant-based protein was associated with 19% lower likelihood of death from any cause. 

What If Locally Sourced Beef Was Better All Around?

While going vegan is the most sustainable option, it’s not necessarily the right choice for everybody. Fortunately, we as consumers can enjoy beef while still reducing our carbon footprints by buying from sustainable farms.

Certain high-impact beef producers use more land and water, require more transport or processing, release more greenhouse gases, and contribute to the pollution of rivers. As a result, high-impact cow farms are responsible for over half of all beef-related environmental damage, using up to 50 times more land and releasing 12 times as much CO2 as low-impact farmers.

By supporting only low-impact farms as well as cutting our intake of animal products, we could enjoy 70 percent of the environmental impact of going completely vegan. 

Support ELC

Thankfully, we’re not starting from zero. There are currently bills at the federal level to improve the standards of living of livestock. For example, bans on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) are gradually becoming more commonplace. In 2020 California passed legislation that will phase out battery cages by 2025 and the sale of products from battery cage systems by 2023. 

Earth Law Center is also joining in this fight by seeking to rebalance the human-Nature relationship. Rather than viewing Nature as something to be used for the benefit of humans, we are working to create a legal framework under which Nature and its wellbeing must be considered in all decisions which impact it. This includes the perspective of seeing cows and other animals as independent subjects with their own rights and protections. 

Paying the Check

Every small act helps. Whether it’s spreading awareness, cutting your intake of beef, or donating to ELC, your decisions as a consumer have a ripple effect on your social circle, your community, and the people who make your food. 

More ways to become an active supporter:

• Keep up with what’s happening and what strides we’re making in Earth law by signing up for our newsletter. 

• Trying to be more proactive in your community? Start volunteering. 

• Ready to put your wallet where your beliefs are? Donate what you can whether that’s a dollar or a few hundred dollars.

So, when it’s time to settle your tab to Nature, what costs are you okay with? 

A Look Back at 2021 and the COP26 Climate Summit

By Myra Jackson, Michelle Bender, and Marsha Moutrie

The Earth Law Center and COP26

As the old year ended and the new year began, we thought about 2021’s events and their impact on Earth and ELC’s work. One of the most anticipated events was the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, which convened in GIasgow, Scotland from October 31st through November 13th.   Two of us had the opportunity to attend:  Michelle Bender, ELC’s Ocean Campaign Director, and Myra Jackson,  UN Representative and Focal Point, who has long guided and supported ELC’s work. 

Myra and Michelle opted to go to Glasgow.   As an official observer, Myra could witness the proceedings from “inside the room.”  Her credentials allowed access to the secured Blue Zone, the conference space at Scottish Events Campus, managed by the UN, where the negotiations took place outside the public purview.   Michelle joined the thousands of environmental and social activists, Indigenous people, union representatives, artists, youth groups, nonprofit groups, and uncredentialed business representatives in the Green Zone at the Glasgow Science Center.  It was open to the public and offered a schedule of free, ticketed events, including workshops, panel discussions, movies, poetry readings, and exhibitions. 

What did they take away?  What can we all learn from the conference? Here’s a look back and some thoughts about the conference and our future work, offered from the vantage point of this new year.

COP26 and Its Participants

The UN has been organizing climate change conferences (“Conferences of the Parties” or COPs) for thirty years.  The 26th (COP26) was particularly significant because it was the first at which the parties were expected to ratchet up their commitments to mitigate climate change.  Under the Paris Agreement made at COP21 in 2015, parties are expected to enhance their pledges to mitigate climate change every five years.  The pandemic necessitated a one-year postponement of the 2020 conference.  So, COP26 was expected to produce new and stronger commitments. 

The UK, which hosted the event, announced four key goals for COP26: secure net zero emissions, globally, by 2050 and keep within reach the goal of limiting global temper increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilize finance to curtail global heating; and secure international cooperation to achieve results.   About 40,000 reportedly registered for the conference:  22,000 political leaders and other members of national delegations, 12,000 representatives of nongovernmental organizations, 2,300 official observers, and 3,700 media representatives. 

The official count of delegates actually attending is 38,347, making last year’s the largest of the COP summit ever.  Delegates represented 200 countries and included 120 heads of state.  The absence of the leaders of China and Russia was widely noted in the press, though China sent a delegation and its climate change envoy.  Brazilian President Bolsonaro also did not attend; but his country’s delegation, numbering 479, was the largest national delegation at the conference.  

The largest participating group was the fossil fuel industry.  The BBC reported that 503 people with links to that industry were accredited attendees.  This number included lobbyists, national delegation members, and 103 members of the International Emissions Trading Association.   Lobbyists participated as delegates for 27 nations.  Reportedly, they outnumbered indigenous representatives by a ratio of 2 to 1.  Corporations also participated as conference sponsors, though the UK government limited sponsorship to organizations having “real commitments” to reaching net zero emissions in the “near future.”  (This was a change made in response to concerns expressed about fossil fuel companies’ participation as sponsors of past COP summits.)  

A Conference Characterized by Conflicting Perspectives and Divergent Goals

Like Michelle, the thousands gathered at Green Zone events and in the streets attended to express and demonstrate their commitment to environmental and social justice as inseparable goals.  They also attended to learn, teach, and share their ideas and beliefs about protecting Earth. Michelle organized and opened a panel on “Rights of Nature: An Urgent and Transformative Movement to Address Climate Change”, which conference attendees could view at the New York Times Climate Hub.

In the Blue Zone, “inside the room”, motivations appeared much more complex and varied.    In general, delegates went to promote their individual nation’s, corporation’s or organization’s interests through negotiation, bartering, persuasion, shaming, and other means. Heads of state and representatives of “developed” nations (generally in the global North), went to protect or enhance their nations’ present and future economic welfare and political status in the world community.  Representatives from “emerging nations” went to protect their perceived pathway to development and increased prosperity. 

Some were in the room seeking environmental justice.    Registrants from poorer nations (mostly located in the Global South) wanted developed nations to fulfill their promises (made at the 2009 COP) to pay poorer countries $100 billion a year to address climate change.  Their rationale was fairness:  though they had done the least to cause climate change, they were bearing its worst brunt.  Accordingly, they wanted rich countries to acknowledge their role in causing the losses and damages poor countries are suffering from increasingly extreme weather events.  They also wanted rich countries to pay reparations.  Representatives of poor island and coastal nations were particularly desperate for aid and reparations because their homelands are literally disappearing into rising seas.   

Many more in the room went to further their existing, highly-profitable corporate endeavors and consequent power and status.  Representatives of oil, gas, and other extracting industries went to ensure continuation of their current business models for as long as possible.   Representatives of new, Green Technologies and businesses went to promote their interest in shifting to a Green Economy.   Representatives of the world-wide banking and finance industry went seeking the financial opportunities which a “new” economy would bring.  They also wanted to combat the negative impact of climate disruption upon economic and social stability, which is vital to the success of financial markets.  

The UN hosts and representatives came shouldering the incredibly difficult burden of persuading nation states, industries, and organizations, with vastly different goals, needs, and situations, to come together and compromise for the common, present and future good of all countries and the Earth. The difficulty of the UN mission is illustrated by COP26 President Alok Sharma’s work at the conference.He opened the conference by asking participants act boldly to “consign coal power to history.”

Conference Outcomes

That was not to be.  After two weeks of speeches, meetings, negotiations, delegates did manage to agree on the Glasgow Climate Pact.  It does not consign coal power to history.   The final draft of the pact had included a call to “phase out” coal power and fossil fuel subsidies.  However, at the last minute, China and India proposed changing “phase out” to “phase down”, allowing for the indefinite, continued reliance on coal power and fossil fuels.  This last-minute change brought strenuous objection from some countries.  Nonetheless, in the interest of ensuring the pact’s adoption, the delegates accepted the revisions. 

The agreement:

• States that carbon emissions will have to fall by 45 percent by 2030 to sustain the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C;

• Establishes new rules for trading carbon credits across national borders;

• Calls for nations to return in 2022 with new, more ambitious emissions cutting targets;

• Requests yearly progress reports on fulfilling commitments; and

• Includes agreement by developed countries to double their collective funding of poorer countries’ climate adaptation efforts.

Obviously disappointed by the failure to phase out fossil fuels, President Sharma said of the pact, “We have kept 1.5 degrees alive.  But its pulse is weak, and it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action.”  

In addition to the adoption of the pact, the conference yielded some important pledges.   100 plus nations pledged to cut 30% of methane emissions by 2030; 130 nations agreed to halt and then reverse deforestation by 2030;  45 countries pledged to give more than $4 billion for transitioning to sustainable agriculture; the US and other countries pledged to stop spending on fossil fuel projects abroad by 2022; the US and China, the world’s two largest emitters, agreed to work together on climate issues, despite their other conflicts; and 450 financial institutions, which collectively oversee $130 trillion in assets promised to align their portfolios with the goal of achieving  net-zero emissions by 2050.  (The New York Times ran a guest essay entitled “Bankers Took Over Climate Summit”.)   

Reactions to the Summit

Commentators’ reactions to the pact and to COP26 were mixed.  UN News ‘s Martina Donlon acknowledged that the conference yielded “a compromise that is not enough, especially for small island States and other vulnerable countries” but does provide some “positive steps forward.”  Experts from the Council on Foreign Relations commented that, “Countries made notable commitments … but they still fell short of the action needed to keep global warming within manageable levels.”  Asked if the conference was a success, they responded, “Yes, but barely.”

In general, commentators acknowledge that, while the COP26 pact may keep the Paris Agreement alive, it will not avert the worst anticipated effects of climate change.  Even if the emissions promises are fulfilled, the world will still be on the path to average temperature increase of 2.4 degrees Celsius by 2100 -- significantly above the target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees which is necessary to avert worst consequences.   

The doubling of richer countries' contributions to poorer countries for adaptation was criticized as falling far short of the estimated cost of those poor countries’ needs.  Moreover, wealthier nations blocked an effort to create a loss and damage (reparations) fund and merely agreed to participate in future dialogue about increased financial support and technical assistance.  Myra Jackson notes that the delegates from richer, developed nations appeared absolutely unwilling to consider reparations or even to acknowledge the damage their countries had caused to the rest of the world.  She was struck by the reaction of delegates from Pacific Island nations, which face annihilation by rising seas.  Distraught, they left asking, “What will we tell our children?”

In addition to criticisms of the pact’s substance, there were complaints about the process.   Women and young people were under-represented in the decision-making process.  Many registrants from poorer nations, particularly in the global south, were excluded from participation by limited resources and Covid related travel restrictions.  One commentator observed that COP26 seemed, in comparison to past UN climate summits, more White and more like DAVOS – a gathering of the rich and powerful for the benefit of the rich and powerful, many of whom arrived by private jet. 

A review in Forbes magazine stated: “[L]acking from the discussions at COP26 was the understanding that reaching net zero emissions requires more than just a switch from one energy source to another, but a reinvention of current modes of production and consumption.”  We at Earth Law agree that reinvention of current modes of production and consumption are essential, but much more is needed as is demonstrated by the ongoing and relentless series of disasters afflicting the planet.

What’s Happened Since COP26

The day after COP 26 ended, heavy rains and flash flooding in Egypt crumbled mud-brick houses around Aswan and washed hundreds, perhaps thousands of ground-dwelling, poisonous scorpions into villages.  The scorpions are known as Deathstalkers because their sting can be deadly.  After the flood, the Deathstalkers stung at least 500 people in one day, inundating local emergency rooms.

A severe storm in the US Midwest spawned dozens of tornados which brought destruction to seven US states in one day.    One of them cut a 260-mile swath through Tennessee, pulverizing anything in its way, including entire neighborhoods and most of one town.  The number of the tornadoes, the length of the most severe tornado’s path, and the fact that this event occurred outside the usual tornado season, all attested to the unprecedented extremity of the event. 

Flood water inundated 116 cities in northeastern Brazil, affecting 470,000 people, leaving over 70,000 people homeless or displaced in the State of Bahia. 

Super hurricane Rai battered the Philippines, with flooding and winds of up to 168 miles per hour.  Over 200 people were killed and 300,00 were evacuated.  It was the island nation’s 15th major storm of 2021. 

A wildfire raced across drought-decimated grasslands and into residential neighborhoods north of Denver, forcing tens of thousands of Colorado residents to flee their suburban homes with little or no time to pack vehicles.  Unseasonable winds gusted at 110 miles per hour.  Thousands of homes were destroyed.      

These incidents demonstrate the increasingly destructive power of weather events supercharged by climate change.  In a matter of hours, or even minutes, a town or neighborhood can be inundated by flood waters, pulverized by winds, or reduced to ashes.  As COP26 demonstrates, diplomacy moves slowly; winds, fires, and floods move very, very fast.  Effectuation of the commitments made at COP26 is uncertain; the continuance of increasingly ferocious, climate-related disasters is not.

Along with the post-COP26 disasters, recent weeks have included signs of hope.  For example, the New York Times reported that 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution during what Chile has declared to be “a climate and ecological emergency”.  Among the questions to be considered by the group are how to regulate mining, whether nature should have rights, and how to protect the environment for the welfare of future generations.  To help promote environmental injustice, the Biden White House has mandated the replication and use by federal agencies of a regulatory tool developed by the State of California.  It uses data and mapping to correlate environmental impacts with income and thereby direct governmental resources to communities overwhelmed by toxic air and economic hardship.  It also forces local officials to consider that history when granting various permits.

ELC will continue to push for transformative change

The limited results attained at COP26 were disappointing.  At ELC, we were particularly disappointed that the conference focused almost exclusively on economic, technical and market fixes to the climate catastrophe. We have heard time and time again that we need transformative change to address climate change, but what does that actually mean? At Earth Law Center we believe we need to advance a transformation in the values and ethics that underlie our legal, governance and economic systems--- how we value, relate to, and treat Nature. Earth law and Rights of Nature is one way to transform our values and systems to address climate change at its roots by recognizing the interconnectedness and dependency of human and economic systems on Earth's natural systems.

At the New York Times Climate Hub session, Michelle reflected on the scant attention paid to the role of ocean health, which is vital to the health of all life on Earth.  She commented, “Human-centered values and priorities dominate conservation agendas and frameworks.  Consider the main staple of this COP, the Paris Agreement, where the Ocean is only mentioned in the preamble ... and where economy or economics is mentioned over 20 times.”  Consistent with this focus, COP26 delegates displayed little or no willingness to question basic assumptions about Nature as human property to be used for private gain and human convenience – no impulse to move towards Earth stewardship by learning to consume and live differently.  Delegates appeared to believe that by simply replacing fuel sources and properly harnessing technological advances, the climate catastrophe could be solved without any changes in law or lifestyles in wealthier nations.  

While we wish that COP26 had accomplished more, we realize that there are serious limitations on what can be accomplished through the COP model.  There is no world government, no global environmental law, and no world court with jurisdiction to enforce the COP26 Pact or similar agreements.  However, the UN COP summits provide a forum for the creation of voluntary agreements between and among nations.  Perhaps even more important, the summits provide a rare opportunity for in person, global communication and shared experience.  They facilitate communication between divergent countries and interests -- between the neediest and the wealthiest nations and between the Global South and North -- an opportunity to work for the common welfare of all people and the entire community of life on Earth. 

The summits also provide a vital opportunity for governments to hear from the people.  The Glasgow gathering included several massive street demonstrations.  On November 5th, Greta Thunberg spoke to thousands of young people and schoolchildren at a Fridays for Future rally, demanding action, not talk.  On November 6, designated the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, 100,00 people marched in Glasgow, and thousands more marched in other cities.  News reports estimated that a global total of over two million people took to the streets, demanding action.   

While disappointing, it is not surprising that negotiations and governments act slowly.  Governmental leaders must balance competing policies and interests, including balancing their countries’ short-term economic interests against their peoples’ and future generations’ long-term welfare.  

However, that does not mean that the young people and others, like those consigned to the Green Zone and those marching in the streets should be patient.  Indeed, it means the opposite.  The continuing onslaught of climate-related disasters demonstrates that impatience is not only warranted.  It’s essential.  Earth is heating even faster than anticipated by the scientific community.  Nature won’t wait on the ponderous progress of diplomacy.  

In his closing remarks, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized the need for ongoing pressure on world governments and acknowledged the power of activism and of the “climate action army”, which took to the Glasgow streets by the tens of thousands.  He admonished that army, saying, “Never give up.  Never retreat.  Keep pushing forward.”

The COP process provides possibilities.  Here at Earth Law, we will keep pushing for results. We will push for a transition away from classifying Earth as human property and toward a new paradigm of Earth-centered laws and policies.  We will continue advocating in council chambers and the courts.   We will continue to assist others in their fight for social justice and Earth stewardship. COP26 demonstrated to us that, despite huge disparities in wealth, power and interests, world-wide progress can be made towards living in Harmony with Nature.  ELC will push, ever harder, to speed that progress.    

One Innovative Approach to Rebalancing the Human Nature Relationship: Ecocide

“Ecocide” means the killing of our home: “eco” from oikos, house in Greek, and “cide” from cidere, to kill in Latin. The full legal definition can be read here.

Earlier this year, the organization End Ecocide International led a team of legal experts to draft a “historic” definition of ecocide. This would pave a path to adding mass environmental destruction to the list of crimes the International Criminal Court can prosecute.

Advocates hope  the crime of ecocide will be recognized by the International Criminal Court, which investigates and tries international crimes, including genocide and war crimes. 

The ecocide draft law is a milestone for the many individuals, organizations and countries who have pursued this approach as a way to hold the worst polluters accountable. In 1970, Arthur Galston, a plant biologist at Yale, introduced “ecocide” to describe the significant environmental harms caused by the chemical warfare used to strip away vegetation during the Vietnam War. The late Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme, pushed the concept at the 1972 UN environmental conference in Stockholm. 

Beyond the movement to codify ecocide within international law (about a dozen countries now have domestic ecocide laws), the new definition provides a model for various national level legal proposals as well, a secondary goal of the panel. France has already moved to include ecocide in its own new national Climate and Resilience Act, while simultaneously asking its parliament to consider supporting the calls for ecocide to be included in international criminal law. Mexico, the U.K., and Chile are all considering incorporating ecocide into their laws (or in Chile’s case the constitution) as well. 

Protecting Wild Nature in the Balkans 

Earth Law Center (ELC) first covered ecocide in 2020, read the blog here. ELC partners with Earth Thrive and others to seek remedies for the ecocide being committed in the Balkans by thousands of small hydro facilities being built on some of Europe’s last wild rivers (read a previous blog here). These small dams and diversions fragment and dewater countless rivers, some being drained or enclosed completely. In Serbia alone, some 800 dams are planned. This onslaught against rivers is encouraged by laws in Serbia and other Balkan countries that promote small hydro, as well as EU-level policies (such as the Renewable Energy Directive) that promote dams as “renewable” energy despite the reality that they permanently devastate freshwater ecosystems. 

This issue was presented by ELC and Earth Thrive at a recent ‘Rights of Nature Tribunal’ (a civil society initiative hosted by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature) focused on freshwater ecosystems in Europe. The Tribunal finding that "it is possible to conclude that the operators of hydroelectric dams and the State of Serbia are jointly responsible for a crime of ecocide" and that "other States in the Balkans are likely to have committed or allowed to commit crimes of ecocide as a consequence of their dam-building programs.” Now, we are expanding our campaign by seeking practical reform in Serbian, Balkan countries, and the EU. 

Implications beyond international law

Earth Law Center, in its work to transform the law to protect all life on the planet, fully supports the new definition of ecocide as well as its inclusion in the Rome Statute. 

To fulfill our mission, our team of legal experts helps write and enforce a new generation of Earth-centered laws, including laws recognizing the Rights of Nature, the rights of future generations, Indigenous rights, recognizing ecocide as a crime, and others. 

We call this broad field “Earth law,” like human rights law but for all living species. 

In addition to legal advocacy, ELC also wrote the first and only law school coursebook on Earth law, which includes a chapter on ecocide.  

Take action today and be part of the solution:

• Read more about ELC’s work, peruse our blog library

• Sign up for ELC’s monthly newsletter

• Support a new initiative by donating here

• Find out more about ELC’s coursebook to include in your curriculum here

• For any questions, please feel free to reach out to info@earthlaw.org
  

Heat Check: Post-COP26

By Jason Effmann

Coming out of the COP26—a terrible name for a climate conference if ever there was one, in that the C is not for “Climate” but “Conference” and the P isn’t “Planet” but “Parties”—it’s easy to feel frustrated that more wasn’t accomplished.

The ELC’s own Ocean Campaign Director, Michelle Bender—who was in attendance and opened a panel on Rights of Nature—summarized COP26 as business-as-usual. “Governments and the one-percent are failing to make the necessary changes due to a false assumption that climate action is a cost to our economy,” she said, “when in fact climate action is a win for all. One way or another the Earth will force us to change our behavior. We can either be proactive, or we can wait until we have no other option.” 

Future Prime Minister of Whatever’s Left of Sweden Greta Thunberg certainly agrees, remarking—and this is a direct quote—“Blah, blah, blah” to the new deal, which softened from “phasing out” coal to “phasing down” faster than an Indian factory can make a soccer ball. 

But Thunberg also said, “The real work goes on outside these halls.” And although it’s unfortunate that the halls largely made more of their catered lunches than they did of their opportunity to protect the planet, there is some real, good work going on outside. Let’s take a look at some recent examples while we think of the next nasty tweet to fire at Joe Manchin, shall we?

And while we’re here: For ways you can contribute to the real work we do at ELC, click here.

The River Thames: “Not Dead Yet”

In 1957, Britain’s most famous river (sorry, all you Avon stans) was so polluted scientists believed that it was incapable of supporting wildlife and declared it “biologically dead.” But a multi-faceted approach to improving that water quality has resulted in an uptick in wildlife since the 1990s, and now there’s a first-ever study by the Zoological Society of London that shows just how far the Thames has come. Turns out, the answer is quite far: sharks, sea horses, seals and more than 100 species of fish have now been catalogued as living in or around the waterway. Concerns still abound over the river’s rising water temperature and nitrogen levels, but improved oxygen rates are another promising sign of recovery. Just imagine how teeming with life the Thames might be once London’s proposed “super sewer” is built—it’s expected to capture 39 metric tons of untreated sewage that currently gets flushed into the river every year. 

California’s Kelp Forests Hit a Growth Spurt

After a 95-percent die-back related to surging heat and a population boom of seaweed-munching urchins, kelp forests on the north coast of California have suddenly returned with a vengeance, nearly doubling in size. According to what marine biologists knew, this shouldn’t be happening—once urchin barrens (areas of high urchin population, resulting in complete deforestation) are established, they tend to stick around. Craig Johnson, a researcher at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, compares an urchin barren to “taking a bulldozer to a rainforest.” But a return of cooler waters to the coast may have shorted that takeover, allowing the kelp to respond. How long it lasts may depend as much—or more—on water temperatures than a struggle for resources, but at least it’s not the death sentence once feared. Now: if only someone was working on keeping atmospheric and oceanic temperatures down...

$350 billion clean-up on Aisles 1-50

President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $350 billion to improve the air and water conditions of many communities hit hard by crumbling infrastructure. It’s not nearly what most had hoped for. It is in no way a “Green New Deal.” But given the narrow senate majority, some conservative stances taken by a couple of members of his own party, and the fact that this bill looked like it was going to have its spine completely removed at one point, we’ll take anything we can get. 

Britain Passes Substantial Environmental Law

After 3 years of campaigning, the UK’s first environmental law in 26 years has passed. The Environment Act places a cap on species decline, cracks down on illegal forestation, and sets targets for reduction in sewage discharge into rivers, waterways and coastlines—though timelines and rates are not yet determined. Activists in Britain are cautiously hailing the legislation as a solid step forward, while being mindful of the gaps; Environment secretary George Eustice spoke a little more bullishly, calling it “the most ambitious environmental program of any country on Earth.” Proving that while change like this is positive, clearly we have a long way to go. 

New York Voters Do the Same

New Yorkers spent election day this year overwhelmingly passing the Environmental Rights Amendment, a simple 15-word statement granting “the right of each person to clean air and water and a healthful environment.” Of course, that right only extends to the borders of New York State. Bad luck, New Jersey! (Side note: I feel like people probably say that to you a lot.) 

Borneo Forest Replanters have an 80% success rate

A decade-long project to reforest the banks of the Kinabatangan River has yielded extraordinary results. In a country that exports a massive amount of palm oil and bulldozes much of its ecological diversity in order to create palm oil plantations, local women have been creating a forest corridor to connect animals from one wildlife sanctuary to another. The women have planted 250 acres of forest—but more importantly, they have a success rate of keeping more than 80% of the planted trees alive. (Though information is spotty, a survival rate of reforested trees is typically closer to 40%.) Their secret is quite simple: Once they plant, they regularly return to nurture the trees until they reach adequate size. This whole saving-the-planet business is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Finally, an actual heat check

The hottest recorded temperature during the COP26 talks was in Tete, Mozambique, which hit a high of 113.9F (45.5C) on Tuesday, November 9. It tied the highest recorded temperature in the Southern Hemisphere so far this season. 

Find some shade if you can. I hear Borneo’s working on it.

The Effort to Strengthen Ecuador’s Rights of Nature Laws

Earth Law Center’s Environmental and Forest Policy Expert, Carla Cardenas, a leader in advocating for a broader application of Rights of Nature in Ecuador, has filed a proposal for legislative reform with Ecuador’s National Assembly to strengthen Ecuador’s laws protecting nature’s rights. 

Ecuador is one of the few nations in the world that has Rights of Nature written into its very constitution, and has often been cited in the earth law movement as a model of forward-thinking reform. However, recent events draw attention to the fact that while Ecuador’s constitution may be progressive, more work remains to align legal code and administrative procedures with those constitutional principles. 

What’s In a Name?

Despite the protections laid out in Ecuador’s constitution, there’s been an incursion of mining concessions that cut into the heart of invaluable forests such as Los Cedros and Nangaritza, and seem to violate these principles. Both Los Cedros and Nangaritza forests are categorized as Protected Forests under law, but the mining concessions reveal that there’s still room for environmental exploitation. The conundrum lies, as it so often does in legal matters, in a subtle problem of classification. While the constitution lays out the protections described above, and specifically proscribes extractive activities within protected areas, Los Cedros and Nangaritza are classified as protected forests—not protected areas.

Ecuador’s Environmental Organic Code (COA) establishes the National System of Protected Areas, or SNAP, which includes national parks, wildlife refuges, wildlife production reserves, national recreation areas, and marine reserves. Protected forests are described and established in a separate article of the environmental code, but notably do not receive the same protections from extractive industry. As a result, these remarkable, uniquely biodiverse ecosystems are vulnerable.

How We’re Fighting Back

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador is currently considering the mining concessions in both Los Cedros and Nangaritza protected forests, cases in which the Earth Law Center, along with partner organizations, have filed amicus curiae, though it’s unclear when the court will reach a decision. 

In the meantime, alongside organizations CEDENMA, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN), and International Rivers, Cardenas has filed a petition for legislative reform with Ecuador’s National Assembly. The proposed reform to legislation would include protected forests as well as other sensitive areas in the SNAP designation and ensure that no mining can occur in these designated areas. It also calls for clear and enforceable sanctions for violations of forest protections, as there are currently none written into the Environmental Organic Code—another loophole Cardenas is eager to see closed. 

Cardenas had the good fortune to be present in Ecuador and was able to present her case in person to the National Assembly’s Biodiversity Commission in a plenary session. Cardenas and international partners shared their analysis of the legal misalignment between Ecuador’s environmental code and its constitution, and laid out their proposed legislative fix that would ensure protection of the rights of forests, water sources, animals, and mangroves, among others.

While the timeline for implementing into law the proposed reforms is unclear, Cardenas is optimistic, and notes that it was a unique, first-time opportunity to present directly to representatives of the National Assembly.

Both the court cases and the proposed legislative reforms would create a clearer delineation of Rights of Nature, making it more practicable, enforceable, and free of loopholes. If passed, the legislation will take the principles laid out in Ecuador’s world-leading declaration of Rights of Nature within its constitution and make them a reality on the ground. A hugely important step, as more and more localities and nations consider the framework Ecuador has created.

What You Can Do

While the proposed legislative reforms are under consideration and the Los Cedros and Nangaritza forest mining concessions are scrutinized in Ecuador’s courts, and there is no clear timeline for the results of these key decisions, there is more to be done than simply sitting and waiting. Even those who aren’t citizens or have no direct ties to Ecuador can send letters to the national assembly or constitutional court, letting decision-makers know that these issues matter, that the world is watching, and that there is real opportunity here to set an important precedent on the international stage.

In the meantime, Cardenas will continue to work alongside other organizations, including CEDENMA, to push for these and other important reforms to Ecuador’s legal system, ensuring that irreplaceable and invaluable areas like these forests are protected and preserved.

If you want to become involved in Earth Law Center or have an initiative in your community that would benefit from ELC support, please consider:

• Volunteering or interning

• Donating

• Reaching out to us about your case

Meet Carla Cardenas—Environmental & Forest Expert for ELC

Meet Carla Cardenas, ELC’s Environmental & Forest Policy Expert

Interview by Keith Morgan for ELC.

To truly understand the Earth Law Center, it is necessary to learn more about the people who are implementing its goals all over the world. Carla Cardenas, ELC’s environmental and forest policy expert, is key in orchestrating the fight to protect Nature’s inherent rights to exist, thrive, and evolve.

Meet Carla Cardenas, a Champion for the Rights of Nature

Carla Cardenas is an environmental lawyer with over 15 years of experience; an International Board Member in the Forest Stewardship Council, the main forest certification initiative in the world; and the founder of Nunamaisha, which works to conserve the environment through the preservation of indigenous communities. Her expertise in international collaboration, forest governance, and management of natural resource conservation projects are a great fit with ELC’s mission to build an international grassroots movement to protect Nature.

Throughout the years, Carla has added new skills to improve her ability to fight for Nature—a degree of Master at Laws from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Master in Management of Natural Resources from the Catholic University of Ecuador; and a Master in Bioethics and Law from Barcelona University. Carla continues to fight for the Rights of Nature, forests, and indigenous peoples. She joined ELC in 2019 as a volunteer while completing her Master of Laws program at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Now a full-time member of the ELC team, Carla’s incredible achievements for the Earth Law movement include:

An amicus curiae to defend the Rights of Nature in the pioneering Los Cedros, Bosque Protector case, which was chosen for argument before the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court in order to produce the first jurisprudence decision establishing the rights of Nature as plaintiff.

High-profile amicus briefs seeking an injunction from Ecuador’s Constitutional Court directing the HIDROTAMBO hydroelectric plant to restore the Dulcepamba River.

Documentation for the “Los Mecheros” case brought by Indigenous peoples to stop the use of open-air petroleum well gas flaring, which harms the lives of thousands of children and families in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Get to know Carla in her own words—a Q&A

ELC: What inspired your devotion to the environment?

CC: I grew up in a small town in Ecuador where we have forest, paramos, mountains and where live Indigenous people. The town’s name is Otavalo. I was inspired from childhood to dedicate my life to protect Nature and apply the Indigenous cosmovision that implies respect to the Pachamama. It means that the environment is our “Mother” and should be respected and protected. The difference is that under this concept, Nature is not just a resource to exploit; it is a part of our life.

Later, when I was young, I achieved a love for politics and law, so, I decided to be an environmental lawyer when I was 17 years old. In Ecuador, there was not [an] environmental law studies [program], so I had to find my own way to become an environmental lawyer. I studied [for] a master’s in management of Natural Resources. With the combination of my knowledge in law and management of natural resources I was able to become an environmental lawyer.

ELC: Any advice for aspiring lawyers?

CC: I would like to tell young lawyers that please choose a law area of work with meaning. Law was created to change the world and make life better for everyone. Enjoy your life being a lawyer with cause.

ELC: How does a Rights of Nature strategy fit into your approach to environmental / social stewardship?

CC: Rights of Nature are now in the Courts. Rights of Nature are a new paradigm that in some ways picks up the philosophy of Indigenous people. That is why I feel so linked with this perspective and a way to see the world because I have grown with that. Also, I consider that the Rights of Nature are a lighthouse to governments, organization and communities that need to decide how to develop in a sustainable way.

Environmental lawyers can now use Rights of Nature as an ally to defend the ecosystems when companies are destroying water, forest, paramos, oceans, and mountains. This new tool allows them to raise the voice of Nature before judges. Judges are hearing us, it is true, it is happening, so we can see now several Court Decisions that prioritize Nature over extractive activities in Colombia, Ecuador, New Zealand and more.

“I feel very happy working with Earth Law Center in our cases that constitute precedents in Court to spread this new perspective of give Nature rights and for that better life for people also. I am happy provoking the change in Courts.”

ELC: What projects are you currently working on for ELC?

CC: I am working in the most important cases that the Constitutional Court in Ecuador will hold about the respect of Nature in Bosques Protectors from the damage that mining companies cause. The Constitutional Court in Ecuador needs to decide if the rights of Nature are violated with the mining activities that destroy forests, pollute water, and violate rights of Indigenous people to protect their Pachamama. These cases are the Bosques Protector Los Cedros y El Bosque Protector Nangaritza.

The ELC Latin American team is working also to declare the unconstitutionality of the Environmental Code, which has omitted Rights of Nature for the case of the mangroves and therefore opens the possibility to create infrastructure over them. Mangroves are ecosystems that are fragile and any infrastructure development will destroy them.

I am also working on Rights of Nature proposals in Peru and in Panamá. Earth Law Center is working to provide comments to the national assembly members and we are encouraging countries to recognize the rights of Nature.

What’s Next?

Earth Law Center is proud that Carla is an ELC champion for Nature. You can join in the ELC movement to change how humans interact with Nature as well. Consider joining our mission by donating your skills and time or make a financial donation through our website.

Documentary Review: Race to Save The World

Climate activist youth, Aji Piper, demands the rights to clean air for his generation from the state of Washington.

“What’s stopping us from saving the Earth?” - Mack Wilkins, Race To Save The World.

Produced by Emmy award-winning film director, Joe Gantz’s Race To Save The World cycles through the narratives of various climate activists across America who are willing to sacrifice their relationships, careers, and freedom in order to fight against the deep-rooted issue of climate change. Gantz develops his own “life-in-progress” style of film-making by shadowing and recording the lengths to which these everyday heroes would go for the sake of environmental justice. After carefully choosing his subjects and six years of filming, he crafts an authentic and relatable documentary that compiles invigorating stories of those who radically challenge existing institutions and laws for the sake of a healthy planet.

"When laws that protect property are more important than the laws that protect life, things get pretty messed up" - Michael Foster, Race To Save The World.

Gantz portrays the sense of urgency that is unavoidable given the current trajectory of climate change, an emotion felt by people of all ages and stages of life. Current, anthropocentric-centered laws fail to adequately protect Nature. With a lack of Rights of Nature in place, the Earth is being threatened, and the necessities of life, like clean air and water, are no longer guaranteed. Despite its focus on the often anxiety-inducing topic of climate change, Gantz’s film aims to serve as an invigorating, uplifting, and energizing watch. From 15-year-old Aji to 72-year-old Miriam, his subjects courageously commit to the risks to raise awareness against harmful, corrupt institutions. In an interview with Into Film, Gantz states that his goal is to inspire viewers with the feeling that: "We have to deal with this now. We have to make profound changes. We have to jump in and demand that these changes must be made." Through Race to Save the World, Gantz wants to encourage individuals to take action against the anthropocentric legal system that prioritizes economic profits over Nature’s health.

"It's a battle of paradigms where corporations have rights and investors have rights, but future generations don't have rights? The planet doesn't have rights?" - Bill Moyer, Race To Save The World.

There is much to be done, and it is intimidating to be an individual fighting against what seems to be extensive and irreversible environmental damage. However, there are so many ways to get involved and so many supportive communities working toward the same goal. At the Earth Law Center, we believe that all life on Earth, not just humans, has the inherent right to a livable planet. Our organization works on multiple levels to ensure that Nature can defend its rights in court. The ecocentric movement amplifies the voice of Nature and demands fundamental changes in the legal systems. We believe that protecting the Rights of Nature to exist, thrive, and evolve will lead to the wellbeing of all life on Earth.

If you want to become involved in Earth Law Center or have an initiative in your community that requires ELC support, please consider:

• Volunteering or interning

• Donating

• Reaching out to us about your case

Be sure to check out Joe Gantz’s Race To Save The World, available to watch on https://www.theracetosavetheworld.com/. 

Earth Law Center Partners with Prestigious Law School in Chile

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso law students will learn how to implement an ecocentric approach in Chile

By Chloe Heskett

This spring, Earth Law Center launched a new partnership with the Law School of the prestigious Chilean university Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Alumni from this renowned university go on to become lawyers, judges, politicians and other influential actors in the region.

The collaboration between Earth Law Center (ELC) and the Chilean university creates exciting opportunities not only for law students at the university to complete internships with ELC, but for ELC to introduce Earth law to the university’s legal scholarship.

ELC is excited to teach Earth law to a new generation of law students and hopes to soon begin setting up and running seminars and workshops on Earth law at the university, introducing the concepts of Rights of Nature and ecocentric law into the legal lexicon of a nation that is new to Earth jurisprudence.

As a country, Chile currently has no laws recognizing the Rights of Nature, and there are few opportunities to learn about how the Rights of Nature fit into both Earth law and the broader jurisprudence in Chile. Working with students at the Pontificia Universidad through this new collaboration can begin to change that. Given the university’s influence on Chile’s political and legal systems, introducing Earth law into legal education can shift the way Nature is viewed and protected.

For law students at the university, this partnership represents an eagerly awaited opportunity to explore a new field of law as well as to complete internships and broaden their networks. Law students at the preeminent university had expressed their eagerness to work with an organization relating to the environment, and the Earth Law Center is delighted to provide such an opportunity. Two students have already begun internships through the new program.

This collaboration will also serve as a model for future partnerships between ELC and other universities in Latin American countries, including a new potential partnership with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. These partnerships are particularly influential in nations whose laws and legal institutions do not yet recognize or utilize Earth law to protect and restore Nature, as working with students can influence legal institutions and the future of law-making in a country, promoting the Rights of Nature and ecocentric principles and promulgating Earth law around the world.

We’ll be sharing more about this program throughout the year. Be sure to check back to hear about students’ experiences and the success of the partnership!

Exploring the Earth Law Toolkit with ELC

An exciting new body of law is gaining attention with legislators, activists and legal professionals around the world: Earth law. Earth law takes an ecocentric approach as opposed to a purely anthropocentric one, bringing together diverse legal movements including the legal recognition of Nature’s rights, Indigenous and biocultural rights, the rights of future generations, and the right of humans to a healthy environment, among other legal frameworks.

Earth Law Center (ELC) has been at the center of the Earth law movement from its inception, and provides expert legal advice to governments, activists, litigants and other groups or individuals navigating this relatively new legal ground. In fact, ELC literally wrote the book on Earth law, having recently released the first law school textbook presenting cases and guidance on how to use Earth Law to protect and restore Nature.

To provide an idea of how that work is done, below are some of the key tools and frameworks of Earth law that ELC has helped shape and successfully deployed.

Crafting legislation that codifies Earth law

By writing Earth-centered protections into legal codes, municipalities and regional governments can give Nature a voice within local government and create stronger protections for local ecosystems . However, with a long history of treating Nature as a resource and legislating its use only as it relates to extraction and human benefit, it is not always easy or intuitive to turn from anthropocentric to ecocentric thinking.

This is where ELC’s expertise can be deployed. Most recently, ELC worked with Save the Colorado to draft a legal model that will enable U.S. municipalities to grant rights and protections to local rivers and watersheds and establish local guardianship bodies to protect those rights. Already, several municipalities in Colorado are considering local laws or resolutions that draw from these templates (exciting news soon to follow!).

Molding the models: Creating toolkits, frameworks, guidelines and Nature’s rights declarations

In addition to working on the local or regional level to help codify protections for Nature, ELC has worked on broader reaching, cutting-edge legislation to protect Nature, including co-drafting the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers and launching a standalone website where you can sign on in support, developed with ELC partner International Rivers and others. This declaration serves not only as a legal explanation for the rights of rivers, but as a legislative starting point for governments around the world interested in establishing the rights of rivers within their jurisdiction.

ELC has also played a foundational role in the Rights of Nature movement by creating toolkits and guidelines for those interested in advocating for Nature. For example, Michelle Bender, ELC’s Ocean Campaign Director, has led the creation of various Oceans-related toolkits, such as the Marine Protected Area toolkit and Rights for Coral Reefs toolkit.

ELC’s team of legal experts is writing a new DNA for legal systems around the world based on living in harmony with Nature, and making those legal models replicable and scalable.

Working with Indigenous Peoples to advance both Nature’s rights and Indigenous rights

Much as legal systems provide for guardianships for children or other individuals who cannot adequately represent or advocate for their interests, a key framework of Earth law is the establishment of legal guardianships for Nature. A useful model for this framework comes from New Zealand, which in 1978 granted legal personhood status to the Whanganui River in accordance with Maori beliefs.

While determining “who speaks for Nature” can be challenging, it is clear that it should be an independent body free of government or commercial interest and that it must represent a diversity of viewpoints. The exact guardianship model used can vary widely depending on the local community’s culture, beliefs, and traditions, but creating guardianships is a wonderful opportunity to build an inclusive governing body, and typically includes representation from local Indigenous communities, underrepresented communities, and non-profit and ecosystem protection organizations and local activists.

Advocating for the rights of future generations to a clean and healthy natural environment

In 2019, a district judge in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, ruled in favor of protecting two of the most contaminated rivers in Mexico, the Atoyac and Salado Rivers. ELC, among others, provided an amicus brief to the court in favor of protection, and was excited to discover that the Court drew from several of the legal arguments presented in the brief, including the argument that both present and future generations have a right to a healthy environment.

Since then, the legal argument that current and future generations have a right to protected, healthy natural environments has gained ground. Most recently, Germany’s highest court ruled in April that the federal government must amend their climate law, drawing up clearer reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions. The decision came after nine individuals, several of them young people, argued in court that as the climate law stood, it did not do enough to assure their right to a humane future.

The key frameworks outlined here are a few of the ways ELC’s legal experts are using Earth law to advance the protection and rights of Nature. ELC is excited to continue utilizing these tools and developing and advancing Earth law around the world. If you would like to get in touch with ELC’s Earth law experts, email info@earthlaw.org.

ELC Co-hosts Workshop at IUCN Youth Summit

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

By Michelle Bender and Chloe Heskett

In early April, about 170 youthful participants gathered virtually for a webinar and one-of-a-kind workshop on the Rights of Nature led by the Earth Law Center (ELC) and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) Youth Hub.

By Youth, For Youth

Hosted as part of the first International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Youth Summit in the first half of April, the joint ELC and GARN event was unique for its highly participatory nature. Attendees and facilitators got the chance to put their understanding of the Rights of Nature to use as they workshopped the IUCN’s conservation statutes together, and contributed to a declaration that was submitted to the Global Youth Summit.

“I loved seeing how the way participants were interacting shifted completely towards the end,” said co-facilitator, Ecuadorian Rights of Nature advocate and co-founder of the GARN Youth Hub Rafaela Iturralde. “The introduction was a great bridge and prep for the workshop as participants got themselves in a new mindset that many might have not experienced before.” 

Global Participation for Community Action

The event drew participation from around the world, with many of the attendees new to the Rights of Nature space.

Lauren Tarr, PhD candidate at the State University of New York (SUNY ESF) and GARN Youth Hub facilitator as well as co-facilitator of the workshop noted that it was wonderful to connect with people around the world about the Rights of Nature movement, and that the virtual and free format of the event meant more opportunity for many to participate.

“The diversity of backgrounds and experiences at this conference was enlightening and inspiring,” she said. “Having the conference be both online and free removed a lot of the traditional barriers (travel and costs) associated with international conferences. These barriers are especially prominent for youth who have limited funds and mobility.”

Removing barriers to participation not only enables youth from around the world to participate, but galvanizes community-level action. Shrishtee Bajpai, an activist-researcher with Kalpavriksh and Rights of Rivers South Asia Alliance (RORSA) in India shared her excitement “to encourage many more young people to join the efforts locally in their respective regions and create solidarity networks globally." 

A Call to Action

In addition to providing participants with a primer on the Rights of Nature legal movement, attendees participated in crafting a youth-led Rights of Nature declaration, which included a pledge to take “further action in deepening and spreading the awareness of the fundamental and inalienable rights of Nature and of future generations.” 

These actions are further spelled out in the declaration, and include restoring connection with Nature, spreading awareness within communities, paying greater attention to the way Nature is represented in language, self-educating about land histories and supporting Indigenous rights and sovereignty as well as advocating with educational institutions to include Rights of Nature frameworks in curricula.

Additionally, a key takeaway outlined in the declaration was a collective desire to continue to create space for youth to participate in the movement, including by “creating an IUCN Commission (or working group within each Commission) for Youth.” This was one of many policy demands made to the IUCN, calling on the Union to implement their commitments to ensure Rights of Nature is a focal point of decision making, as called for in IUCN’s Resolution 100.

“Young people have shown the desire and commitment to be part of the dialogue and conversation around the rights of nature, conservation of nature and climate emergency,” concluded Jack Omondi, co-facilitator and Membership and Outreach Facilitator at the GARN Youth Hub. 

Youth Rights of Nature leaders from ELC, GARN, and the IUCN will continue working towards putting the recommendations into action, and engaging a wider audience around advocating for the Rights of Nature internationally.