The Lummi Nation’s Fight for ‘Rights of the Orcas’

By: Chelsea Quaies and Michelle Bender

The Earth Law Center (ELC) is leading a coalition of community groups, NGOs, scientists and indigenous peoples to gain legal rights for the Southern Resident Orcas. The Southern Resident Orcas (SROs) are an endangered species due to limits on their main food source (chinook salmon) and pollution and disturbance within the Salish Sea ecosystem. This is the third blog in the series on this campaign.

Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash

History of the Orca of the Salish Sea

The Southern Resident Orca population of the Salish Sea once numbered over 200 individuals. In the last half-century, we have hunted them and destroyed their habitat to such a  point where they now face extinction. Captures reached their peak during the 1970s, when a large portion of the population were captured and sold to different marine parks for tourist attractions.

Kurt Russo, a member of the Lummi Nation describes the events that occurred on the day in 1970, when the Orcas were captured. “They were herded in by dynamite and underwater explosions, they were herded into a cove, and then they took whale after whale.” He then discusses how the residents of Penn Cove remembered  “the haunting sounds of the screams of the killer whales.” Around 80 whales were captured that day, and this is a large contributing factor to the decline in their population. Due to the significance of the captures on the Orca population, in 1976 a ban on the capture of Orcas for SeaWorld in Washington state was put into effect. After those practices were halted locally, the clan’s numbers rebounded, reaching a peak of 98 members in 1995. They now number 73 individuals.

The Orcas’ social structure is complex and stable. It is based on family groupings of pods, each containing several matrilineal lines. Because females may reach the age of 90, as many as four generations live together in pods containing 1-4 matrilines. The Orcas use similar vocal patterns, or dialects, to communicate with fellow clan members.        

The Orcas form and are united by strong emotional bonds.  They collaborate with one another in hunting, parenting, and teaching their young.  Those most familiar with Orcas describe them as highly intelligent, curious, playful, and problem-solving beings, who experience a full range of emotions: joy, fear, sorrow, frustration, and grief.  Recently, their capacity for strong emotional attachment was stunningly evident as an Orca mother carried her dead child for 17 days, over a distance of 1000 miles, before letting go.   

Those who know Orcas best describe them as caring protectors of one another, not only of one another, but also, on many occasions, of humans. Throughout history, there have been accounts abound of orcas helping people who were in danger in coastal waters, and there has never been a case of a free-living Orca harming a human.  Multiple examples appear in environmental scholar Carl Safina’s book, Beyond Words, What Animals Think and Feel  (2015). 

The movie ‘Free Willy’ of 1993, shows us not only how intelligent the Orca is, but also how deeply connected we are as sentient beings. It also foreshadows what would soon become a larger movement of freeing Orcas from captivity.

Photo by: Sacred Sea

Lummi Nation of Washington leads the way on protecting Nature

The Lummi Nation, with the traditional name Lhaq'temish, are a Native American tribe on the coast of northern Washington and southern British Columbia. They are a federally recognized tribe and self-governing nation.  In 1855, the Lummi Nation signed the Treaty of Point Elliott with the United States which assured these Native American tribes would have hunting and fishing rights and reservations. 

The Lummi Nation has always been a strong advocate for their rights and environmental justice. One of their largest accomplishments was their victory in the termination of the Gateway Pacific Terminal project in 2016. This terminal was due to be one of the largest coal exports port in North America, and permits for construction were released in 2011. The terminal would have increased rail-traffic across Washington State and along the Salish Shoreline, and through the Lummi Nation sacred village site of Cherry Point (Xwe’chi’eXen). Cherry Point is considered to be a sacred site due to its historical significance to their culture and their ancestors. The Lummi nation’s arguments against the terminal included that the terminal was a breach of the Treaty of Point Elliott and that by increasing exports and shipping traffic, it would increase the chance of a major oil spill in the Salish Sea and cause irrevocable environmental damage. After many years of fighting, in 2016 the Army Corps of Engineers denied the permit for the construction on behalf of the Lummi Nation’s rights.

Additionally, the Lummi have a strong connection with the Salish Sea, and have for thousands of years, with a majority of its population living on the coast and using the Salish Sea for survival including hunting, gathering and fishing. The Sea is of such great importance to this tribe they developed a campaign to protect the sea and its inhabitants. The campaign includes eliminating any new stressors to the Salish Sea, creating a healthy salmon population and producing a plan to redirect both marine vessels and development ideas. Their dedication became widely known when their journey to save Tokitae, a captured Orca from the Salish Sea that was put on display in an aquarium, became public.

Tokitae also known by her stage name, Lolita, is a Southern Resident Orca taken from her home and family in the Salish Sea in 1970 and sold to the Miami Seaquarium. The Lummi nation relate strongly to the Xwlemi word “qw’e lh’ol me chen” which means “our relations who live under the sea” and have dedicated this word to the Orcas, their family. They relate strongly with the captured Orca, the chairman of the Lummi Nation Jay Julius has said, “Just like Tokitae, members of the Lummi Nation have endured centuries of destructive policies … policies that have separated our families, depleted our salmon runs, desecrated our sacred sites and reduced our traditional fishing area.” Members of the Lummi nation set out on a mission from Washington state to where Tokitae is located to deliver a handmade totem pole designed specifically for her.

Photo by: Sacred Sea

Tokitae is the only survivor of 45 Orcas that were captured during those years of large-scale capture. Tokitae has been living on display in the aquarium for 45 years in a small 80 ft. long, 20 ft. deep tank in hot sunny Florida, catering to the guests of the aquarium and performing two shows a day. The members of the Lummi nation have vowed to bring her back to her home in the Salish Sea, with great plans for reconnecting her with her family, “it’s long past time to return Tokiate to her native habitat and ancestral waters”, with a larger goal this will bring back peace to the Salish Sea. In recent years, the Seaquarium has been served a lawsuit over the welfare and treatment of Tokitae. In July 2019, two tribal members of the Lummi Nation (suing on their own behalf) announced an intent to sue the Seaquarium for a violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), in order to elicit Tokitae’s release. The 1990 federal law  NAGPRA has been used for the repatriation of archaeological artifacts. Dr. Kurt Russo said. “NAGRPRA is about cultural patrimony. This is not just about a single killer whale and two people, it’s about an essential sense of belonging that cannot be adequately expressed in legal language.”

The goal of her relocation from the Seaquarium back to the wild involves rehabilitation efforts including medical care and supreme husbandry care inside her seapen which will be in a protected area, where her family can come visit. She will then be gradually re-trained for her release into the wild after completion in rehab. The director of the non-profit group Orca Network, Howard Garrett said in an interview, “We would like to see her enjoy her life. We would like to see her be able to swim free in the waters where she grew up.”           

The world is also starting to see the harm in keeping cetaceans in captivity.  Animal Welfare Institute, PETA and many other organizations and people are fighting to end this practice. You may have seen the movie Blackfish, highlighting this issue, or the use of the hashtag #EmptytheTanks. As a result of coordinated activism, entire countries have banned the practice altogether. Earlier in 2019, Canada passed legislation banning the captivity of whales and dolphins (those already held can remain). Chile, Australia and Costa Rica, amongst others, have also stopped the capture of wild marine mammals with major fines in place if someone is caught doing so.

Within the United States there has also been major changes in the captivity of cetaceans, resulting in legislation banning display of whales and dolphins in New York, South Carolina, Hawaii and California. 

Some countries and states have taken the ‘Empty the Tanks’ Campaign one step further, recognizing marine mammals as sentient beings that have rights. On May 20, 2013, India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests banned the keeping of captive dolphins for public entertainment. A statement from B.S. Bonal of the Central Zoo Authority declared that “confinement in captivity can seriously compromise the welfare and survival of all types of cetaceans by altering their behavior and causing extreme distress.” The Ministry even declared that dolphins “should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights.” In a policy statement, the ministry advised state governments to reject any proposal to establish a dolphinarium “by any person / persons, organizations, government agencies, private or public enterprises that involves import, capture of cetacean species to establish for commercial entertainment, private or public exhibition and interaction purposes whatsoever.”

Additionally, in California, both San Francisco and Malibu passed resolutions in 2014, expanding towards the notion that cetaceans have rights, namely the right to move freely in their habitat. The Marine Life Proclamation passed in Malibu in 2014 resolved that whales and dolphins have the right to free and safe passage and “encourages citizens of the world to do all within their power to protect them and preserve the oceans in which they were destined to spend their lives.” San Francisco likewise passed the “Free and Safe Passage of Whales and Dolphins in San Francisco’s Coastal Waters” resolution supporting the free and safe passage of cetaceans in their waters and to be free from captivity. Finally, in 2010, a conference held on Cetacean Rights in Helsinki produced a Declaration on the Rights of Cetaceans with the goal of universal adoption. 

Campaign for the Rights of the Southern Resident Orcas 

The people of Washington State are worried for the Southern Resident Orcas and the lack of governmental and political response in trying to support the recovery of these animals, including their habitat and food supply. The Lummi nation as well as many others, including the Earth Law Center (ELC), believe that systemic change is needed in order to save the population from extinction.

Late 2018, ELC joined with Legal Rights for the Salish Sea (a community group based in Gig Harbor, WA) to create a coalition of groups working towards recognizing the rights of the Southern Resident Orcas. Together, the coalition has made significant strives towards realization of its goals. In the last year alone, the campaign has been featured in over 10 articles. Partners in Pender Island, BC, Canada, have a petition sitting with the Pender Island Trust Council, and the group is working with other local and state policymakers to pass resolutions in support.

The Campaign is in line with the Lummi Nation’s beliefs and goals. Recognizing the rights of the Southern Resident Orcas gives them a higher form of protection, both legally and judicially. These rights include, but are not limited to, the right to life, autonomy, culture, adequate food supply and free and safe passage. Specifically, if rights to free and safe passage are codified for the Orcas, this could create implications and a legal framework in support of the Lummi Nation’s fight to free Tokitae back to the Salish Sea. Therefore, supporting the beliefs and the rights of the indigenous peoples surrounding the Salish Sea is a top priority within the Colation’s campaign.

“Our belief is that not only the salmon and qwe ‘lhol mechen [Orca], but all the air, the land, the water, the creatures, they all have inherent rights,” Kurt Russo, Lummi Nation.

To learn more about the lawsuit, or the Lummi Nation’s Salish Sea campaign visit here.

You can learn more about the ‘Rights of the Orcas’ here and by emailing mbender@earthlaw.org.

You can also support our efforts by donating today.

How Earth Law Can Help Protect Old Growth Forests

Figure 1 Photo by Mali Maeder from Pexels

By Hali Stuck

Living in West Virginia, nature is a huge part of my life. With a forest as my backyard, I hike weekly. My beautiful and biologically diverse state is in good company. The United States has 154 protected areas known as National Forests, which represent 14% of the total land area of the nation and one tenth of the protected land area of the world. Although this is down from the roughly 50% of forested land that existed prior to the arrival of Europeans, the majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910. 

Forests face such destructive threats around the world that the first ever UN Strategic Plan for Forests was created in 2017 at a Special Session of the UN Forum on Forests. The plan has a focus on sustainably managing all types of forests and trees outside forests and on halting deforestation and forest degradation.

Forests cover nearly 30% of the world’s landmass and 18 million acres are lost each year – an area the size of Panama (or between the sizes of South Carolina and West Virginia). At this rate, the world’s forests will disappear in about 250 years – just nine generations away. The United States of America has been a nation longer than that and we are still considered a young country.

So, what can we do about this and why should we care?

What Trees Do for Our Earth

New research has revealed a multitude of ways in which forests create rain and cool local climates. The paper calls for a paradigm shift in the way the international community views forests and trees, from a carbon-centric model to one that recognizes their importance in cross-continental water cycles. Specifically the paper concludes that integrating forest effects on energy balance, the water cycle and climate into policy actions is key for the successful pursuit of adaptation and forest carbon-related mitigation goals.

The Water Cycle

Figure 2 Water Cycle. Sagar Purnima

Among plants, trees are by far the most effective evapo-transpirers, adding moisture to the air. Transpiration is the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, where it changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere. Transpiration is essentially evaporation of water from plant leaves.

One tree sends between 250 to 400 gallons of water a day into the atmosphere.  Recent studies have shown that as much as 70 percent of the atmospheric moisture generated over land areas comes from plants (as opposed to evaporation from lakes or rivers) – much more than previously thought. New research has revealed that forests also play a key role in water vapor actually forming clouds and then falling as rain. 

Trees emit aerosols that contain tiny biological particles – fungal spores, pollen, microorganisms and general biological debris – that are swept up into the atmosphere. Rain can only fall when atmospheric water condensates into droplets, and these tiny particles make that easier by providing surfaces for the water to condense onto. 

Local water availability

Research conducted by Ulrik Ilstedt from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, one of the study’s co-authors, has shown that in dry landscapes, trees (at some densities) can actually increase the availability of water, by assisting with groundwater recharge. 

Tree roots – and the animals they attract like ants, termites and worms – help to create holes in the soil for the water to flow through.

Figure 3 Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Forests cool locally and globally

Forests cool the Earth’s surface not just with shade, but the water they transpire cools the air nearby. “One single tree is equivalent to two air conditioners, and can reduce the temperature by up to 2 degrees,” says study author Daniel Murdiyarso, from CIFOR.

Maintaining tree cover can therefore reduce high temperatures and buffer some of the extremes likely to arise with climate change, the authors say.

The Carbon Cycle 

Forests contain three-fourths of the earth’s plant biomass, about half of which is carbon. Thus forests play a key role in the global carbon cycle by capturing, storing, and cycling carbon.

How do they do this? Trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, using it as food while producing oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis. U.S. forests alone store 14 percent of all annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the national economy. 

NASA has just released a new map which shows the carbon stored in the forests around the world. Forests in the 75 tropical countries studied contained 247 billion tons of carbon. Consider that 10 billion tons of carbon gets released annually from combined fossil fuel burning and land use changes.

Researchers also found that forests in Latin America hold 49 percent of the carbon in the world's tropical forests. For example, Brazil's carbon stock alone, at 61 billion tons, almost equals all of the carbon stock in sub-Saharan Africa, at 62 billion tons.

Homes

80% of land-dwelling animals live in forests. Even dolphins can be found in rainforests (in the rivers).

Over two-thirds of the species currently listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) live in forests. That’s about 4,600 plant and animal species, including the Louisiana black bear, key deer, and red-cockaded woodpecker. 

Figure 4 Red-cockaded Woodpecker in Louisiana. Dominic Sherony

Pollution, storm and drought mitigation

One large tree can lift up to 100 gallons of water out of the ground and discharge it into the air in a day. That means trees also absorb rain runoff (which often happens to be polluted) thus preventing some of it from running into streams, rivers, lakes, and the ocean.

Forests can retain excess rainwater, prevent extreme run-offs and reduce the damage from flooding. They can also help mitigate the effects of droughts. Trees have the ability to provide shade and even water to nearby areas. Trees also assist in reducing water pollution by absorbing water before it travels to polluted areas and disperses into nearby streams, lakes, and rivers. 

Results of deforestation

Deforestation means “ the permanent removal of standing forests through deliberate, natural, or accidental means.”

Short-term human needs sacrifice long term sustainability when it comes to cutting down trees. Driven largely by the need for: fuel, housing development, timber harvesting for furniture and paper products, clearing land for agriculture and cattle ranching – deforestation has many unintended consequences. 

Increased destruction from natural disasters

When rivers cannot cope with rainfall, floods occur. Floods caused an estimated $8bn of losses around the world in the month of March 2019. Human factors contributing to the increased rate of flooding include structural failures of dams and levees, altered drainage, and land-cover alterations (such as pavement) not to mention higher intensity storms and unusual precipitation patterns from climate change.

Rivers that have been dredged and canalized to protect farmland not only destroy riparian ecosystems but also bring flood waters further inland. By re-connecting brooks, streams and rivers to floodplains, former meanders and other natural storage areas, and enhancing the quality and capacity of wetlands, river restoration increases natural storage capacity and reduces flood risk.

50 years ago, the Puyallup River (near Tacoma) endured significant straightening and levee building while opening up the river’s floodplains for people to cultivate and build on. Starting in 2015, the levees on the Puyallup River are being intentionally breached or setback to reconnect the river with its floodplains. Regional efforts resulted in the Floodplains by Design program, a partnership with Washington State’s Department of Ecology, the Puget Sound Partnership, and The Nature Conservancy. Floodplains by Design uses a competitive process to fund multi-benefit floodplain restoration projects that “improve flood protection for towns and farms, restore salmon habitats, improve water quality, and enhance outdoor recreation”.

Figure 5 Map of the Puyallup River.

Climate Change

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important heat-trapping (greenhouse) gas, which is released through human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, accounting for 82.2% of all US greenhouse gases. 

Deforestation not only removes a key absorber of carbon dioxide, felled trees also release back into the atmosphere all the carbon they’ve stored. Burning or leaving trees to rot causes further emissions – with deforestation responsible for about 10 percent of worldwide emissions.

Scientific American notes that deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of cars and trucks on the world’s roads. According to the World Carfree Network (WCN), cars and trucks account for about 14 percent of global carbon emissions, while most analysts attribute upwards of 15 percent to deforestation.

Figure 6 Rainforest loss over time.

Disease and species loss

Due to the clearing of the forests, animals have to either compact themselves into smaller environments or move into closer proximity to humans resulting in an increase in zoonotic diseases (a disease that normally exists in animals but that can infect humans).

According to EcoHealth Alliance 31% of new outbreaks of Nipah virus, Zika, and Ebola have links to deforestation.

They also say that areas that have experienced significant amounts of deforestation are more likely to see an Ebola outbreak in two years than an area that has not.

What has been done 

In 2016 the Paris agreement became available to signatures from within the United Nations. The agreement aims to prevent global temperature change from reaching the 2 degrees threshold.  Signatories agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by switching to greener and more stable and effective technology.

Currently the only country that has not signed is the United States.

Other acts such as the Wilderness Act and the Lacey Act help to prevent deforestation by outlawing imports of illegal wood.

Figure 7. Forest in Inverness, Reino Unido. Photo by Luis Del Río Camacho on Unsplash

How Earth Law can help

Rights of Nature can help protect forests by recognizing the inherent rights of forests to exist, thrive and evolve. The needs of a forest ecosystem can be considered along with the needs of other parties, so that win win solutions can be created instead of ones that only result in the destruction of forest ecosystems.

Forest rights are currently at the forefront of Earth Law Center’s work, partnering with Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos and other partners in El Salvador to draft a Declaration of the Rights of Natural Forests in El Salvador.  

Earth Law Center supports the idea that humans have a responsibility for how we impact the world around us. The belief that nature — the species and ecosystems that comprise our world — has inherent rights has proven to be a galvanizing idea, and we work with local communities to help them organize around the rights of nature to protect their environment from the threats that they see.

The heart of the ELC approach is to seek legal personhood for ecosystems and species, a designation similar to that given to corporations in U.S. law, and one that if done well will imply both rights for the entities so designated and responsibilities on the part of human beings and societies to respect those rights.

Empowering nature empowers communities: when advocates see themselves as rights defenders rather than responsible stewards of nature for human ends, the stakes are raised, and the relationships between people and the environment is transformed. ELC connects these emerging local advocates to build regional movements, with the ultimate aim of creating national and international momentum for a radical change in how humans view and interact with the natural world.

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Seeking Rights of Nature for Elliott State Forest

Figure 1 Old growth forest. Photo by Patte David, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Davis Hianik

Old-Growth Forests 101           

Contrary to popular belief, experts struggle to define old growth forests. Robert Leverett summarizes the four main ways that scientists and forestry professionals have define old-growth forest in the opening chapter of Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery. 

1. Definitions that emphasize lack of disturbance by humans (at least post-colonization); there are abundant old trees some of which are approaching the maximum old-age for the species.

2. Definitions that use a minimum age (typically around 150 years) combined with presence of old-growth characteristics such as logs, snags (standing dead trees), canopy gaps etc.; some human disturbance may be permitted.

3. Definitions that emphasize stand development, in particular climax forest – that is, the forest is in a stable state where trees are dying of old age and being replaced, and may continue to be stable for centuries.

4. Definitions that use an economic threshold. Old-growth stands are past the economic optimum for harvesting – usually between 80-150 years, depending on the species.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, around 36 percent of forest in the world today is primary, or old-growth, forest. The United Nations estimates that 57 percent of the world’s forest is currently or has been subject to industrial logging. 

Not everyone has old growth forests. researchers estimated that 98 percent of the world’s primary forests occur in just 25 countries. Half of this is found in just five developed countries: the U.S., Canada, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand.

With just 22 percent of the world’s standing primary forests are currently protected, or five percent of the world’s pre-agriculture forests – this leaves these forests vulnerable to destruction.

Benefits of old growth forests 

Old growth forests benefit the ecosystem in ways that freshly planted (or monoculture) trees cannot in the form of: 

• Biodiversity. The complexity of the old-growth forest creates many habitats which support thousands of species, including soil arthropods, spiders, insects, mites, millipedes, lichen, fungi, mosses, small mammals, and bats.

• Biological legacies. After a fire or windstorm, the dead trees become snags or fallen trees which in turn shelter many plants and animals, protect the soil, and enrich the soil as they decay. Biological legacies ensure that many species survive a fire or other disturbance, and the legacies help rebuild the ecosystem.

• Resilience. Forests are dynamic and continue their ecological processes through all the changes, a quality known as resilience. A forest rich in biodiversity and biological legacies is resilient. 

Specifically, old growth forests provide a range of critical services including:

• Production and regulation of water

• Formation and retention of soil

• Regulation of atmosphere and climate

• Regulation of disturbances plus nutrients and pollution

• Providing habitat, food, pollination, pest control

• Productsion of genetic, medicinal, aesthetic, recreational, spiritual, scientific and educational resources

Figure 2 A North Bank Road view of the Umpqua River. Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives

Elliott State Forest - Oregon Coastal Range

Enter the Elliott State Forest located on the magnificent Oregon Coastal Range, the first state forest established in Oregon (named after the first states forester Francis Elliott). Stretching 18 miles long (north to south) and approximately 16 miles wide (west to east), this area includes the beautiful Umpqua River bordering the northern section of the forest. 

Over to the west, the Elliott State Forest borders almost six miles of the Pacific ocean. On the eastern side, rich old-growth forest extends about 21 miles inland. In total, the Elliott State Forest used to cover 93,282 acres, mostly located in Coos and Douglas Counties. 

Trees commonly found in this forest are the Douglas-fir, western hemlock, western redcedar, bigleaf maple, and red alder. For years this site has been logged for the Oregon Common School Fund, generating millions of dollars of lumber sales – leaving just 41,000 acres of old-growth forest. Even so, it remains one of the largest uncut areas left in the Oregon Coast Range.

The Elliott State Forest provides critical habitat for endangered species including Marbled Murrelet, Northern Spotted Owl, elk, and many species of salmon. In fact, 22% of all wild Oregon Coast Coho salmon originate in the Elliott’s rivers and streams.

Carbon Cycle 

Nature, one of the top scientific journals, has found that the rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size. This means that big, mature trees capture the most carbon dioxide (CO2). Yet selective logging usually removes the bigger trees, so this new research supports the Greenpeace campaign for zero (gross) deforestation, globally, by 2020.

In the Elliott State forest, old-growth trees provide an unmatched donation to the carbon cycle that can be tributed to the large amount of vegetation preserved. Forests store carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change. As the trees continue to grow their carbon capture ability grows with age. Preserving the Elliott State Forest allows for the continued growth of old-growth trees which is beneficial for capturing and storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

Old-growth forests have notoriously been used by logging companies for large economic incentive due to their massive lumber yield. In the pacific northwest, old-growth is defined as trees older than 250 years with the presence of some trees recorded over 1000 years old. Because of their rich biodiversity, old-growth forests are often home to endangered, threatened, and rare species. 

Threats to the Elliott State Forest

Old-growth forests once covered much of Oregon, but today less than 10 percent of the state’s heritage forests remain.  Much of what survives is found on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands that are still actively targeted for logging.

In 2017, two of the three members of Oregon's State Land Board voted to sell the Elliott State Forest to a private timber company for clearcutting. Oregon Wild and coalition partners helped mobilize a powerful grassroots response to persuade Tobias Read to reverse his position and express support for keeping the forest public. On May 9, Read, Governor Kate Brown and Republican Dennis Richardson voted unanimously to halt the sale and keep the Elliott public.

For now, this is a most decisive win for this old growth forest. Looking ahead, however, there is still no protection against future development or sales of the Elliott-State Forest.

Actions to protect Elliot State Forest

The Oregon Legislature allocated $100 million in bonding revenue to help keep the forest public for the diversity of services it provides including clean water, old-growth forests, salmon and wildlife habitat, carbon storage and recreation opportunities. Currently owned by the public, this land is still vulnerable to the lease of private entities in the near future.

The Elliott State Forest harbors a unique and rare island of biodiversity. Surrounded on three sides by industrially managed tree plantations and clearcuts, species also can’t easily migrate out of the area. In 1990, the Endangered Species Act included the Northwest Spotted Owl, the Marbled Murrelet in 1992, and Coho Salmon in 1998 which led to a reduction in logging. Managing the Elliott is costing the state more than what’s earned from timber harvests, in part because of protected species restriction.

In December 2018, the State Land Board directed the Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) to work collaboratively with Oregon State University (OSU) to develop a plan for transforming the Elliott State Forest into a research forest. A successful plan will be consistent with the Land Board vision for the forest, which includes:

• Keeping the forest publicly owned with public access

• Decoupling the forest from the Common School Fund, compensating the school fund for the forest and releasing the forest from its obligation to generate revenue for schools

• Continuing habitat conservation planning to protect species and allow for harvest

• Providing for multiple forest benefits, including recreation, education, and working forest research

DSL and OSU anticipate a proposed plan will be presented to the Land Board for consideration in December 2019.

Earth Law strengthens protection of Elliott State Forest

The old growth forest ecosystem of the Elliot State Forest could be considered an entity with inherent rights. Legally recognizing those rights could help strengthen the protection of the Elliott State Forest from future predations. Precedents exist already for forests having rights. The wild Urewere Forest in the Hawkes Bay Region of New Zealand’s North Island gained rights recognition in 2014.

Earth Law Center works with local partners to seek Rights of Forests in El Salvador and other locations.

Earth Law aims to help communities and organizations protect the Nature around them by recognizing legal rights for those ecosystems and species. Rights of Nature is the recognition that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights. Rights of Nature is about balancing what is good for human beings against what is good for other species, what is good for the planet as a world.  It is the holistic recognition that all life, all ecosystems on our planet are deeply intertwined.

Isn’t it time that we recognized the right of the Elliott State Forest to exist, thrive and evolve?

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Local Communities Take the Lead on Addressing Environmental Issues

Figure 1 Photo by mali maeder from Pexels

By Haley Soboslay

In the face of national inaction towards climate change, local leaders have stepped up to provide solutions. From states taking action to protect coral reefs (Hawaii banning 2 sunscreen ingredients) to local towns passing Rights of Nature ordinances, has grassroots activism expanded to a new level? From Capannori, Italy to Santa Monica, CA - many examples serve as inspiring models for other communities who want to be part of the solution.

National governments aren’t protecting the environment

A perfect example of national government inaction starts with the Paris Agreement. In 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed and put into effect, however, few countries are doing what the Paris Agreement lays out. Under the agreement, 195 countries pledged to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions to try to keep global warming under two degrees Celsius.

The Climate Action Tracker has monitored the progress of 32 countries in meeting the Paris accord goals. Sadly, they found that most major polluters are making few, if any, efforts to meet their goals. Most countries have failed to even write up a plan to cut emissions let alone take action. Of the 32 countries tracked, just seven countries have made commitments or efforts to achieve the goal of the Paris accord. 

 It is important, however, to acknowledge the countries that have taken action including Morocco, Gambia, India, and Britain. Morocco launched large-scale renewable energy projects to reach their goals. They have commissioned the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world and have also cut back on fossil-fuel subsidies. Gambia has committed to a massive reforestation project. This plan will help to stop environmental erosion and degradation. India has also focused on a renewable energy program. They have committed to cease the production of new coal-fired plants and have strengthened promotion of electric vehicles. Britain is in fact struggling to meet emissions goals, but they do get an honorable mention for being the only country to design a way to track how well the country is meeting its Paris Agreement commitments.

Figure 2 Camels in Merzouga, Morocco. Photo by Inbal Malca on Unsplash

These countries show that efforts at a national level can be effective, however, these efforts are sadly few and far between. Overall, national governments are not doing their part in protecting the environment.

Local governments step up to protect Nature

So, how are cities and states taking independent action to answer the questions of environmental crisis?

Figure 3 The earth hero

These actions are spurring other action, adding momentum, raising awareness at a local level in the face of federal inaction. Let’s look at the banning of single use plastics and plastic straws. The movement of banning single use plastics and straws has spread rapidly across the United States and around the world. Vancouver, Scotland, and Taiwan have all banned plastic straws and Taiwan has also banned single use plastics by the year 2030. Twelve states in the United States are tackling this issue by enacting plastic bag bans and fees and in some cities plastic straws have been banned. Other numerous states are in the process of enacting similar bans and fees throughout the United States.

Also, numerous individual businesses, nonprofits, and schools have opted to ban straws in the United States and around the world. In Tirana, Albania the mayor and citizens organized 100,000 trees to be planted. The mayor stated that this would be the beginning of a new era of environmental care for the city. This is a perfect example of how civic concrete actions and positive energy can help to combat the environmental crisis. 

Hawaii recently banned two sunscreen ingredients, effective 2021. This ban includes the sale, offer of sale or distribution of any sunscreens containing oxybenzone or octinoxate without a prescription from a licensed health care provider. Both ingredients have been found to be harmful to coral reefs. When the sunscreen is washed off a beachgoer’s skin and into the water; it can cause bleaching, deformities, DNA damage and ultimately death in coral. 

 In Capannori, Italy locals were at the center of a waste removal revolution. In 1997, local activists defeated a proposal for an incineration plant that was set to be built in town. Instead, they chose an alternative waste tax which rewards residents for reducing non-recyclable waste with an aim of reaching zero waste. The town monitored and tracked household waste to understand habits resulting in waste tariffs levied in certain villages to reduce the amount of total waste. These examples demonstrate the power of local communities to not only take action, but tailor those actions to the unique situation of their environs. 

Societal evolution has always started locally

When it comes to rights-based movements local activists seem to be at the heart of them. From women's suffrage to the abolition of slavery, most actions started locally which lead to changing laws which then spread to states and provinces with national government (at least in the US) often being the last to join the movement. Think about the successful campaigns for gay marriage, women's suffrage, and the abolition of slavery. 

The legalization of gay marriage serves as a great example of a major rights-based movement that started locally. The fight for marriage equality began locally when a non-profit group called Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders started a suit against the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on behalf of seven gay and lesbian couples who had been denied marriage licenses.

At this time, no other state had legalized marriage and the battle seemed to be an uphill one, however, by 2004 the state had ruled that barring same-sex couples from marrying violates the Massachusetts Constitution. This made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. This set a precedent for other states. In 2008, Connecticut became the second state to achieve marriage equality. Next, came Vermont and Iowa the next year, then New Hampshire, New York, Maine and Washington, and by 2015 it became legal at the federal level. In this way, the legalization of same-sex marriage began locally and worked Its way up to becoming legal at the federal level many years later.

Figure 4 Map of world homosexuality laws. Dark green means gay marriage is legal.

The women's suffrage movement started locally almost a century before women gained rights in the eyes of the constitution. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, however, the movement started almost a century earlier by local activists and reformers.

In fact, the women's suffrage movement began decades before the Civil War. At this time in the United States reform groups were being created all across the United States and women played important roles in most of them including temperance leagues, religious movements, moral-reform societies, anti-slavery organizations, etc.

At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 It was discussed that women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities. Overtime, the movement went through highs and lows but ultimately gained momentum and by 1910 Individual states began to grant women the right to vote. By 1920, all women would have the right to vote with the passing of the 19th amendment, but it all started at a local level with reform groups and conventions. 

The abolition of slavery follows a similar pattern. Americans soon realized after the Constitution In 1776 that slavery was a hypocrisy to the document. This inspired Vermont to abolish slavery in its state constitution in 1777. By 1804, all Northern states had abolished slavery. Freed slaves residing in these states became determined to fight for those enslaved in other parts of the country.  Their support of the Underground Railroad was vital in helping thousands of slaves to escape before slavery was abolished nationally.

The unrest in the United States was a catalyst to the start of the Civil War. Ultimately, by the end of the war in 1865, the 13th amendment would be ratified signaling the end of slavery in America. Again, this shows how actions started locally and eventually spread to national laws. Ultimately, history shows that change starts local and a local action should be shown to be effective when It comes to an environmental solution as well.

Earth Law an innovative part of the environmental solution

Earth Law Center (ELC) believes that Rights of Nature is the next major rights-based movement in the US and the world.

Earth Law is the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve—and that Nature should be able to defend its rights in court, just like people can. Current laws around the world only protect Nature for the benefit of people and corporations, however, Earth Law suggests that Nature be given the same rights as humans. Courts then assess monetary awards by looking at restoring the environment back to its natural state as opposed to the current view which assess awards based on the environmental damage that must violate a person's own rights because the environment has no rights of its own.

By giving nature Its own rights, we are acknowledging the deeply connected relationship between humans and Nature. Both humans and Nature are dependent on one another. Earth Law acknowledges that in order for humans to thrive, Nature must be protected and if it is not, we will all suffer greatly. There are many examples from around the world that can be looked at to see Earth Law In action.

Figure 5 Santa Monica Beach. Korvenna

Santa Monica, California was the first city on the West Coast to implement a rights of nature ordinance. This ordinance was created to enforce Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan, rights to clean air, water and soil, and the rights of nature above corporate entities’ privileges and powers. This ordinance helps to join efforts by groups within the city to protect the health and well-being of Nature within their city.

Crestone, Colorado offers a great example of Earth Law in action. In 2018, the Town of Crestone’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution recognizing the rights of nature. Crestone’s mayor, government, and the community all worked collaboratively to make this happen. Once the mayor and others in the community started considering Earth Law as a way to strengthen the protection of Crestone’s natural environment, Grant Wilson, Directing Attorney from ELC, was invited to speak at a local rights of nature event. The event allowed the community to ask questions, discuss what Earth Law might mean to them and how this would support their efforts to protect their local aquifer. After this event, a genuine interest in protecting nature began to spread throughout the community. The resolution which passed two weeks later refers to humans as being environmental stewards and also commits to recognizing the rights of nature in Crestone.

Colima, Mexico became the first state/province in North America to recognize the Rights of Nature. In June 2019, the state of Colima, Mexico passed a constitutional amendment recognizing the Rights of Nature. ELC helped research and draft the final language. The decision adds momentum to current ELC initiatives in Mexico to seek recognition of the rights of rivers at the national level in Mexico as well as for the Magdalena, Atoyac and San Pedro Mezquital Rivers. 

The Kofan people of Sinangoe in the Ecuadorian Amazon won a landmark legal battle to protect the headwaters of the Aguarico River in 2018. This river is one of Ecuador’s largest and most important rivers. This is a win for not only indigenous nations across the Amazon but also for land defenders worldwide and will continue to be an inspiration for others seeking Rights of Nature.

For communities who would like to learn more about what an Earth Law initiative could look like in their town, this Community Toolkit is available for free download.

Conclusion 

What we have learned from these examples in particular is how important community involvement is. Collaboration is at the heart of rights of nature resolutions. We have also learned that with knowledge comes power. When residents had ample information, they could make an informed decision. When it comes to the environmental crisis we face today - knowledge, commitment, and passion provide a way forward to address these issues. 

Local governments protect the environment in ways that national governments have not. Throughout history we have seen that societal evolution has often started locally and the environmental movement follows this pattern.

Local action has shown that human communities often protect national communities and that when national inaction is the norm, local level action helps drive the evolution of rights recognition and that’s what we need today. 

Empowering nature empowers communities: when advocates see themselves as rights defenders rather than responsible stewards of nature for human ends, the stakes are raised, and the relationships between people and the environment is transformed. You can join the movement to effect a radical change in how we view and interact with the natural world.

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Earth Law as One of the Solutions to Plastic Pollution

Figure 1 Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

By: Grace McGrath

As awareness grows around the world that Nature needs our help, movements have sprung up to solve the environmental issues of today. I first started thinking about plastic pollution when I started working for the University at Albany Office of Sustainability.  In doing research for blogs I wrote I saw the damage being done.  That is what led me to act on plastic straw use at my college.  Now I am trying to ban single-use plastic in New York State.  Now onto the blog.

The Shift Towards Ecocentrism

Ecocentrism refers to a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centered (i.e. anthropocentric), system of values.

According to the Assembly of First Nations, Indigenous peoples see themselves as caretakers of Mother Earth. By respecting her gifts, First Nations peoples relate to earth and all living things in it sourced from reverence, humility and reciprocity. Only what is needed is taken, with awareness so that future generations will not be put at risk. 

In essence, you are putting nature’s needs first compared to human desire. People naturally want convenience over anything else; being ecocentric opposes this. So, to become ecocentric, before you make a choice you have to ask yourself is this thing I am going to do hurting the environment or not? For instance, if you are going to buy a plastic bottle of water, ask yourself: do I need this or can I bring my own water bottle? These are choices you need to question if you want to be ecocentric.

Granted, becoming ecocentric takes time. This is a frame of mind, so you have to make small progressive changes. Maybe you focus on decreasing your meat consumption or decreasing your plastic use by reusing old containers. Eventually, these small shifts will lead to you becoming ecocentric. 

Figure 2 Photo by Mali Maeder from Pexels

Facts about Plastic Waste

Single-use plastics are not only plastic bags or cutlery.  A good definition of single-use plastics (aka disposable plastics) is that they are used for plastic packaging and include items intended to be used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.  They can also include the following:

• Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), i.e. water bottles and biscuit trays

• High-density polyethylene (HDPE), i.e. shampoo bottles and milk bottles

• Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), i.e. bags and food packaging film

• Polypropylene (PP), i.e. potato chip bags and microwave dishes

• Polystyrene (PS), i.e. cutlery and plates

• Expanded polystyrene (EPS), i.e. protective packaging and hot drink cups 

Here are some other facts to put plastic waste into perspective.

1. Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture.

2. It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile.

3. The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year.

4. According to Waste Management, only 1 percent of plastic bags are returned for recycling. That means that the average family only recycles 15 bags a year; the rest ends up in landfills as litter.

5. Up to 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution enters the ocean from land. 

6. Since the 1950s, around 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced worldwide.

7. 73% of beach litter worldwide is plastic.

8. A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute.

9. 90% of plastic polluting our oceans is carried by just 10 rivers.

“In the next hour, Americans will use and throw away approximately 2,500,000 million plastic bottles. Of those 2.5 million bottles, everyone will still exist a thousand years from now.” – Intent Blog 

When did this all start? Bakelite, the first plastic, appeared in 1907 but plastic production really took off in the 1950s when annual production of plastics increased nearly 200-fold to 381 million tonnes in 2015.

Figure 3 World plastic production 1940-2019. Colin Battis

According to the UN, the most common single-use plastics in descending order of volume are: cigarette butts, plastic drinking bottles, plastic bottle caps, food wrappers, plastic grocery bags, plastic lids, straws and stirrers, other types of plastic bags, and foam take-away containers.

Plastic literally lasts forever. Sadly, a third of all plastic - water bottles, bags and straws - are used just once then discarded. Plastic cannot biodegrade; it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

So plastic waste becomes an issue. About 55 percent of global plastic waste was discarded, 25 percent was incinerated, and 20 percent recycled. So, attention has turned to how to put less plastic into our ecosystem, and how to step up the use of recycled plastic to reduce the world’s plastic load.

Figure 4 Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

The Rise of Plastic Bag Bans

As of last July, the United Nations counted 127 nations that have banned or taxed bags‒and bag regulations have proliferated so quickly, especially at the local level, that even an Al Qaeda-backed terrorist group joined in‒banning plastic shopping bags last summer as “a serious threat to the well-being of humans and animals alike.”

This spring, the European Union took steps to ban plastic bags as part of a sweeping effort on plastic items found most commonly on Europe’s beaches. In the United States, New York this month became the second state, after California, to ban plastic bags‒and at least 95 bills relating to bags were introduced in state legislative sessions this winter, more than any other year.  Hawaii has a defacto statewide bag ban because every county banned them.  Also, Kenya has taken action on the issue by now packing perishables in thicker bags made of synthetic fabric. 

Despite being relatively new hence lacking in long-term research on impact, researchers at the United Nations reviewed 60 “national bans and levies” and estimated that 30 percent of these measures have reduced consumption of plastics.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) puts more responsibility on producers for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products. A total of 81 state EPR laws passed in the United States, most in the last decade. Since EPR appeared in Europe 20 years ago, most EU Member States have introduced EPR for packaging, ranging from mandatory regulations to voluntary agreements between government and industry to voluntary industry initiatives. 

Plastic Producers Also Need to Take Responsibility

In addition to government action and consumer demand, investors have also asked manufacturers to reduce their use of plastic. Bloomberg reported investors managing over $1 trillion in assets demanded that Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever to reduce their use of plastic packaging.  With the non profit As You Sow, the investors further asked companies to disclose annual plastic packaging use, set reduction goals, facilitate recycling and transition to recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging as much as possible.

Corporations have started to take on this challenge. Just some examples include:

• Cisco committed to decreasing use of virgin plastic by 20% by 2025, using FY18 as base year.

• Volvo said at least 25 per cent of plastics used in its new car models from 2025 will be made from recycled materials.

• Coca-Cola, which uses around 120 billion bottles a year, launched its World Without Waste campaign and pledged to increase the amount of recycled content in plastic bottles to 50 per cent by 2030.

• Dell aims to make its packaging 100 per cent waste-free by 2020, using materials from sustainable sources. It already uses recycled ocean plastics as well as other sustainable materials such as bamboo.

• IKEA has pledged to phase out single-use plastic products from its stores and restaurants by 2020 while phasing out oil-based plastics and ensuring that all its plastic products are made with recycled materials. 

Corporate Responsibility & “Environmental Theatre” 

You may notice when you go to the grocery store or any store for that matter that there is plastic everywhere.  There are many reasons for this; some are the oil industry, cost, durability, and little pushback.

Oil costs have gone down over the years, making it so recycling plastic is more expensive than producing more new plastic.  That is not to say some companies haven’t recycled some.  In the soda and bottled water industry there are good examples of plastic recycling.  However, that is not the majority of their production.

As much as I am not a plastic fan it is embedded in our lives our phones wouldn’t work without it; the main reason for this is because it is durable.

In terms of pushback, there is some, but it is not super widespread because plastic has become the norm and convenient.  Cost is the main reason though.

Companies will always try to cut costs unless consumers push back.  But change happens through the law, and if companies have potent lobbyists change will be hard.  There have been many cases of implementation talked about above that have been effective, but they were hard-fought.

Another point that has been made is that plastic bag bans are "environmental theatre" like TSA is "security theatre."  It makes everyone feel better but doesn't actually impact the issue in the way it looks.  That is not to say TSA doesn’t have a purpose and that the plastic bag bans aren’t significant, but more can be done.  While I think that this is an interesting point change happens with steps like this.  Just look at the example of sustainable fashion.  Many companies will say they are sustainable with making their fashion, but they aren’t they only use the label.  This is the same with plastic bans.  You get name recognition without adequately addressing the problem.  While that may happen, there are companies trying to make an effort which is great for the consumer and the environment.  A recent example that has been in the news is Zara that says by 2025 all their clothing will be sustainable.

That is why I believe, and many agree single-use plastic needs to be banned because many items are under that umbrella.  Keep in mind with plastic bag bans they are leading to more paper bags which kill trees.  What I mean by that statement is that no ban is perfect. 

Earth Law as Part of the Solution

Drawing from the long traditions of Indigenous Nations and ecological thinkers, Earth Law holds that ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve—and that Nature should be able to defend its rights in court, just like people can.

Bolivia and Ecuador, rivers (the Whanganui in New Zealand, the Atrato and Amazon in Colombia along with the Coello, Combeima, Cocora and Cauca Rivers), mountains (Te Urewera in New Zealand) along with dozens of towns have enacted Rights of Nature ordinances around the world. Earth Law Center has passed an ordinance in Santa Monica, a resolution in Crestone plus helped partners pass Rights of Rivers legislation in Mexico City as well as in Colima Province.

Figure 5 Colombian Amazon. Mauricio Pineda

According to the Harmony with Nature initiative at the United Nations, the law is evolving towards a recognition that humankind and Nature share a fundamental, non-anthropocentric relationship given our shared existence on this planet, and it creates guidance for actions that respect this relationship. Legal provisions recognizing the Rights of Nature, sometimes referred to as Earth Jurisprudence, include constitutions, national statutes, and local laws. A complete list of current Rights of Nature initiatives around the world can be found here.

Greenfield Rights of Nature aims to raise awareness and take actions to help protect the environment in our community by collecting signatures for an ordinance to reduce plastic in the waste cycle. 

You Can Help Reduce Plastic 

Each of us makes a difference, and here are some ideas for how to reduce our plastic footprint:

1. Use reusable bags: Bring these to the grocery store or any place you shop to avoid plastic bags. Do this especially at restaurants because they are exempt from the plastic bag ban. Also, you can clean most reusable bags so they will last much longer than if you just continued using the same plastic bag.

2. Have your own water bottle: This way you don’t have to buy water when you go out. Also, you avoid single-use plastic doing this. In addition, they can keep hot liquids very hot too depending on the one you purchase.

3. Have your own metal/silicone/paper/bamboo straw: This way, you never have to use a plastic straw. And these straws are not hard to clean, so it is a great first step. This alone is not enough, but it is a start if you are just starting to decrease your plastic use. What I do is I bring my own cup and straw when I get coffee or a smoothie to avoid plastic altogether. 

4. Bring your own containers: This is for when you go out to eat such as to a food truck. When you bring your own container, you avoid single-use plastic that is hard to reuse with the food residue on it.

5. Talk to your friends: This is a huge one because many times if your friends know your reasoning, they might start making changes. Everyone has some power within their circle of friends. Remember you don’t have to be Beyoncé to makes changes.

6. Start composting: This way less goes in the garbage, and you get better soil than you would from the store. Many times, garbage bags are plastic, so the less you use, the better.

7. Reuse as much as possible: Many items you own can have a second life all you have to do is be a little creative. An example would be using old towels to clean your floors.

8. Refuse single-use plastic items at meetings and conferences: Many times, these are items you don’t need and will likely throw away. So, don’t get them in the first place. This way, companies will make less of them and might produce more sustainable giveaways.

9. Have your own bamboo or metal utensils: This way you avoid single-use plastic-eating ware. These are easy to clean too. Many times, you can get packages with bamboo utensils and metal straws.

10. Buy in bulk: This way, you avoid a lot of plastic packaging you aren’t likely to reuse. It also means you are more prepared for unexpected things that might happen in your environment, such as a natural disaster.

Conclusion

What I hope you took away from this piece is the importance of helping the planet. Remember, our climate and oceans are being ruined every day because of our actions. So, the changes we make today do matter. It is hard to quit hurting the environment cold turkey so ease into it by making small changes these will lead to bigger ones in the future. 

And you can look in the past to find that there used to be a time when we did not rely on the environment so heavily for goods we wanted. Talk to anyone over the age of 60, and they can tell you they didn’t see plastic many places. Now it is everywhere along with other inventions that are killing the environment. If we did it in the past, we could do it again. This may require more effort, but in the long run, it will be worth it because our children’s children will live in a healthy environment where they can strive. Remember, we only have one earth.

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Meet Burnham Beeches: an Important Ecosystem Shaped by Traditional Farming

Figure 1 Trunk of one tree growing into another. Photo by author, Helen George.

By Helen George

On a warm, sunny day in July my friends and I went to visit Burnham Beeches, a site of special scientific interest near London in the United Kingdom (UK). This 383.71 hectare woodland is a popular beauty spot where visitors can walk for hours under near continuous tree cover. 

We admired the woodland for its beautiful beeches, ancient oaks and the unusual number of ant nests. Burnham Beeches is one of the UK’s richest sites for invertebrates that depend on dead or decaying wood. It’s also home to nationally important epiphytes (mosses, liverworts, lichens, algae and micro-fungi).

Burnham Beeches supports a complex ecosystem of flora and fauna. If it were to disappear, much more than trees would be lost. Fortunately, early proposals to build the HS2 high speed rail link just less than 400 metres away were abandoned.

Many of the trees at Burnham Beeches have an unusual shape. That’s because the woodland is a former beech wood pasture, where pollarding was regularly practised up until 200 years ago.

Pollarding is a method of pruning. The top of the tree is cut off, encouraging a dense growth of new branches from the poll (head) of the tree. Pollarding enabled country folk to gather leaves, twigs and bark for animal fodder, bark for tanning, and wood for fuel and charcoal. 

(At Burnham Beeches a 400 to 500 year old pollarded beech known as the Cage Pollard appeared in the Kevin Costner movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991!).

Of the woodland’s original 3,000 pollards, only 400 remain. The lack of pollarding for two centuries led to very heavy branches growing on slim stems and many trees collapsed. The City of London, which owns the southern part of Burnham Beeches, has resumed pollarding to maintain the woodland.

In the UK it’s not unusual to find important ecosystems that depend on human management to stay healthy. Traditional fruit orchards are another example involving trees.

Figure 2 Woodland management includes leaving deadwood on the ground for the invertebrates. Photo by author.

The UK’s human population has shaped much of the countryside for hundreds of years. Nature has been forced to adapt around traditional farming practices. In the UK maintaining established ecosystems sometimes requires a knowledge of farming history.

Much of today’s wildlife crisis is caused by the shift away from traditional methods to larger scale industrialised farming. The removal of hedgerows to make fields bigger and the use of chemicals has had significant impacts on biodiversity.

In woodlands the move to commercial forestry methods and the decline of pollarding and coppicing has led to loss of habitats.

Meet the UK’s denuded landscape: a legacy of centuries of human activity

Most British people probably know that the island used to be heavily wooded. What may surprise some is how early deforestation began. I asked a British friend to guess the date. “At the industrial revolution?” He guessed, wrongly.

Britain lost most of its forests long before the 18th and 19th century period of industrialisation. In the 5th century (when the Romans withdrew from Britain) total tree cover on the entire island was a mere 15 percent! Thousands of years earlier, at the start of the Stone Age, Britain was almost completely forested.

With just 9.9 percent cover England is now one of the least forested areas in Europe. And Scotland’s famously beautiful but austere Highland slopes shouldn’t be like that either. The Highlands also used to be heavily wooded.

Figure 3 This ancient oak is a valuable habitat for small organisms. Photo by author.

Deforestation’s early impact on Britain means that its ancient woodlands have been drastically reduced from what they once were. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the description “ancient woodland” is applied to any woodland that have existed since at least the year 1600. In Scotland the cut off point is 1750. 

The value of even the youngest ancient woodland is that ecosystems have had several centuries to become established in the soil. For this reason, ancient woodland soil is irreplaceable. Woodland soil ecosystems include many types of fungi, invertebrates and worms. 

The loss of woodland habitat has caused problems that extend beyond the loss of the trees themselves. Together with hunting, deforestation has had serious consequences for larger mammals in Britain. Brown bears disappeared around 1,500 years ago, lynx 1,300 years ago, and wolves 400 years ago in the 17th century.

Science has found that large predators help to keep ecosystems healthy. Predators control prey populations and maintain the balance of ecosystems. Today Britain’s largest mammal predators are knee-height at best: red foxes, badgers and the rare European wildcat, which exists only in Scotland. What would British nature be like if our larger predators had survived?

Britain’s largest wild mammals are now deer, accidentally reintroduced wild boar, and wild ponies. Without natural predators to keep their populations under control, these animals can cause damage to ecosystems through grazing, browsing and trampling.

Britain is an island. When animals disappear from an island they are permanently lost until humans reintroduce them again. This is why rewilding is such a popular topic of conversation among conservationists here. The Rewilding movement supports the reintroduction of lost animals to the UK.

Rewilding has already shown positive results. In recent years Eurasian beavers, missing since the 16th century, have returned to England, Scotland and Wales.

The new beaver population in Devon, southwest England, has noticeably improved biodiversity. By building dams, thinning out dense vegetation and creating pools and deadwood, the beavers are improving habitat structure and diversity. Researchers found improvements in the populations of bats, invertebrates and bryophytes.

Figure 4 A Tree showing evidence of pollarding through the upward rise of its branches. Photo by author.

What could rewilding do for ancient woodlands? An exciting project in southwest England will show how the return of bears, wolves and lynxes could help woodland ecosystems.

Run by Bristol Zoo and officially opened to the public on 25th July 2019, Bear Wood is 7.5 acres of ancient woodland surrounded by barriers. Wolves and bears live together in one part of the wood. Lynx and wolverine (extinct in Britain for 7,000 years) live together in the other part.

The Bear Wood project aims to highlight what’s been lost and will also demonstrate what could be gained by future introductions of large predators.

Unfortunately, with woodlands at risk and most of Britain still deforested, it’s unlikely that the island will be able to provide big predators with all the habitat they need. 

Meet the Woodland Trust: defenders of British woodland 

Founded in 1972, the Woodland Trust exists to defend ancient woodland, promote the planting of new trees and influence government policy towards trees. Deforestation in Britain has been so severe that every ancient woodland site must be protected with vigour.

Since the 1930s almost half of ancient broadleaved woodland in England and Wales has been planted with commercial conifers or cleared for agriculture. Britain only has three native species of conifer: the Yew, the Juniper and the Scots Pine. Many of the conifers grown on plantations are species that originate in North America and Scandinavia.

Only 3,090 square kilometres of ancient semi-natural woodland remain in Britain. That is less than 20 percent of the total wooded area.

Thanks to the Woodland Trust and others, the government’s 2019 National Planning Policy Framework for England contains new protections for trees.

The Framework is used by local governments in England when they decide on permission for new construction projects.

The revision to the Framework is a victory for trees and for the ecosystems they support. The Framework states:

“development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists.” 

The Woodland Trust has released the Planners’ Manual for Ancient Woodland and Veteran Trees to raise awareness of the new policies. 

In England, members of the public can make formal objections at certain stages of the planning permission process. Therefore, the manual is a useful guide not only for local government officers but also for the public.

The manual gives advice on ways to protect and support trees and woodlands near construction projects. 

One useful tip is that developers should plant buffer zones of trees and shrubs between ancient woods and new developments. These newly planted buffer areas, sometimes more than 100 metres wide, can shield ancient woodlands from noise and light pollution, invasive garden plants, wandering pets and other disturbances.

Another useful piece of advice applies to veteran trees. Veteran trees are trees of any age which show ancient characteristics due to damage. Ancient characteristics vary between species but tend to include a wide, hollowed trunk and a low fat, squat shape.

Veteran trees have ecological importance because of the species that live on deadwood habitats and in structurally complex branches.

The manual suggests placing felled veteran trees next to surviving veterans to give communities the chance to migrate to a new habitat.

The Woodland Trust’s manual highlights the ecological value of woodlands that have been very heavily shaped by human management. It encourages the public and local government officers not to dismiss woodlands that may appear to have little ecological value, such as commercial conifer plantations.

In 1900 Britain’s woodland coverage was at an all time low of 4.7 percent. It increased in the 20th century because the government established plantations of conifers for commercial use.

Unless well managed, the plantations are not great news ecologically. Dark, densely packed forests of non-native trees are a habitat for some wildlife but not attractive to all the natural communities that could live in a woodland. Regeneration of these woodlands includes ensuring a mosaic of tree species, letting light onto the forest floor and maintaining open areas.

When plantations stand on ancient woodland soil that is very good news. The ancient woodland’s soil ecosystems may still survive. For this reason Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites are protected under the National Planning Policy Framework. 

The protection offered by the Framework is a boost for conservationists working to improve biodiversity on these plantation sites.

The Woodland Trust’s manual and the Framework also calls attention to ancient woodlands with only 20 percent tree cover. To the untrained eye these areas may look like open fields with a few trees scattered around them. Developers might imagine that building a few houses on these sites does no harm.

However, in England these low density woodlands may be very old, originating in medieval hunting forests, shared grazing land, and the landscaped parklands of the aristocracy. Many collections of ancient trees can be found near the grand houses of Britain’s nobility.

Meet Earth Law: a way to increase protection for ancient woodlands and all trees

The National Planning Policy Framework is a significant step forward for trees but it’s not perfect.

Figure 5 Ancient tree with hollow trunk at Burnham Beeches. An ancient tree is a tree that is old for its species. All ancient trees are veteran trees, but not all veterans are ancient. Photo by author.

It does not mention urban trees. These are important to the urban ecosystem as habitats, air filters and carbon storage mechanisms. In London there are 8,421,000 trees. The total tree canopy cover is 21.9 percent! That makes London an urban forest.

Another problem with the National Planning Policy Framework is that it allows for human needs to be placed above the needs of ancient woodland in cases such as “nationally significant infrastructure projects … where the public benefit would clearly outweigh the loss of deterioration of habitat.”

At present, as highlighted by the Woodland Trust, 108 ancient woodlands are threatened by the controversial HS2 high speed rail project. The proposed rail line will travel from London to the north, connecting Birmingham, London, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The National Planning Policy Framework places human transport needs above the needs of irreplaceable ancient woodlands. It is not an Earth Law Framework at present, but in the future that could change. The Framework has been revised in the past and will be revised again in the future. One day it could include Earth Law thinking.

Earth Law gives equal value to the needs of all members of the natural community. Under Earth Law economic benefits to humans are never of greater importance than an ecosystem’s right to thrive and survive. Earth Law practitioners understand that healthy ecosystems ensure the long term survival of the human species.

If planning policy already included Earth Law thinking, 108 ancient woodlands would not be under threat from HS2. Instead, the rail project would always prioritise looking for alternative routes and ways to pass through the landscape without disturbing it.

Britain is a heavily deforested island but the situation for trees is improving thanks to the hard work of the Woodland Trust and other organisations. Introducing Earth Law to England, Wales and Scotland would help to protect all trees.

If you are a tree supporter in Britain or anywhere else in the world, contact Earth Law Center for advice and information on Earth Law:

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Dark Sky Reserve Networks Usher in Earth Law

Figure 1 Stars over Rocky Mountain National Park, US. Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

If you’ve ever tried to see the stars at night, you may also have found that it’s nearly impossible because there’s so much light everywhere. So much light floods our night skies that the term “light pollution” has emerged, describing any adverse effect of artificial light including sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter, decreased visibility at night, and energy waste.

In June 2016, it was estimated that one third of the world's population could no longer see the Milky Way. This included 80% of Americans, and 60% of Europeans.

Main types of light pollution

The three main types of light pollution include glare, light trespass and skyglow (in addition to over-illumination and clutter).

Glare from unshielded lighting is a public-health hazard—especially the older you become. Glare light scattering in the eye causes loss of contrast, sometimes blinds you temporarily and leads to unsafe driving conditions, for instance.

Light trespass occurs when unwanted light enters one’s property, for example, by shining unwanted light into a bedroom window of a person trying to sleep.

Skyglow refers to the glow effect that can be seen over populated areas. Skyglow is the combination of all the reflected light and upward-directed (unshielded) light escaping up into the sky (and for the most part, unused).

Figure 2 Sky glow. Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles US. Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Shielding lights significantly reduces all three of these types of light pollution.

What’s the problem with too much light?

Light pollution affects many animals since light and dark often signals when to eat, sleep, hunt, migrate, or reproduce. That means light pollution alters and interferes with the timing of necessary biological activities. Artificial light at night disrupts nocturnal pollination networks and has negative consequences for plant reproductive success. In one study, artificially illuminated plant–pollinator communities, nocturnal visits to plants were reduced by 62% compared to dark areas. 

Could light pollution be contributing to the decline of coral reefs? More than 130 different species of coral on the Great Barrier Reef spawn new life by moonlight. Every October or November after the full moon, the reefs spew sperm and eggs into the ocean in what looks like an underwater blizzard. When the two sex cells combine amid the flurry, fertilization begins. Bright urban lights can mask the moon’s phases, throwing the corals’ biological clocks out of sync, according to Oren Levy, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. This can cause the reefs to release their reproductive cells late or not at all, decreasing their chances of producing offspring.

Since most songbirds migrate at night, light pollution disrupts their circadian rhythms and can disorient birds during migration. Bright lights at night on large buildings attract birds in the same way that bright porch lights attract moths, which can result in fatal collisions.

Figure 3 Baby sea turtle. Wildlifeppl at en.wikipedia

Sea turtles lay their eggs on beaches, and when they hatch, the hatchlings move away from the dark silhouettes of the sand dunes toward the brighter horizon of the ocean. However, many coastal areas are becoming heavily populated and these artificial lights draw the baby sea turtles away from the safety of the ocean towards land where they can suffer dehydration, encounter predators, or be run over by cars. Any reduction in the amount of artificial lights near beaches can help protect newly hatched sea turtles.

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission states, “Even one artificial light source can disrupt normal flight activity, long-distance migrations, or even attract insects that don’t normally move from their habitat.” When these bugs stay on the light for too long, they tend to die from overheating. Moths are typically the victim, which then affects the birds and bats that feed on them because they lose a food source.

Light pollution also affects the life cycle of plants and can prevent them from growing flowers and reproducing. This affects the pollinators of these plants and also their own life cycles. It also affects humans. According to the National Academies Press’ Booklet “Resources on Pollinators,” one-third of human food requires a pollinator.

Amphibians are an important part of forest and aquatic ecosystems; and because they are very sensitive to environmental changes, they serve as an important indicator species of the health of ecosystems. However environmental stresses have caused their populations to decline around the world and light pollution may play a big part by changing both foraging and breeding of nocturnal amphibians.

Zooplankton called Daphnia normally dwell deep underwater in the day and ascend to the surface at night to feast on algae. Darkness triggers their migration. But marine ecologists have found that nighttime lighting can prevent the zooplankton from floating up to their meals, which could lead to algae blooms that overwhelm the other life in a lake.

Trees evolved with regular day to night cycles so they can measure light with a kind of molecular clock. This clock tells them how long the sun is out for, the season and distance from other trees measured by the shadows those trees cast.  From this information, trees decide when to photosynthesize, when to send out leaves in spring, leaf coloring and when to shed leaves. Artificial light wreaks havoc with this system by extending the length of a day which changes flowering patterns and storing up energy to survive the winter.

Light pollution also affects human beings. Humans, too, need natural darkness for sound sleep and good health. Cool blue white light at night from sources such as LEDs, fluorescent and metal halide lights interfere with the body’s circadian rhythms by suppressing melatonin and increasing cortisol, a brain chemical released when we are stimulated or excited. High cortisol levels make it difficult to fall asleep or experience deep sleep, which our immune systems need to fight illness and disease.

What’s being done to reduce light pollution

Light pollution is one of the easiest pollutions to clean up. Taking steps to reduce light pollution doesn't mean living in the dark - it's about making light more efficient and beneficial.

Dark Sky Reserves

An IDA International Dark Sky Reserve is a public or private land area possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and nocturnal environment that is specifically protected for its scientific, natural, educational, cultural, heritage and/or public enjoyment. Reserves consist of a core area meeting minimum criteria for sky quality and natural darkness, and a peripheral area that supports dark sky preservation in the core. For a list of certified dark sky parks: https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/parks/

The Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve is a 1,416-square-mile (3,670 km2) dark-sky preserve near the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, in the U.S. state of Idaho. It was designated on December 18, 2017 and is the first gold-tier dark sky preserve in the United States.

Figure 4 Mama and baby Grizzly bears in Jasper Park. Photo by Michelle Bender, used with permission of author.

“Jasper National Park is one of 17 designated Dark Sky Preserves in Canada,” says Myriam Bolduc, marketing manager for Tourism Jasper. “At 11,000 square kilometers, we are the second largest Dark Sky Preserve in the world, and we are the largest accessible Dark Sky Preserve—meaning there’s a town within the limits of the preserve.”

To become a Dark Sky Preserve, the area had to eliminate visible artificial lighting while putting measures in place to educate the public and nearby towns about light pollution. The sky glow from outside the border of the preserve had to match that of a natural sky glow. Today, 97 percent of the park is a designated wilderness area, free of light pollution, with roads and trails providing easy access to year-round stargazing sites.

Governments Act to Reduce Light Pollution (and energy costs)

From 2014-2016 the US Department of Energy’s Outdoor Lighting Accelerator (OLA) worked with 25 partners (including three states, 16 cities and 6 regional energy networks) committed to upgrade 1.3 million street lights that will ultimately save cities an estimated $48 million/year.

Across the pond, the European Union adopted new roadway lighting guidelines, employing a ‘As Low As Reasonably Achievable‘ (ALARA) principle. The specific guidelines, intended to reduce energy use as well as light pollution, are consistent with the Low Impact Lighting (LIL) standard promoted by German, Italian and Slovenian members of the European Environmental Bureau in the past decade.

Many cities have taken the lead in re-doing their lights to reclaim the night and decrease energy waste. Flagstaff, Arizona, was the first city to be designated a Dark Sky Community by the International Dark-Sky Association, and Chicago is in the process of retrofitting its fixtures. So far, concerns about dimmer, sparser lighting possibly causing an uptick in crime or decreased safety at night have not been supported by the data; in Chicago’s West Garfield Park, more brightly lit alleys actually led to an increase in reported crime. And anecdotally, people are finding that less glaring lighting makes it easier to see in unlit areas, because our eyes adapt more quickly to the dark.

Figure 5 Different levels of light shielding. Created by ELC for this blog.

What cities can do to reduce light pollution

Motion sensitive street lighting is a pretty self-explanatory idea, and one that has become reality on this Barcelona street. Lights come on as people and moving objects approach, illuminating an area in advance, thus reducing wasted light and wasted energy.

Street lighting encased above and to the sides channels light downwards – where it is needed – and reduces the amount of wasted light. Known as ‘cutting off light at the horizontal’, this ensures that light is used to illuminate the ground, not the sky.

Switching to low watt bulbs is a straightforward way of reducing light pollution. Moving away from bluish-white lighting could be a bigger contributor to reduced light pollution on an urban scale. Replacing LED with warm-white lighting creates a win win situation. The Spanish market city of Vélez-Málaga (seems the Spanish are big on lighting innovation) recently adopted a dimmable warm-white light system for its streets, giving it lower watt lighting on demand and better illuminating its historic streets in the process.

Earth Law as an additional solution to light pollution

Earth Law Center is building an international movement from the ground up, one that gives better grounding to the idea that humans have a responsibility for how we impact the world around us. The belief that nature - the species and ecosystems that comprise our world - has inherent rights has proven to be a galvanizing idea, and we work with local communities to help them organize around the rights of nature to protect their environment from the threats that they see.

The heart of the ELC approach is to seek legal personhood for ecosystems and species, a designation similar to that given to corporations in U.S. law, and one that if done well will imply both rights for the entities so designated and responsibilities on the part of human beings and societies to respect those rights.

Our work includes helping governments adopt and implement laws, policies and practices that protect other species, ecosystems, and the elements of the natural world -- water, air and land.   Our work also includes providing education about how individual people and communities can live better as part of Nature and as its stewards, rather than its masters.

Restoring the natural Dark Skies of night is consistent with our commitment in that it takes a more holistic view of ecosystems and fellow species by respecting the rights of all living things to exist, thrive and evolve.

What individuals can do to reduce light pollution

In addition to motion sensors, shielded lighting, blue to warm light and low watt bulbs – solutions abound for reducing light pollution.

• Install reflectors to outline a driveway instead of putting in a row of lights. Reflectors are cheaper to purchase, free to use and are unaffected by power outages.

• Dimmer switches on household lights, both indoor and outdoor save energy and reduce light pollution

• Eliminate, reduce or turn off late night decorative lighting and/or outdoor lighting during late night hours when outdoor areas are not in use.

• Some power companies bill you for “Nearby Outdoor Lighting” which could mean the lamp across the street. Check your bill for the $5 - $10 a month for this service and call to ask for the charge to be terminated and the light be removed.

• The IDA Fixture Seal of Approval for dark sky friendly fixtures which minimize glare, reduce light trespass, and keep the night sky dark.

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Living in a World Where Nature Has Rights

Figure 1 Photo by Kevin Young on Unsplash

By Cameron La Follette    

What if Nature had rights? Not “contingent rights,” bestowed by humans and defensible in courts, but primal, pre-existing rights that human judicial systems recognize, honor and enforce. What kind of world would we be living in then? 

Earth Law as an innovative solution 

It is essential to recognize that “Rights of Nature” (also called “Earth law”) is not primarily a legal theory, despite the very legal-sounding name. Rights of Nature is a shorthand term for a philosophy that prioritizes systemic sustainability, rather than symptomatic partial fixes of environmental problems.

In other words, Earth Law seeks solutions to living that fit inside Nature’s limits, rather than beyond them. Going beyond nature’s limits causes cascades of environmental degradation, species extinction, reduced ecological resilience, and the miserable host of related ills with which we are so familiar today. Rights of Nature is a means of restoring relationships with nature.  

This relationship with Nature needs to evolve from one of treating Nature as a grab-bag of resources for human use towards a relationship of mutual respect. In any relationship of dignity, both parties have responsibilities and rights to advance the wellbeing of the other.

To change living and consumption patterns as intended, Rights of Nature must be considered as, and enshrined as, a set of pre-existing rights whose provenance comes before any human right. Otherwise, Rights of Nature becomes merely another in the already long list of rights which courts, and society as a whole, must seek to balance.  Existing rights familiar to Americans, for example, include the Declaration of Independence’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and those enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Figure 2 Brown turtle in the Galapagos, Ecuador. Photo by Cedric Fox on Unsplash

Implementation of the Rights of Nature continues to evolve. The details must be hammered out, place by place, to implement this desperately needed paradigm change. It is important to ensure that environmental justice is served for people as well as Nature.  We need to find the most accurate ways to measure harms to Nature and design economies so they lie within Nature, rather than seeking to enslave it.

The Beginning: Ecuador and Bolivia

The laurel belongs to Ecuador for taking a decisive step into national Rights of Nature governance, and bringing the world’s attention to this dramatic change of perspective. In its new Constitution, accepted by the people in 2008, Ecuador has language enshrining Rights of Nature: “Article 71. Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.”  These fundamental rights are enumerated in greater detail later in the section.

Bolivia became the second country in the world to recognize Rights of Nature nationally when it passed a comprehensive Mother Earth Law in 2012, which gave Mother Earth the right to life, to diversity of life, to water, clean air, equilibrium, restoration and pollution-free living. Bolivia had an even greater effect on the rising international concern over the deterioration of the earth when it convened the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2010.

This brought together concerned organizations from around the world, and resulted in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. This Declaration has been highly influential in shaping the Rights of Nature movement and development of Earth law principles, despite being conceived of, discussed and used as a template entirely outside the international justice system or any nation’s governance.

Sometimes Courts Lead the Way 

Ecuador now has ten years of court cases focusing, at least in part, on interpreting the Rights of Nature provisions of the Constitution. In a 2009 ruling on a case concerning biodigesters on an industrial hog farm, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court invoked the State’s duty of guardianship for the first time to protect the Rights of Nature.

Figure 3 Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Prakash Budha

The Court pointed out that the new Constitution gave Nature the right to have its existence fully respected, and the right to be restored when its natural systems were affected. This analysis resulted in the Court’s order to set up a commission to monitor operation of the biodigesters and the industrial farm’s waste  and environmental management. 

Recently, Ecuador turned down a proposed dolphinarium, based in part on Rights of Nature principles. Even more recently, the Ecuadoran Constitutional Court gave notice that it will develop binding jurisprudence on questions of natural resource exploitation and the impact on Rights of Nature and rights of communities – an essential step the Court has never taken before, which will be very important in Rights of Nature leadership worldwide.

Even Nepal, a war-torn country, is leading and creating discussion of Rights of Nature at the highest court level. Though their Supreme Court has issued important environmental rulings in many other realms, such as water pollution, groundwater pollution, petrol taxes and park protection, its holding in the Godavari Marble case is stunning. The Supreme Court ruled against Godavari Marble’s operation in the Kathmandu Valley in 1996, but the government continued to allow it to operate. However, in 2016, the Court unequivocally closed the marble quarry, and handed down a decision that enshrined the concept of Rights of Nature – that is, Nature’s need to exist for its own sake. By this one decision, the Supreme Court has brought ecological governance to the forefront of Nepal’s environmental conversation.

Sometimes Rivers Lead the Way    

New Zealand took a noteworthy first step with regards to its Whanganui River. In 2017, the New Zealand Parliament granted personhood to the Whanganui River as part of solving long-negotiated grievances between the government and the Maori iwi (tribal groups) for whom the Whanganui is ancestor, relative and part of the community. The Legislation created a new oversight commission comprised of one member appointed by the Crown and one member appointed by the Whanganui Maori. This commission has the power to promote and protect the health and well-being of the River. This action both solved treaty problems and provided a beautiful example of fusion between Western legal concepts and indigenous understanding, for the benefit of Nature and the human communities dependent on it.

Figure 4 Cataraft in the Klamath River. Zachary Collier

The Atrato River of Colombia is the locus for long-standing illegal mining of enormous scale, intensity and duration. The river, in the Chocó region, is highly biodiverse ecologically, and home to half a million people. Despite a maze of environmental protection laws, the Atrato basin continued to deteriorate, causing serious violations of rights to life, health, water, food security and healthy environment. The Sixth Chamber of Review of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, desperate to rise beyond the mere symbolic effectiveness of laws that clearly were not working on the ground, issued an unprecedented decision in 2016. The Court said, “Environmental justice must be applied beyond the human stage and must allow nature to be subject to rights.” No longer merely an object of rights, the Court respected the Atrato as a subject of rights.

Finally, just a few weeks ago, the Yurok Tribal Council passed a resolution recognizing the Rights of the Klamath River, which became the first river in the United States to have its rights formally recognized. The resolution recognizes the rights of the river “to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve; to have a clean and healthy environment free from pollutants; to have a stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts; and to be free from contamination by genetically engineered organisms.”

Sometimes Sustainability Leads the Way

Rights of Nature – or some form of ecological governance – is the only road to true systemic sustainability. “Sustainability” is so overused a concept that it has become both spineless and colorless. But nevertheless it remains powerful: it means living inside Nature’s boundaries, not flouting them. Sustainability, in other words, cannot be an excuse for expanding human activity via an economy based on renewable energy, nor can it be limited to tricky calculations of the carbon footprint. Major decisions based on a visionary understanding of sustainability can lead to a strong focus on ecological governance, though it does not go by the Rights of Nature moniker.

Figure 5 Trongsa Dzong, Bhutan. @Christopher J. Fynn / Wikimedia Commons

From the 1960s to today, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has continued to protect an increasing amount of their land base. Currently, 51% of Bhutan is safeguarded from development. Bhutan’s Constitution also requires that 60% of the country’s forests be protected in perpetuity. Stewardship of Nature to ensure its flourishing have always been part of the kingdom’s policies and have shaped its conservation history. Most well known is Bhutan’s effort to govern by a different standard, other than sheer economic productivity, by instituting and measuring through its Gross National Happiness standard. Bhutan has a strong, centralized natural resources planning process in place that assists in maintaining the kingdom’s commitment to Nature’s stewardship, and fulfilling international commitments on climate change and biodiversity.

In Scotland, the Caledonian Forest that once covered much of the Highlands is so decimated, down to 1% of its natural range, that the Highlands are famous for an austere, ravished beauty of treeless hills, barren peat hags and heather-covered landscapes, devoid of most wildlife. Not until 1959 was the alarm sounded, which catalyzed several local reforestation projects beginning in the 1960s. Finally in 1989, visionary activist Alan Featherstone founded Trees for Life, a Scottish organization that has made dramatic recovery of the Caledonian Forest possible. They run their own nursery, purchased a 10,000-acre estate, and began the restoration of the broken ecological web that the native Scots pine forest would normally sustain. By 2018, Trees for Life had planted more than 1.5 million native trees, provided for restoration of many other forested areas by such means as deer-proof fencing, and initiated nationwide collaboration for restoration of the native forests of the Highlands.

Last month in June, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador approved a pronouncement deeming that “forests are living entities” and that each person bears a responsibility to care for, preserve and respect forests while promoting concrete actions to expand forests in El Salvador. Earth Law Center supports Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos and local partners to secure rights for the forests of El Salvador.

Sometimes Desperation Leads the Way

The small island nation of Kiribati (formerly the Gilbert Islands) faces an uncertain future in this era of climate change, increasingly violent storms and rising sea levels. Its thirty-three islands are all low-slung coral atolls – narrow strips of coral sand surrounding a lagoon – with fragile lenses of fresh water on which the inhabitants depend. The approximately 120,000 people, whose home Kiribati has been for at least 3,000 years, can no longer be certain they will continue to have a homeland at all. As a result, the former President, Anote Tong, has become an international spokesman for ocean protection and strong action on climate change. He points out that the people of Kiribati cause almost none of the world’s carbon pollution, but are among the first to suffer from its devastating effects. President Tong spearheaded initiatives ranging from large-scale island barrier protections to finding alternative water sources, to policies on organized mass immigration if Kiribati’s people must flee their homeland.

Figure 6 Onotoa Atoll, Gilbert Islands, Republic of Kiribati, Central Pacific.Edvac

With local partners, Earth Law Center is working to pass an ordinance to recognize rights for the endangered Southern Resident Orcas, as part of a larger initiative to protect the inland Salish Sea, which stretches between Canada and Washington State. This initiative responded to the news from scientists, who reported in 2018 that the Orcas had hit a critical threshold in their ability to successfully reproduce in the wild. Part of the Orcas’ emergency stems from the bioaccumulation of toxins from Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, whose watersheds drain into the Salish Sea. Symptomatic fixes, such as quieting or rerouting ferries, will not end the destruction of the Salish Sea’s ecology via pollution, fossil fuel tankers and other sources. A Rights of Nature ordinance, based on a paradigm change of relationship with Nature rather than mere exploitation, has a much better chance of success.

Conclusion 

Rights of Nature is a term advocating for the restoration of a mutual relationship between humans and Nature. The human relationship with Nature cannot be a relationship of servitude of Nature to human needs; the results of that paradigm are everywhere apparent. There is no single way to repair this relationship. Every culture has its own histories and cultural richness upon which to draw, as these examples from around the world show.

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About the Author

Cameron La Follette lead-authored a book in 2017, Sustainability and the Rights of Nature: An Introduction, to survey the actions taken worldwide thus far, and to explore what would be necessary, in the United States, to prioritize Nature’s functioning. There were many surprising conclusions from this book, especially the extent to which the country’s laws, philosophies and actions on the ground need to change to honor Nature’s inherent rights. A companion volume, Sustainability and the Rights of Nature in Practice, is forthcoming. This second book consists of invited chapters from policymakers and advocates worldwide showcasing what their countries and communities are doing to repair the relationship with Nature. In this visionary task lies the great hope for the future.

Bats Evolved for a Darker Environment than 21st-Century Britain

Our suburban neighbourhood in south-east England has lots of bat-friendly habitats. There are trees, hedges, old buildings with accessible roof spaces, ponds, and waterways. Perfect for the 18 species of bat who live in England, Wales and Scotland. British bats are small, nocturnal, and eat insects. As the primary predators of night-flying insects they are important for a balanced ecosystem.

We see the bats at dusk. British bats are divided into two groups: slow and fast flyers. Our local bats are fast; blink and you’ll miss them. Dashing through the air, they could be mistaken for little birds. Recently we saw two chasing each other at high speed. It’s fairly rare to observe them interacting because they’re so quick.

Los Angeles basin night sky.

Conditions in the suburb look great for bats but there is a serious problem. At night the sky glows because of artificial lighting. Only a few stars of the 4,000 we should see are actually visible. When the moon is full and bright it makes no difference here. Its beams are hidden by light pollution. At night our neighbourhood has much more light than the bats evolved to live with.

Light pollution is widespread in Britain. It’s estimated that 55% of the population cannot see the stars of the Milky Way. England is the worst affected country. Only 21.7% of its skies have pristine darkness. Wales does better, with 57% of its skies pristine. In Scotland the situation is much better at 77%. Light pollution is concentrated in towns, cities, and also on the road network. In southern England the M25 and M21 motorways are visibly lit up in satellite images of nighttime lighting.

Light is measured in a unit called “lux.” Bats here evolved to live in the levels of lux found at twilight and under the stars and the moon. They emerge at dusk in direct response to the dimming light. Some bats species fly in and out of the roost to check the light level (PDF) before properly emerging.

A cloudy, overcast day is 5,000 lux. At sunset it goes down to 10 lux and in twilight it is 1 lux.

Artificial lights can prevent bats from seeing this change. Good main road lighting is between 5 and 20 lux. Typical side road lighting is 5 lux and security lighting is 2 lux. In all cases brighter than twilight and in some cases brighter than sunset.

We can see how artificial light outshines the moon and the stars when we compare lux measurements. The light of a clear full moon, which seems so strong in dark, rural areas is only 0.25 to 1 lux. Typical starlight is 0.001 lux. (Source of lux measurements. PDF)

In our neighbourhood and elsewhere, the lights create a complicated landscape for bats. A natural night is a blanket of darkness and artificial lighting interrupts this with rivers and pools of illumination. Highly-lit roads cut across darker areas for miles, leaving bats with no choice but to cross or avoid. Even the darker streets are patched with light from the street lamps and from buildings with unscreened windows. A well-lit office is 500 times brighter than twilight.

In very highly-lit areas there is also an effect called sky glow, in which the light reflects off particles in the air, brightening the whole sky. When I look up at the sky at night it often appears purplish blue or whitish brown because of the light bouncing off the clouds.

Barbestelle Bat

Light pollution disadvantages bats in numerous ways

Slow-flying bats tend to avoid light. In Britain, slow-flying bats include long-eared bats, Myotis species, barbastelle, and greater and lesser horseshoe bats. Light intolerance means slower bats face disadvantages (PDF) when trying to access to food and territory. The ultraviolet (UV) in many artificial lights draws insects away from darker areas and out of the slower bats’ reach. Fast flying, light tolerant bats, such as pipistrelles, gain the advantage because they can successfully hunt around lights.

The lights may give some fast-flying bats an evolutionary advantage over others within their own species. In Britain the common pipistrelle frequently hunts around street lights. Research shows (PDF) that in Italy its southern cousin, Kuhl's pipistrelle, may have physically adapted to artificial lights. Since 1945 their skull sizes have increased, perhaps to better enable them to eat the larger insects found under the lights. These larger insects include moths, which are also affected by light pollution. Research indicates that moths may lose the ability to hear bats’ echolocation signals under mercury vapour and LED lights.

Hunting under artificial lights is not all good news for fast-flying bats, as it makes them prey for cats and for large birds such as hawks and seagulls. Flying low near roads also increases the risk of collisions with vehicles.

Bats follow commuting paths through their habitat as they forage for insects. Studies show that while some bats avoid light completely, others have varying reactions to light depending on the time of year, and the presence of trees and insect-rich pasture or buildings. Where light interferes with the bats’ commuting paths (PDF) it can restrict their available foraging territory or force them to use more energy by flying a farther for less food.

Artificial light near bat roosts causes significant problems because it delays the bats’ evening exit, causing them to miss the period of intense insect activity at dusk. One study of Geoffroy’s bat and the lesser mouse eared bat found that pups in illuminated maternity roosts (PDF) had shorter forearms, lower body mass and delayed birth dates when compared to pups in non-illuminated maternity roosts. Maternity roosts attract bats from a wide surrounding area (PDF) year after year. Light pollution or indeed any other damage to a roost can significantly disrupt a local bat population. Bats only produce one pup a year and prefer to use the same roosts throughout their lives.

In the worst-case scenario artificial lights near roosts cause bats to stay entombed inside and eventually starve to death.

Bechstein’s Bat

British laws and government policies protect bats from some light pollution

In Scotland, England, and Wales it is a criminal offence to interfere with a bat or a bat roost, with punishments including fines and imprionment. Bats are protected by multiple laws, including the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 and The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations of 2010.

The 2010 rules state it is an offence to “Disturb a bat deliberately (disturbance includes any disturbance which is likely to impair a bat’s ability to: survive, to breed or reproduce, or to rear or nurture their young), hibernate or migrate (in the case of animals of a hibernating or migratory species).” It is also an offence to “Affect significantly the local distribution or abundance of the species to which they belong.”

In guidance issued on its website, the government reminds the public that placing an artificial light outside or inside a roost harms bats.

Developers seeking planning permission for construction projects are responsible for ensuring that work does not harm bats.

An ecological survey conducted before the conversion of a hotel into a care home resulted in the following recommendations for developers:

• cease work and consult a licensed bat ecologist if a bat is found

• carry out demolition work when bats are not hibernating or summer roosting

• direct artificial light away from trees and scrub.

In southwestern England a local government issued bat-friendly lighting guidelines (PDF) for developments along a river and a canal, both of which are known bat commuting routes. Recommendations included:

• prevent artificial light from spilling onto the river, the banks and the water’s edge

• plant along the banks to encourage foraging bats

• zoning changes to allow unlimited lux in the development zone and decreasing levels in the three zones closest to the water (3 lux, 0.5 lux, 0.1 lux).

Bats and other nocturnal creatures receive further help under planning regulations concerning light pollution. Paragraph 180 of the National Planning Policy Framework for England (PDF) states:

“Planning policies and decisions should also ensure that new development is appropriate for its location taking into account the likely effects (including cumulative effects) of pollution on health, living conditions and the natural environment…”

Paragraph 180 states that new developments should:

“limit the impact of light pollution from artificial light on local amenity, intrinsically dark landscapes and nature conservation.”

Natterer’s Bat

Laws have helped bats but observation suggests more legislation is required

Bats received legal protection in Britain because of the major drop in their numbers in the 20th century. The decline coincided with the mass adoption of outdoor and indoor electric lighting in the 20th century.

These updated laws and the hard work of conservationists have combined to stabilise the population compared to the figures known for 1999. Only two of Britain’s 18 species have near threatened status on IUCN’s red list.

Although bat protection policies help mitigate the effects of artificial light, the population’s stabilisation might be due to a decline in the physical destruction of roosts. Each year the National Bat Helpline receives 14,000 queries “from building and planning professionals, householders with bat roost questions, and members of the public who have found injured and grounded bats. As a result, thousands of bats and their roosts are conserved.”

Light pollution still exists at a high level so the risk to bats remains. In 2016 the Campaign for Rural England urged the authorities to take action. It called on the national government to ensure developers were following planning guidelines, on local governments to protect dark areas and to prevent developers from increasing light pollution, on highway authorities to tackle light pollution on roads, and on businesses and large facilities to dim or switch off lights.

Our knowledge of bat behaviour tells us that the present high levels of light pollution must still be disturbing bats.

Current laws and policies protect bats in a wide range of situations including human discovery of roosts and new construction projects. What the law doesn’t do is treat all of Britain as a potential bat habitat. If we accept that bats could choose to roost, commute, forage, or mate in almost any area, the current light pollution problem means that bats are not completely protected, despite it being a criminal offence to hurt them.

Is it time for an Earth Law that regulates all existing and future artificial lighting to avoid damage to bats, regardless of whether we have knowledge of their presence? This law would acknowledge that this island belongs to the bats, just as much as it belongs to us humans.

What would an Earth Law to prevent light pollution from disturbing bats look like?

Complete natural darkness would be ideal for bats, but would not work for humans. We need light for safety. Earth Law practitioners seek to balance the needs of the entire Earth community, which includes people. An Earth Law would have to find a compromise that is acceptable to humans and bats.

Some compromises are common sense. We should wave goodbye to decorative architectural lighting schemes outside buildings. We should avoid directing lights where we do not have a functional use for them. We should also encourage people to use thicker curtains and screens to stop light leaving buildings at night.

Scientific study of bats shows other compromises are possible. We could switch to red outdoor lighting. A pioneering study in the Netherlands found that red street lights do not disturb light avoidant or light tolerant bats. The study said:

“Our findings show that bat activity in red light, which has less light of short wavelength and more light of long-wavelength, most resembles dark. This holds up for both light-shy species and more agile non-light shy species. Therefore, this finding opens the possibility for the mitigation of adverse consequences of artificial lighting for bats in situations where natural habitat has to be exposed to illumination.”

(A problem with red light at night is that it disturbs some light sensitive trees. This would have to be considered in an Earth Law that balances the needs of the whole community.)

Another study found that dimming lights, although not as effective as switching off, lessens the impact on bats. This compromise could be introduced in areas where “just enough” lighting is needed.

An Earth Law would affect everyone. Householders would need to screen windows and not place unnecessary lights in gardens. Stores would have to avoid bright lights in windows. Universities, airports and hospitals would need to consider hundreds of light fittings, windows and outdoor areas.

A new law, introduced too quickly, would incur a lot of resistance. The best solution would be to set a date for compulsory compliance several years into the future. This would give everyone the chance to prepare for the change.

In the meantime, everyone can help by voluntarily cutting down on light polluting activities and by spreading the word about why it matters. The good thing about light pollution is that it goes away when we switch off the lights.

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The Importance of Cryptobiotic Soil and How Earth Law Can Help

Figure 1 Cryptobiotic soil at Arches National Park, Utah, USA. Henning Schlottmann.

By Hali Stuck 

As I climbed up the red canyons and hiked through the brush and sand, I had to watch every step I took, why? Because of cryptobiotic soil of course. Sounds like some sort of radiation term doesn’t it?

Well it’s a special soil that only forms in arid areas such as the Colorado Plateau, Sonoran Desert, Great Basin, and the inner Columbia Basin. It can even be found in the Arctic! ‘Crypto’ meaning hidden and ‘bio’ meaning life is made up of five living organisms: cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, green algae, and micro fungi.

These organisms work together to form a hard black crust that helps with preventing erosion, absorbing rainfall, and provides nutrients for the growing plants around it.

Why cryptobiotic soil

The most accurate name for cryptobiotic soil is ‘biological soil crust’ meaning “formed by living organisms and their by-products, creating a crust of soil particles bound together by organic material.”

You may also hear people call it ‘chemical’ or ‘physical’ crusts which is inaccurate because those are defined as inorganic features which is the opposite of what cryptobiotic soil is. Since this soil covers over 70% of the living ground in the arid Southwest it comes in many different shapes and sizes and even has many different species of microorganisms in it depending on what area it’s found in.

If you are in the Great Basin or the Colorado Plateau you may see smoother and wave-like cryptobiotic soil (or crypto for short). This is due to the large number of plant-roots in those areas and having most of their rainfall in the winter. These two factors keep the crypto from swelling repeatedly. 

However, in southern arid areas such as the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts where there are fewer plant roots and also excessive uneven erosion the crypto has much higher and steeper pinnacles. Depending on how old the crypto is it can be anywhere from one centimeter to fifteen centimeters deep. The deeper crusts can be up to thousands of years old.

There is even research that has been done that says that crypto was one of the first living organisms on this planet dating back to 3.5 billion years ago.

Figure 2 Soil crust at base of Wyoming big sagebrush Seedskadee. USFWS Mountain-Prairie.

What Does Cryptobiotic Soil Do?

Cryptobiotic soil is the glue that holds the desert together. It gives plants a safe sturdy place to grow, it protects the earth below it from washing away during rain, and it keeps the life that can survive the deserts harsh conditions from blowing away and turning a once green area into rolling barren sand dunes.

Rainfall

Rain may not fall often in the desert but when it does it can be intense. Erosion is one of the bigger issues that the desert faces due to the lack of sturdiness that the ground has in those areas. That’s where crypto comes into play. Crypto’s hard top layer gives sturdy protection to the soil below it as well as to the plants around it, guarding them from being washed away during harsh rainstorms. This top layer absorbs the rain keeping the area around it from washing away, as well as making water available for dryer seasons.

In addition, when cryptobiotic soil is dry the organisms that it consists of lie dormant. When it rains however the mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, algae, and fungi can move through the sand leaving behind a sheath on loose areas creating the beginnings of new crypto.

Figure 3 Green frog in the rain. Photo by Jill Heyer on Unsplash.

Plant Life

Crypto also plays other roles in helping the plant life around it grow. Sand is not a great place for seeds to land. This loose substance causes plant seeds to get buried in areas that have little to no nutrients or it causes them to continuously blow through the wind, never to root into the ground.

Crypto catches these seeds on its hard surface and gives them a safe, nutrient rich area to grow. The dark color of crypto also keeps the ground that it is on the right temperature for seed germination. Plants that thrive in the presence of crypto include Sixweeks Fescue, Desert Blazing Star, Rock-Cress Prostrate Summercypress, Blue Flax, Mountain Peppergrass and Scarlet Globemallow.

However, there are plants that do not do well in crypto. Due to the hardness of the top layer of crypto it limits large seeds from being able to burrow themselves and germinate. These large seeds however are not usually native species therefore crypto also prevents invasive species from being able to grow and spread.

Nitrogen Fixation and other Nutrients

Cryptobiotic soil also helps with the process of nitrogen fixation. Plants need nitrogen to assist in the creation of amino acids, proteins and DNA. Without the help of nitrogen fixation especially in the desert where there is very little access to nutrients the fight for a plant to stay alive would be futile. Crypto contains denitrifying bacteria which assists in transforming the nitrogen in the atmosphere into a type of nitrogen that plants can use. 

Crypto is actually the dominant source of nitrogen in the desert, meaning that plants can’t get their nitrogen fix from anywhere else. Crypto’s hard top layer also provides a place for nutrients to cling to such as calcium, potassium, and manganese. These nutrients bind to the cryptobiotic soil and are in turn available to the plants around it.

Threats to Cryptobiotic Soil

Foot Traffic

The biggest threat that cryptobiotic soil faces is our very feet. Even though crypto is such an important piece of the desert it is extremely fragile. One boot print can destroy hundreds and even thousands of years of growth.

Livestock

The desert is not meant to sustain thousands of cattle moving through its plains and rolling hills. The excessive grazing and trampling of the native species turns thousands of miles of once thriving lands into barren sand dunes. 

Military Activities

The arid desert lands of North America is the perfect space for military activities such as testing new artillery to hosting bootcamp. The small amount of people that live in this region gives the military carte blanche to do as they please which has resulted in mass destruction of the native species and miles of crypto.

Wildfires

You hear all the time about the wildfires in California but what about the wildfires in the arid deserts of North America? Utah is even ranked one of the most vulnerable states to wildfires. Just looking at it you can see how one tiny little flame can spread across the countryside in a matter of minutes.

Entire valleys of plants are burnt to ash due to these rampant fires and crypto is no exception. Crypto can survive low intensity fires but high intensity fires can destroy miles of well-established crypto and high intensity fires are more than common due to the dry sage brush growing in these areas. 

How Long Does It Take Crypto to Recover?

Even though crypto is such a much-needed piece of the desert environment it is extremely fragile and takes a significant amount of time to recover. Crypto is most vulnerable when it is dry, which is most of the year due to the small amounts of rain the desert receives. When dry crypto is trampled by feet, livestock, ATV’s and whatever else humans bring into the desert it can take up to 250 years for that one patch to recover.

After one patch of destroyed crypto causes sandblasting which often buries other crypto covered areas. Visual recovery can take 1-7 years in favorable conditions. After that it can take up to 45 years for lichens to reappear and 250 years for mosses meaning that if an area is destroyed today it can take up to eight generations for that area of crypto to be fully recovered as long as there are favorable conditions. If not in a matter of just a few years that area will become sand dunes. Barren, dry, and lifeless.

Figure 4 Sand replaces soil without crypto.

What Happens When the Crypto Is Gone?

A lack of Cryptobiotic Soil can cause barren sand dunes to form but what else happens when the crypto is destroyed and disappears? Well, biodiversity decreases due to the sudden lack of nutrients and lack of stability in the soil along with increased sandblasting which in turn covers nearby sections of crypto as well as other plants.

Lack of crypto also increases runoff by half which causes six times the amount of soil loss that usually occurs when crypto is present. When crypto is lacking, once harmless native plants can turn harmful. Plants such as Artemisia Tridentata, Atriplex Confertifolia, and Ceratoides Lanata can cause nitrogen fixation to decrease by 80%.

How Earth Law can help protect cryptobiotic soil

Rights of Nature can help protect cryptobiotic soil by recognizing the critical role these fragile ecosystems play in the overall health of Nature and everything that depends on it (including us!). Earth Law includes us all into community in terms of rights to live, thrive, and evolve. Cryptobiotic soil is currently an overlooked community member who we will badly miss when it’s gone.

Less an arid sand dunes and more a desert that is full of life, crypto hosts a community which Earth Law can help protect just like other ecosystems.

Earth Law Center works with local communities and organizations to recognize the Rights of Nature, and strengthen the legal protection of Nature’s ecosystems.

What you can do to protect Cryptobiotic Soil

Even though we are the biggest contributors to cryptobiotic soil’s destruction we can also be the biggest contributors to its survival. It’s almost easier to protect it than it is to destroy it. All it requires us to do is to be more conscious of where we step.

Figure 5 CGP Grey.

Stay on the Paths

It’s truly that simple. Stay in areas that have already been impacted by humans such as set trails for walking and ATV’s and established campgrounds.

Continue the Growth of Protected Lands

There are many lands in the arid desert regions that have the law on their side such as different national parks and protected lands but what about the areas that aren’t protected? There are thousands of acres being destroyed everyday that are full of cryptobiotic soil. Due to the desperate need of crypto for anything to grow in the desert this should be outrageous. We must continue the efforts that have already begun and protect this needed yet extremely fragile aspect of desert lands.

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Corporations can help address today’s environmental crisis

Figure 1 Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom from Pexels

By Brandon Rosenbach 

"Campaigns against corporations have led them to take greater care that their goods are not produced under unacceptable working conditions for starvation wages. All of us, by the decisions we make about how we live and work and travel and consume help to shape an environment. To think and act morally, to do what is right because it is right, influence others; it begins to create a climate of opinion; good like evil, is infectious. We do not have to accept the unacceptable. The only thing that makes social or economic trends inevitable is the belief that they are. The unfolding drama of the 21st Century is one of which we are the co-writers of the script." - Rabbi Jonathon Sacks (The Dignity of Difference)

Society and industry rapidly transformed at the turn of the 20th century. Corporations rose to power, and wage earners outnumbered self-employed workers for the first time. Corporations began to dominate lives around the world, resulting in a reevaluation of the role of corporations in society.

The rise of corporate social responsibility

In 1889, Andrew Carnegie published The Gospel of Wealth laying out his principle that all personal wealth beyond that required to supply the needs of one's family should be regarded as a trust fund to be administered for the benefit of the community. He was one of the first to declare that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes and did his best to do so, giving away an estimated $350 million by the time he died.

Sharing a rags to riches history like Carnegie, John Davison Rockefeller gave away $540 million (unadjusted for inflation) before his death in 1937 at the age of 97. Other captains of industry were similarly generous including Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell and John Pierpont Morgan. 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) took hold in the U.S. in the 1970s, when the concept of the “social contract” between business and society was declared by the Committee for Economic Development in 1971. The social contract is based on the idea that business functions because of public “consent,” therefore business has an obligation to constructively serve the needs of society. This is often referred to today as “license to operate” – that is to contribute more to society than solely their products for sale.

Figure 2 Hiker in Patagonia cap. Photo by Charles DeLoye on Unsplash

CSR and the environment

Those corporate philanthropic beginnings have spawned a diverse range of partnerships supporting some of the world’s largest environmental nonprofits today. Businesses have founded hundreds of foundations in the US alone, all focused on the environment.

Fortune 500 and other large businesses have added green initiatives into their future plans for growth and innovation. Patagonia aims to make its supply chain carbon-neutral by 2025, arguing that the supply chain is "where all the issues are." That's meant working with recycled cotton, polyester and down, among other materials, and trying to find more natural fibers to make clothing with, as well as pushing suppliers to adopt more sustainable practices.

Adidas invested almost 10 years of research into making recyclable shoes, and they just recently revealed they will be selling a running shoe that can be 100% recycled into a new pair of shoes - a “closed loop” manufacturing model, meaning the company can use previously made products to make an entirely new product. This will help the company keep its pledge to only use recycled plastic as of 2024.

In 2012, IKEA announced its goal to be powered by 100 per cent renewables by 2020 – but just four years later, it upped the ante aiming to be a net energy exporter in the same time. Lego runs on 100% renewable energy 3 years before their publicly announced deadline.

Seventh Generation not only uses sustainable practices, it’s also created space for green products in a particularly environmentally destructive industry – household cleaners. By 2025, 100 percent of materials and ingredients used by the company will be bio-based (made from plants or renewable agricultural, marine, and forestry materials, not fossil fuels) or recycled.

Drawbacks of CSR

The voluntary nature of CSR means that while some organizations have fundamentally transformed their sourcing, manufacturing and design to reduce their carbon footprint – others have deployed CSR mainly for the company’s own benefit. 

One such method, Greenwashing, helps companies look more environment-friendly than they really are - by spending more money, time and effort on marketing its products as ‘green’, rather than actually minimizing its adverse impact on the environment. For example, the Kauai Coffee recently stated that their single serving coffee product is 100% compostable, taking the guilt out of a single serve. In reality, if a consumer wanted to decompose the product, he or she would have to bring it to an industrial facility, not a basic compost pile. 

Starbucks claims to be climate-change aware and released goals to make 25% of its cups reusable by 2015 while eliminating the use of antibiotic treated meats. However, the company has fallen short of all its goals. In 2015, Starbucks’ percentage of reusable cups was only 1.9%, and the company earned a D+ in a report on antibiotics in their meats, lagging behind both McDonalds and Taco Bell. It’s up to consumers to hold companies to their promises. 

The next evolution of CSR: Extended Producer Responsibility

Figure 3 Plastic Bottles

Today 100 companies have been responsible for more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. So maybe a bit more support is needed to encourage more companies to take leadership in addressing the environmental impacts of their businesses.

When Thomas Lindquist first introduced the concept in Sweden in 1990, he proposed that product manufacturers and distributors should be responsible for the life of their products and packaging after the consumer is through with them. The idea of Extended Producer Responsibility has since gained some traction. 

Motivations for extended producer responsibility practices include a mixture of economic, environmental, and social factors. Extended producer responsibility shifts the economic burden of the cost of disposal from the government to the producer of the product. Within an environmental context, products must be designed for recyclability, and extended producer responsibility encourages design for recycling while discouraging the use of toxic components in the product. Finally, extended producer responsibility meets increasing consumer demand for environmentally friendly products that can easily be recycled or are manufactured using recycled content.

Extended producer responsibility legislation encourages remanufacturing initiatives because it "focuses on the end-of-use treatment of consumer products and has the primary aim to increase the amount and degree of product recovery and to minimize the environmental impact of waste materials".

The policy first appeared in the early 1990s in a few European Member States, especially for packaging waste, and has later on expanded across the EU and beyond . Since then, EPR has contributed to significant increases in recycling rates and public spending savings on waste management, and helped decouple waste management from economic growth. In April 2018, the European Parliament approved a plan to increase recycling and reduce landfills, strengthening provisions for extended producer responsibility.

Figure 4 Cardboard scraps awaiting recycling at paper factory in Poland. Photo by taw.

Over 68 million tons of paper and paperboard products are recovered annually in the U.S., achieving a recycling rate of 64.7 percent. US companies have pledged $1 Billion to recycle paper from Cascades, Green Bay Packaging, and Pratt Industries and ND Paper over the next 18 months. 

In Connecticut, the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI) released the nation’s first statewide evaluation for four extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws for paint, mattresses, mercury thermostats, and electronics. These four programs have diverted 26 million pounds of material from waste, saved Connecticut municipalities and taxpayers more than $2.6 million per year, provided additional services worth another $6.7 million, and created over 100 jobs.

Unlike the U.S. and other countries, Canada used to send only 21% of its plastic to China. With China's scrap import ban and the resulting drop in commodity markets, trash is piling up in the provinces of Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island. Meanwhile Vancouver has no such issues. This is attributed in part to a successful extended producer responsibility (EPR) system that already encouraged domestic processing.

Earth Law and extended producer responsibility

Earth Law wants legal recognition for Nature to be seen as a person like corporations are. Although we’re often critical of corporations, many have already taken transformative actions to be part of the solution. From CSR to extended producer responsibility, corporations now also have a clear pathway for approaches they can choose to adopt. 

Like extended producer responsibility, Earth Law also represents a paradigm shift in how we look at protecting the environment. Both are holistic approaches that address the root causes of the environmental crisis we face today. Recognizing the right of Nature to exist, thrive and evolve is the first step in taking proactive action to safeguard the health of Nature.

Figure 5 Photo by WestBoundary Photography chris gill unsplash.com

As with the successful examples of extended producer responsibility, codifying new behavior into law helps everyone evolve their business practices – in the same way that legally recognizing Rights of Nature will support decisions and actions which promote the health of Nature and our fellow species.

Integrating Earth Law concepts into business models and practices is similarly important to incorporating the principles and practices of extended producer responsibility. Earth Law Center works with governments, civil society organizations and businesses to connect and catalyze Rights of Nature efforts around the world.

Earth Law Center is building an international movement from the ground up, one that gives better grounding to the idea that humans have a responsibility for how we impact the world around us. The belief that nature - the species and ecosystems that comprise our world - has inherent rights has proven to be a galvanizing idea, and we work with local communities to help them organize around the rights of nature to protect their environment from the threats that they see.

This idea of Earth Law grows every day thanks to people spreading the word, local organizations launching initiatives, local governments looking for ways to strengthen protection of Nature. Businesses and consumers can spread the word about extended producer responsibility as well as Earth Law – so together we can work towards a healthy planet.

You can take action today by:

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Earth Law Strengthens Move Towards Smarter Energy Choices

Figure 1 Solar panel farm. Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

By Sara Bellan

Between 2005 and 2030, global energy needs are projected to expand by 55%. So the challenge is not only to meet current energy needs, but also those of a projected 10 billion people by 2050 and to do so with low-cost, zero-carbon energy to keep the global temperature increase from rising above 2˚C.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the share of total global energy demand met by fossil fuels is forecast to decline by 2040. Unfortunately, forecasts still have fossil fuels accounting for 74% of demand, compared to 81% in 2017. 

First, a quick primer on fossil fuels

Fossil fuels are nonrenewable energy sources formed between 360-300 million years ago. In roughly 53 years, all known oil sources are expected to be depleted.  We can expect 52 years for gas and 150 years for coal deposits.

Unearthing, processing, and moving underground oil, gas, and coal deposits destroys landscapes and ecosystems, affecting the animals who depend on those ecosystems as habitats or migration stops.

Coal, oil, and gas development threaten the health of waterways and aquifers. Coal mining operations contaminate streams, rivers and lakes with the dumping of unwanted rock and soil, and acid runoff.  Oil spills and leaks during extraction or transport pollute drinking water sources, killing entire freshwater or ocean ecosystems. Fracking and its toxic fluids have also been found to contaminate drinking water. 

Greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels, trap heat and make the planet warmer. Since the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased 100 times faster than the increase when the last ice age ended, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA). Burning fossil fuels, combined with deforestation, have contributed to the significant rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the key greenhouse gases.

Methane is a key greenhouse gas with an impact 34 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, according to the latest IPCC Assessment Report. Methane is a key by-product of natural gas extraction and processing of natural gas as well as livestock plus landfills (which emit it as waste decomposes).

Fossil fuels still account for 80 percent of global energy consumption and 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Proven, scaleable solutions for moving away from fossil fuels

Examples of several different approaches show that moving away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy can be done.

• Price fossil fuels to reflect actual costs

• Improve energy efficiency with more investment

• Decarbonize the power sector by phasing out coal

• Expand access to electricity and clean cooking

Figure 2 Carbon tax icon. Tommaso.sansone91 [CC0]

Price fossil fuels to reflect actual costs

Carbon pricing taxes the polluters by having them pay for the costs not currently considered – like crop damage from extreme weather, health expenses due to heatwaves, and storm damage to properties. A price on carbon helps shift the burden for the damage back to those who are responsible for it, and to those who can reduce it. Instead of dictating who should reduce emissions where and how, a carbon price allows polluters to choose to discontinue their polluting activity, reduce emissions, or continue polluting and pay for it.

Carbon tax puts a fee on the production, distribution or use of fossil fuels based on how much carbon their combustion emits. The government sets a price per ton on carbon, then translates it into a tax on electricity, natural gas or oil. Because the tax makes using dirty fuels more­ expensive, it encourages utilities, businesses and individuals to reduce consumption and increase energy efficiency. Carbon tax also makes alternative energy more cost-competitive with cheaper, polluting fuels like coal, natural gas and oil. 

Evidence from the 70 national and subnational economies that have put a price on carbon shows it does not slow economic growth, but provides a clear and steady signal for business, industry and consumers to shift course. In 2017, carbon pricing programs raised $33 billion in government revenues globally. The New Climate Economy finds that fossil fuel subsidy reforms and carbon pricing could generate $2.8 trillion—more than India’s GDP today—in government revenues in 2030.

Where carbon pricing seeks to reduce hydrocarbon consumption, fossil fuel subsidies do the opposite and seeks to increase fossil fuel consumption. Fossil fuel subsidies are programs where government actions lower the cost of fossil fuel energy production, raises the price received by energy producers, or lowers the price paid by energy consumers. 

Although they’re politically popular, fossil fuel subsidies encourage overconsumption and inefficient use of carbon-intensive energy while diverting funds away from public spending in health, education, and social protection. Internationally, governments provide at least $775 billion to $1 trillion annually in subsidies.

Improve energy efficiency with more investment

Global investment in energy efficiency has continued to grow, increasing by 9% to $231 billion in 2016. The rate of growth was strongest in China at 24%, though Europe is still responsible for the largest share of global investment.

Figure 3 United States Environmental Protection Agency [Public domain]

This translates into more jobs, too. AltEnergyStocks finds 5.3 jobs per $1 million for fossil fuel investments but over three times this, 16.7 jobs per $1 million for clean energy (energy efficiency and renewable energy). The analysis also notes the substantially higher quality and higher pay nature of clean energy jobs relative to fossil fuel employment.

Decarbonize the power sector

Decarbonization refers to the reduction or removal of carbon dioxide from energy sources. For example: The European Union's leading power companies have set themselves the goal of making their electricity carbon free by 2050. That means energy from 100% renewable sources.

Renewable energy, often referred to as clean energy, comes from natural sources or processes that are constantly replenished. For example, sunlight or wind keep shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather. Total demand for renewable energy sources—including hydropower, wind, solar, biofuels, marine, geothermal—is expected to increase about 81% by 2040, at which time they will account for 20% of overall energy demand.

Costa Rica has operated with only renewable energy for 6 months. The heavy rains in the region have allowed the country to completely renounce fossil fuels, and to feed almost entirely on the electricity generated from 4 hydroelectric plants – with a little extra help from geothermal, solar green energy and wind projects. 

In 2016, Portland was the first city in the United States to ban fossil fuels. Portland unanimously decided to ban the creation of new infrastructures using Fossil Fuels as energy. The transportation and storing of coal, natural gas and oil is no longer allowed within the city, preventing expansion of fossil fuel facilities. California aims to phase out completely the use of fossil fuels for electricity by 2045 as well as generate 60% of California's energy from renewable energy sources by 2030. Similarly, Seattle, Washington, plans to have 100% renewable electric power by 2045.

Expand access to electricity and clean cooking

Figure 4 LED bulb by Zain Ali.

Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report notes how critical it will be to connect the poorest and hardest to reach households. Off-grid solutions include solar lighting, solar home systems, and increasingly mini grids. Globally, at least 34 million people in 2017 gained access to basic electricity services through off-grid technologies. Over the past five years, renewables (mainly hydro and geothermal) have been the source of over one-third of new connections, and decentralized renewables are the source of 6% of new electricity access.

Why clean cooking? Today, 3 billion people still rely on traditional, inefficient cooking stoves which burn wood, charcoal, coal, animal dung or crop waste. The estimated health, environmental and economic cost of this continued use of solid fuels is a staggering $123 billion annually. Women and children are disproportionally affected by the health impacts, and bear much of the burden of collecting firewood or other traditional fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions from nonrenewable wood fuels alone amount to a gigaton of carbon dioxide per year – about 2 percent of global emissions.

According to the Clean Cooking Alliance, an estimated 37 million stoves and fuels were distributed in 2016, of which 30.8 million (83%) were clean and/or efficient. Cumulatively, an estimated 116 million stoves and fuels, including 80.9 million clean and/or efficient, have been distributed from 2010 to 2016. 

How Earth Law Strengthens the move away from fossil fuels

Extractive industries have treated nature as limitless property and resource. Only now we are finding out that there are limits, both to what we can extract as well as what natural ecosystems will bear. Earth Law is the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve—and that Nature should be able to defend its rights in court, just like people can.

Earth Law gives ecosystems the same rights as people and corporations. This means that people can defend an ecosystem’s rights in court without having to prove that their own human rights were violated. Under Earth Law, courts assess monetary awards by looking at the cost of restoring ecosystems to their undamaged natural state. This allows for the defense of Nature in the courts—not only for the benefit of people, but also for the sake of Nature itself.

As countries and people begin more and more to pursue decarbonization, Earth Law can strengthen and connect people and organizations working to create a healthier environment. Through Earth Law, people could better hold their governments and companies in society accountable for their use of fossil fuels, and could urge them to decarbonize and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through banning fossil fuels. Earth Law can be a framework for countries, businesses and people as they work toward a ban on the burning and extraction of fossil fuels.

Earth Law Center (ELC) is building an international movement from the ground up, one that gives better grounding to the idea that humans have a responsibility for how we impact the world around us. The belief that nature – the species and ecosystems that comprise our world – has inherent rights has proven to be a galvanizing idea, and we work with local communities to help them organize around the rights of nature to protect their environment from the threats that they see. The heart of the ELC approach is to seek legal personhood for ecosystems and species, a designation similar to that given to corporations in U.S. law, and one that if done well will imply both rights for the entities so designated and responsibilities on the part of human beings and societies to respect those rights.

ELC can be used as a tool to revolutionize our use of energy sources, reduce our reliance on nonrenewable energy sources and lessen our emissions of greenhouse gases through fossil fuels.

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Pollinators Need Rights, Too

Figure 1 Photo by Krzysztof Niewolny on Unsplash

By Andrea Egert

Whether tiny and cute, pretty and flitty, or hairy and scary, our world’s insects are anything but least among us. Insects outnumber each human 200 million to one. It’s estimated that our planet holds 300 pounds of insects for every single pound of human. At any given time, there’s about ten quintillion (10,000,000,000,000, 000,000) individual insects alive on earth.

Insects Are Important, and They’re Disappearing

Insect species dominate compositional diversity and contribute to the maintenance of terrestrial and freshwater systems everywhere. So far, 1 million species of insects have been described by scientists, while at least 4 million species are still unrecorded. A recent study, however, projected the extinction of as much as 40% of the earth’s insect species over the next few decades.

To add to concerns, a summary of the United Nations’ global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services shows that Nature’s overall role in ecological and evolutionary processes that distribute fresh water, regulate climate, support pollination, control pests, and limit the impacts of natural hazards all face an overall decline for biodiversity and ecosystems due to human-induced changes involving farming, climate change and global warming, and fishing. This summary urges recognition of the intrinsic values of Nature’s contributions to people. Pollinator loss, in particular, is cited as a particular risk leading to tremendous losses in annual global crop output, placing global human food supplies at risk. 

Figure 2 Hummingbird from Pexels.com

There is no doubt among a multitude of scientists, lawmakers, and citizens here in the United States that swift and effective conservation and protection efforts for insect species are acutely needed. In response, laws have been enacted, plans have been made, and concerned Americans have been engaging in both random and organized acts of citizen science everywhere across the four major regions of the US—Northeastern, Southern, Midwestern, and Western. Much of the focus has been on protection of pollinators due to their essential role in plant life and food production.

Pollinating insects contribute to 1 of every 3 bites we eat, and 90 percent of the world’s flowering plants depend upon pollinators to reproduce. Pollinating insects include honeybees, native bees, butterflies, ants, and numerous other insects, and pollinating animals include birds, bats, and lizards. Bees pollinate 30% of the world’s crops. Maintaining the health of pollinators has become a growing focus of state legislatures, with 22 states having already enacted pollinator-protective legislation in recent years. 

Threats to pollinators 

Sources of distress in pollinating insects include habitat loss, disease, pathogens, pests, competition for non-native plant species, non-target effects of chemicals, climate change and—in the case of bees—colony collapse.

Awareness of pollinators and the urgent need for their legal protection is critical, as the ongoing decline of pollinator populations in many regions threaten ecosystems and human food supplies and occur at a range of scales. Such declines have been shown to involve pressures such as disease and pesticides, and biological processes such as species dispersal and interactions.

And with National Pollinator Week having been designated by the U.S. Senate to take place in June, it’s a great time to consider the multitude of year-round projects — scaling both large and small—that protect pollinators, showing that humans across the country are actively supporting pollinators in their foundational role of supporting life on earth. 

Pollinator Protection in the Northeastern United States

The variety of projects throughout the US supporting and protecting pollinators range in both size and scope, and beekeeper Ray Sage presents an example of individual commitment to a community-based project protecting pollinators, maintaining colonies of honeybees on the roof of the Sixth Street Community Center in his East Village neighborhood in New York City.

Figure 3 Sixth Street Community Center. Beyond My Ken

Sage’s interest in keeping native honey bees began about 8 years ago with taking courses and placing two hives on the community center’s roof. Sage says that his concern with sustainability led him to raise native honey bees because “they are integrated into their own environment—raised with the plants in their region, symbiotically serving the plants that they live with.” Over the years, he has experienced both the expansion and decline of the colonies he has tended, supporting as many as 5 colonies at one time.

Sage and his bees have contended with challenges that are normal for beekeeping in the Northeastern latitude involving seasonal temperature shifts, but they have also confronted threats that have been diminishing populations of honey bees throughout the world in recent years. Parasitic Varroa mites have become a common threat to the hives of beekeepers everywhere by vectoring viruses to honey bee colonies and they were a big problem for Sage’s bees.

Sage’s honey bees have a 3-mile radius for feeding, and have also been subject to a dearth of available pollen and nectar during the summer. Sage has had to skip collecting honey so that the bees can adequately feed for overwintering. He also considers how neonicotinoid pesticides have contributed to the decline of the honey bee colonies he has kept. These pesticides can be carried in a flower’s pollen  and are banned in Europe.

In the Northeast, many people are taking time to get directly involved in pollinator monitoring, support, and protection efforts. Organized projects that utilize citizen science, where individuals monitor pollinators and collect and report data for habitat management, informing public policy, increasing public awareness, and conservation planning, are underway.

Also based in New York City, the Great Pollinator Project facilitates public participation in pollinator research. In upstate New York, the Adirondack Pollinator Project has promoted the planting of pollinator-supporting plants and gardens, as well as education and conservation projects. 

Pollinator protection projects can also be found in many Northeastern cities on a neighborhood-focused, city-wide, and state-wide basis, including the Portland Pollinator Project in Portland, Maine, and the Audubon Society’s chapters in Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

Southern United States:

Pollinator gardens and plantings using pesticide-free and pollen and nectar-rich native plants are a great way to increase habitats and waystations that sustain pollinators, either right in one’s own backyard or even in one’s own window box. 

Bee City USA  is a pollinator-protecting initiative of the diversity-promoting Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and participating cities throughout the Southern United States include Eureka Springs AR, Webster FL, Atlanta GA, Clarkson KY, Crestwood MO, Asheville NC, Greenwood SC, Bell Buckle TN, Scottsville VA, among many other cities and towns in these states that are committed to creating sustainable habitats for pollinators. 

Of course, Beeville TX has done its part to create and maintain habitats for bees and other pollinating insects, and it’s home to a recognized monarch waystation. And a host of gardens throughout the South are registered and counted in the National Pollinator Gardens nationwide Million Pollinator Garden Challenge.

Midwestern United States:

In the Midwest, concern over pollinator decline due to habitat loss has spurred projects in states like Ohio, home of the Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative, which focuses on the improvement of existing habitats as well as habitat creation. 

Figure 4 Photo by Yuichi Kageyama on Unsplash

In Indianapolis, Indiana, city residents take action with a 4-minute-long pollinator count to increase wild pollinators and biodiversity in local communities and neighborhoods.  In Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana, Beespotter citizen scientists can collect and share data with the professional science community and contribute to a nationwide effort on the population status of honey bees and bumble bees.

Butterflies are also critically important pollinators, and declining butterfly populations have necessitated long-term efforts in butterfly conservation. Monarch butterflies, for example, are the official insect or butterfly of seven U.S. states but, since 1999 and well into the 21st century, overwintering colonies of monarchs have experienced decline in Mexico and California due to declining milkweed, their favorite plant, from expanded farming of herbicide-tolerant, genetically modified corn and soybeans. People, nevertheless, are continually fascinated by both the monarchs’ lifecycle and its complex migratory cycle. 

One study considering market-based conservation practices suggested that the majority of U.S. households believe that monarchs and their conservation are important, and this study also considered how the charismatic monarch’s perceived valuation and persistent popularity, despite general human perception of insects being less valuable than animals, may reflect a general interest in protection of pollinators overall. 

In the Midwest, Minnesota is home-base for Monarch Joint Venture, a national partnership of over 80 organizations across the US that includes federal agencies, local nature centers, and “everything in between” according to Cora Lund Preston, its Communications Specialist. She goes on to say that “we see monarchs as both a flagship and ambassador species that is beloved by people of all walks of life, generating interest in general pollinator conservation. Whatever we do for monarchs can help other pollinators, too.” 

Figure 5 Swamp Milkweed. By Fritzflohrreynolds - Own work

The first step for anyone interested in supporting monarchs and pollinators? “Plant milkweed!” Lund Preston enthusiastically recommends. She explains “You don’t need much space to plant a small milkweed and butterfly garden that feeds pollinators.

Planters, home gardens, corporate campus landscaping, even farm fields and roadside gardens featuring both milkweed and native flowering plants are popping up everywhere, and they become way-stations and habitats that provide nectar and pollen for monarch caterpillars, adult monarch butterflies, and many other pollinators.” 

Sometimes, milkweed plants will show up on their own, and Lund Preston emphasizes that if you suddenly notice a milkweed plant proudly appearing in your yard, resist the urge to treat it as a must-to-remove weed—instead, honor its monarch and pollinator-sustaining presence by remembering this rule: “If you see it, leave it!” She also recommends spreading the word by encouraging friends, neighbors, and other community members to plant pollinator planters and gardens of their own.

Citizen science, Lund Preston points out, can be the next step once pollinator-supporting plants are established, emphatically stating that “a lot of what we know is thanks to citizen science—it’s an important way for people across the country to get involved in pollinator conservation.”  Here’s a few examples of citizen science projects that Monarch Joint Venture and its partners host. People can choose the program that interests them most, and they can submit observations from anywhere in the US:

• Level 1: Random Reporting - You can report a random sighting at Journey North, one of the largest citizen science programs in the North America based at University of Wisconsin - Madison Arboretum. 

• Level 2: Regular Monitoring - Visit a patch weekly and report findings at the University of Minnesota’s Monarch Larva Monitoring Program.

• Level 3: Extended Monitoring -  Habitat monitoring and observation reporting over time at Monarch Joint Ventures’ Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program

Southwestern, Western, and Northwestern States:

Gail Morris, Coordinator of the Arizona-based Southwest Monarch Study and Monarch Watch Conservation Specialist, also describes the value of citizen science at any level in monarch monitoring programs, saying “Many people choose to only tag monarchs on their migration, so that is one way they can participate as a Citizen Scientist. Others choose to also monitor milkweed weekly to observe eggs, larvae, pupae, and send in weekly reports. And some will chose to do both. We try to meet people where they are and welcome their involvement and time commitments.”

Figure 6 Sunflowers. Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

Morris also remarks upon the value of citizen science-based fieldwork in recording and demonstrating how summer of 2018 was a good breeding year for monarchs East of the Rockies, but the data also showed how monarch numbers along the coast of California were the lowest in US recorded history. Morris describes how, this year, data captured by citizen scientists show an increase in the size of monarch populations as they recolonize North America. She recommends Monarch Watch as another national program registering and collecting citizen science-obtained data recording the dynamics of monarch populations.

Based at the University of Arizona, Nature’s Notebook allows registered participants to observe and report the flowering timing of nectar sources for monarchs and other pollinators through the Nectar Connectors campaign. Participants can even use a smartphone app to upload data to the National Phenology Database from anywhere in the US.

San Francisco State University is home to the Great Sunflower Project, where citizen science data is used for monitoring national bee pollinator service and where counts of the numbers and types of pollinators are kept, as well as monitoring of the types of flowering plants they visit— especially sunflowers.

And in Seattle, Washington, the Northwest Pollinator Initiative’s CSI:Bees (Citizen Science Initiative for Bees) utilizes short courses and collaborative bee monitoring efforts for wild bee conservation.

Earth Law’s Critical Role

Beekeeper Ray Sage in New York City’s East Village describes his commitment to maintaining the hives as a recognition of the bees’ valuable role as life sustaining pollinators. His holistic view of ecosystems is consistent with a Rights of Nature approach. Support for the inherent rights of all creatures and ecosystems is a guiding principal for Sage, who remarks that support of biodiversity “is the essence of Nature’s law and sustainability” and who concludes “I maintain these hives as an act of service.”

A growing global movement, Earth Law holds that Nature and species have a right to exist, thrive and evolve. In addition to Ecuador and Bolivia which recognized Rights of Nature in 2008 and 2011 respectively, the Whanganui became the first river to gain rights recognition in 2017. The dormant volcano Mount Taranaki, also in New Zealand gained rights a few months later in 2017. The heavily forested National Park Te Urewera also has legal rights.

Figure 7 Te Urewera, New Zealand. I, Brucieb

In the US, the city of Crestone unanimously passed a Rights of Nature Resolution in 2018 thus joining dozens of municipalities that have also passed ordinances and resolutions. Earth Law Center launched over two dozen initiatives in the US and around the world to support local partners to secure rights recognition for Nature.

The holistic view of Earth Law prioritizes the health and balance of ecosystems, including  pollinators. Rights of Nature advocates looking at Nature as something precious to preserve rather than as a limitless resource to take – which can prevent the wholesale destruction of Nature that removes whole habitats, thus wiping out the species who live there.

Our lives depend on the lives of pollinators, whether we think about them or not. Moving towards a new way of looking at Nature and of relating to Nature offers an innovative solution to the environmental crisis we face today. Won’t you join us by taking action today?

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Water, water everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink

Figure 1 Photo by Peter Brown from Pexels.

By A. Mohamed Mansoor

The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. —Native American Proverb

Today we face a global water crisis. Right now an estimated 1.2 billion people live in areas with chronic water scarcity, and upwards of 4 billion — two-thirds of the world’s population — experience shortages at least one month a year. While water covers 71% of the world’s surface, 97% lies in the ocean and just 2.5% is freshwater. 

According to the United Nations, water use has grown at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change. 

Much of that use lies with manufacturing as well as agriculture, but what we choose to buy can have a big impact on water usage. It takes 37 gallons (140 liters) of water to make a single cup of coffee. According to author Stephen Leahy's "Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products," it takes 2,000 gallons (7,600 liters) of water to make your favorite pair of jeans. That includes growing the cotton and manufacturing the garment, but it doesn't include the water that you'll use to wash your jeans over time. Avocados, almonds – even bottles of water themselves, are all highly water-intensive enterprises. Agriculture uses about 70% of freshwater across the globe.

The key drivers of today’s global water crisis include:

Figure 2 Dry lake bed, Unsplash.

1. Climate Change has increased flood risk to already wet places, while making hot places even hotter.

2. More people = more water. The world's population, now at 7.5 billion, is projected to add 2.3 billion more people by 2050.

3. Depleting aquifers. A recent NASA study concluded that 21 of the largest 37 aquifers in the world have exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted.

4. Crumbling water infrastructure. In the United States, 6 billion gallons of treated water are lost per day from leaky pipes alone. 

5. Natural infrastructure destroyed. Healthy ecosystems are " natural infrastructure" and vital to clean, plentiful water. They filter pollutants, buffer against floods and storms, and regulate water supply. Plants and trees are essential for replenishing groundwater; without them, rainfall will slide across dry land, instead of seeping into the soil. Loss of vegetation from deforestation, overgrazing and urbanization is limiting our natural infrastructure and the benefits that it provides. Forested watersheds around the world are under threat: watersheds have lost up to 22 percent of their forests in the past 14 years.

6. Wasted water. From inefficient practices to pollution, we treat water as if it’s limitless. About 80 percent of the world's wastewater is discharged back into nature without further treatment or reuse.

7. Water incorrectly valued. When the price of receiving clean water is closer to its actual service cost, efficient water use will be incentivized.

The most promising solutions seem to focus on:

• Changing mindsets around water usage

• Holistic governance structures

• National and municipal improvements to reduce water loss

• Technological innovation

Figure 3 Poster issued in 2017 by Western Cape government calling for people to conserve water. Credit: Wikipedia.

Reducing Use Case Study

In January 2018, officials in Cape Town announced that the city of 4 million people was three months away from running out of municipal water, the end result of three consecutive years of insufficient rainfall. A barrage of efforts allowed Cape Town to postpone “Zero Day”. 

The government first reduced allocations for farming, so usage went from 30% to 15% of the Western Cape water supply. Then a tariff increase rolled out in February 2018 to ensure that high users paid much more. Each person could only use 50 liters of water per day, meaning gardens went dry, 2 minute showers became the norm and cars went unwashed. To put 50 liters of water in perspective, the average daily per capita water use in California was 321 liters (in 2016). Then former Mayor Patricia de Lille visited the homes of the highest water wasters, as well as publishing a list of those who flouted water restrictions. Continued offenders risked having their water shut off completely.

Capetonians showed ingenuity in saving water including catching and reusing shower water, recycling washing machine water, and daily loo flushes as well as nighttime irrigation. Further discussions are afoot to consider clearing non-native species like pine, eucalyptus and wattle which deplete dam reserves.

For now, the city and its residents are still enduring moderate drought conditions but the specter of Day Zero has receded. As other urban centers around the world start to face their own water shortages, the lessons learned and put into practice in Cape Town could serve as a blue print for how to significantly reduce our water consumption.

Figure 4 Map of the Murray-Darling Basin. Credit: Wikipedia.

Better Governance Case Study

The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) is located in Southeast Australia and covers an area of over one million km2. The MDB suffers from highly variable rainfall and, sometimes, severe droughts. 

At the heart of Australia’s MDB management plan is a fundamental shift to looking at the Basin as one system. The plan balances the water available for industries, farmers and communities while leaving enough water in the Basin's river systems to ensure a healthy environment.

The result? So far Basin Plan water infrastructure efficiency plan has recovered over 700 gigaliters (GL) of water for the environment. Each gigalitre equals one million liters. Over 2100 GL of water has been recovered every year for the environmental health of the river system. That’s an amount equal to more than 4 times the volume of Sydney Harbor. Considering this is a long term plan, to restore 100 years of damage, the plan is working exceptionally well.

Reducing municipal system leaks: Two case studies

Tokyo’s same-day-repair-work method of detecting and repairing leaks has halved the amount of water wasted by the City in the past ten years from 150 million m3 water to 68 million m3 water. As a result, Tokyo’s leakage rate has dropped from 20% in 1956 to 3.6% in 2006. Measures include: converting to stainless steel service pipes; establishing water pipeline network systems; and controlling to proper water pressure through careful distribution pump operations.

Germany has invested so much in its water systems, along with constant and early repairs along with early detection that its non revenue water loss is 7% (compared to 16% in the US). Methods of water leak detection include hydrostatic testing, infrared, and laser technology after pipeline erection and leak detection during service. 

By way of comparison, the US loses more water in 1 year through leaky pipes than it uses in 3 months. This does not account for water loss or waste beyond the public supply networks. Of the water that reaches consumers’ taps, the US EPA (2016b) estimates that nearly 4 bill. m3/a (12%) are wasted through leaky faucets, toilet flush valves, showerheads, holes in automatic sprinkler hoses and other household fixtures. Eliminating these leaks would by itself contribute 18% of the total reduction needed to achieve the water use level of Germany.

What’s similar about the successes in both Japan and Germany is a commitment to upgrade and maintain higher standards of water supply infrastructure, which then reduces the on-going losses from corroded pipes. Systemic leakage loses more than households can save. In the UK for example, households are asked to save water yet the 20% of water leaking from company pipes daily has not fallen for at least four years. So systemic solutions need to share responsibility for stemming water wastage. 

Figure 5 Water gushing out of a break in the Trans-canyon Waterline. NPS Photo. Grand Canyon National Park [Public domain].

Technological solutions: Two examples

For equatorial and tropical regions. AKVO absorbs air humidity, purifies it to provide drinkable water. The Atmospheric Water Generators come in different sizes from 100 litres machines to 10,000 litres for community housing and industrial use. AKVO AWG's can generate up to 1000 litres of water in just 24 hours from the atmospheric moisture. This water is cheaper than market water. 

The Omni-Processor created by the company Janicki Bioenergy boils sewage water and the resulting water vapour is fed through a processor which thoroughly cleanses it producing safe and clean drinking water. The cast off solids are then burned creating steam which generates electricity to power the machine. Excess electricity is also generated for the local community. Alongside the water and electricity benefits, this innovative technology also provides clean and safe disposal of human waste. This sanitation solution could also help the 2.6 billion people without adequate sanitation.

Solutions that may not be as great as they seem 

As of 2015, 18,426  desalination plants operate worldwide - a doubling of capacity since 2010. The salty leftovers typically get dumped into oceans, which can raise salinity to dangerous levels and put toxic chemicals in the marine environment threatening ocean life, according to a new study. As the number of desalination plants continues to rise, ocean ecosystems need urgent solutions to the salty sludge produced in the process.

Desalination also costs a lot of money, needs large amounts of energy and can only be used by coastal communities. Desalination typically requires specialized expensive infrastructure, making it very costly compared to the use of fresh water from rivers or wells (bores). Most desalination plants today use fossil fuels as a power source, and thus also create more greenhouse gases. So desalination is both a reaction to and one of many contributors to climate change.

The dropping of crystals into clouds to cause rain has been used to increase rainfall (and snowpack where relevant), otherwise known as cloud seeding. The technique relies on already existing water molecules in the atmosphere to condense onto the particles, or "seeds."  The seed particles do not contain moisture, they just cause the existing moisture in the atmosphere to condense on them. In periods of drought or areas with low rainfall, the air doesn’t have any moisture so cloud seeding won’t work. 

What is Earth Law and how can it help? 

Earth Law holds that Nature has the right to exist, thrive and evolve. Since all life on the planet, including humans, needs a healthy environment to thrive - the ability to defend the Rights of Nature in court can help stop the worst abuses of the natural environment.

Rights of aquifers, rivers and watersheds embody the ideals of Earth Law, or Rights of Nature, which focuses on a holistic, eco-centric view of the world. Earth Law recognizes that humans can only be healthy if Nature is healthy. With bodies like the United Nation’s Harmony with Nature initiative, the International Union for Conservation of Nature all working towards evolving laws to strengthen the protection of nature - the global movement is growing.

Earth Law Center (ELC) works for rights of rivers and oceans. ELC is building an international movement from the ground up, one that gives better grounding to the idea that humans have a responsibility for how we impact the world around us. The belief that nature - the species and ecosystems that comprise our world - has inherent rights has proven to be a galvanizing idea, and we work with local communities to help them organize around the rights of nature to protect their environment from the threats that they see.

Nations like Ecuador and Bolivia have amended their constitutions to recognize Right of Nature. Three rivers in the world enjoy legal rights: the Whanganui in New Zealand, the Atrato and Amazon in Colombia.

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Youth Find Voice and Hope through Activism

Figure 1 Greta Thunberg, outside the Swedish parliament. Photo by Anders Hellberg

By Helga Luest

As a 15-year-old activist, Greta Thunberg rocked the global stage at the United Nations plenary in Katowice, Poland. Her message was simple: “You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake, you are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.” Greta was speaking about climate change just as youth throughout Europe were walking out of classrooms to demand climate change action by global leaders.

Laws, Rights, and Climate Change

Climate change and the rights of nature are increasingly a hot button of activism for youth. They realize that with global warming, the threat is greatest to their generation and those to come – yet most governments do not consider the commanding voice of children. They don’t vote, they don’t have money, and they don’t have power. But all of that could be changing, as the collective impact, media visibility, and support from adult advocates elevates their voices to the national and international platforms. Globally, youth are outraged by the inaction that threatens our planet, biodiversity, and life itself.

Kids are standing with nature to be heard, valued, and protected. In the United States, Juliana v. United States marks the first lawsuit of its kind where 21 children banded together saying that inaction by the government is violating and denying their right to a safe and stable climate. Some face losing their homes as result of rising sea levels, while others see the contamination of air and water quality that creates disproportionate health risks and damages the place they call home. There are a number of other climate change lawsuits underway, and at the county and state levels, communities are seeking “public nuisance” damages from coal, gas, and oil companies for contributing to climate change.

There are other impactful legal efforts underway. Earth Law Center (ELC) holds that if Nature has rights, then these rights can be protected by law and defended in courts. ELC works together with local environmental groups to secure rights for specific ecosystems and species, as well as writing and submitting amicus briefs, researching and advising on the different pathways to rights recognition, and getting the word out to a broader audience. Current programs focus on river and land rights and oceans and coasts. Advocacy efforts also promote the inclusion of earth law in law schools by writing the first Earth Law legal textbook. ELC also piloted mock trial workshops in partnership with the Brooklyn College Community Partnership, part of a larger drive to bring Earth Law to middle and high school students. And once students get it and start to understand that what they say and do makes a difference, they stick with it. ELC sees that first-hand with dozens of summer interns who continue to support the mission long after school resumes; some for years.

Public Opinion is Shifting

While youth rise up and take action and learn more about our changing world, adults are also taking notice. The wrath of nature’s brutal storms continue to intensify because of human consumption and carbon emissions, and it has become nearly impossible for most to ignore that climate change is happening. According the January 2019 Climate Change in the American Mind survey produced by Yale and George Mason University, 70 percent of Americans. That was a jump of seven percent in just nine months. This may largely be attributed to the massive floods, wildfires, and severe storms, the likes of which we have never seen before.

In many ways, money still talks louder than Mother Nature. It's a primary driver for our policymakers – the power and influence of industry, and typically those that put our environment at greatest risk. Yet, our electeds want to maintain their power and influence, so they compromise to ensure endorsements and campaign donations. For this reason alone, climate change should be a significant motivator for campaign reform, pulling the rug out from under the dirty fossil fuel industries. There’s a reason why the National Climate Assessment in the United States and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports in 2018 were addressed to policymakers – because they can make the needed bold decisions in the shortest amount of time.

There is no doubt that 2020 could be the most important election year ever in the United States. With the increased awareness in the general public, everyone should be voting like life depends on it – because it does. There is no room for climate denial.

While policy and politics prompt adults to flock to the polls, youth too young to vote find a place for their voices through collective action. And while youth may not be of voting age yet, there is a lot they can do to influence how things look in the future and how they manage the associated stresses. They use their numbers, actions, and arguments to force these issues to the headlines and the forefront of legislative agendas.

Life, Liberty, and Mental Health for Youth

Issues such as gun violence and climate change have heightened youth stress and prompted brave civic protest. What adults once took as a given – being safe at school and existing on a livable planet – are now at risk. The looming threats have had a significant impact on kids. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 96 percent of teens felt that anxiety and depression were a problem and 70 percent felt it was a major problem.

According to The Lancet’s Planetary Health publication, climatological factors should be considered when assessing the mental health of children. Extreme weather events like intense precipitation, tropical cyclones, wild fires, heat stress, and other shifts not only pose risks to health, but to societal and economic aspects of life as well. New terms like eco anxiety and solastalgia help to explain some of the heavy feelings that are associated with climate change.

Social determinants of health are not stable for kids and will continue to experience volatility because of climate change. The science of climate change tells us that where it is warm, it will get warmer; and where it is wet, it will get wetter. Nobody will escape the negative impacts of heat extremes, floods, and severe weather.

The wealth of a national may also predict future suffering, with many indications that developing nationals will be the most vulnerable to catastrophic events. The stress and environmental changes have had an impact on kids where depression rates and suicidal ideation are on the rise.

Figure 2 Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The Healing Powers of Activism

So how does activism really make a difference for youth? Well, there’s no doubt that being subject to many world pressures, combined with abuse, neglect, and other tragic experiences – also known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), can present real struggles for kids. This makes it especially important for youth to feel heard, appreciated, and included so that hope and optimism supersede the weight of the world. And activism does have a positive effect on mental health and self-esteem for a number of reasons.

Action Sparks Hope – By shifting both your view and your experience from what is happening to you to what you can do about it, you move from passive to active. Doing something positive with how you feel – like advocating for positive change – will bring about an inherent hope and a more optimistic view of the future.

Strength in Numbers – Most life challenges are easier to manage with the support of others, especially in situations that are heavy, depressing or complicated. In collective activism, teens are able to connect with other passionate, like-minded peers with whom they can work to have big picture impact. The mere action of working and connecting with others works to counter the depression and lowered self-esteem that may result from isolation.

Results Affirm Action – When one school experiences a walk out, it usually doesn’t become national news, but when hundreds of schools experience this, it is international news. The large-scale and coordinated action not only raises attention, it also stimulates real action by leaders who can change rules and laws. With every success, youth feel an affirmation that their hard work has paid off, their voices matter and they are making a difference!

As climate change concerns demand action and social change, youth need to be empowered to lead with their passion, conviction, and unhampered will. They should have a place at the table when community leaders talk about climate change, adaptation, and resilience planning – because they will be the most impacted by the decision or indecision that takes place today. When given the space to take bold steps forward, they not only preserve their right to a healthy future, they also build skills to support resilience.

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Helga Luest, M.A., is a senior communications professional who is certified in climate change and health from the Yale School of Public Health. She recently joined the Climate Reality Leadership Corps

Rights for the Coral Reefs

Figure 1 Clownfish in anemone via Pexels

By Mehrose Akhtar

Coral reefs, the incredibly stunning rainforests of the seas, now battle for survival. But hope exists in the form of innovative solutions. Earth Law Center and partners Howell Conservation Fund and ReefLife Restoration propose to take coral reefs out of the realm of property and insure the reef for the benefit of the whole ecosystem (that includes humans). This approach can include payouts from local  businesses, restrictions on use, and programs for restoration, but also requirements for local industry to reduce emissions and land-based pollution.

Two countries, (Ecuador and Bolivia), several rivers (the Whanganui in New Zealand, the Atrato and Amazon in Colombia) and many towns have amended laws to recognize Rights of Nature including Santa Monica, CA and Crestone CO. This approach embodies a holistic view with much promise.

Over the years, countries have designated segments of sea for protection to practice rearing, transplanting and monitoring of reefs. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) were created to prevent overfishing and destructive fishing practices so corals could recover fast despite any single disturbance. MPAs are categorized as extractive zones, multipurpose zones and no-take zones. Currently, despite MPAs, only 4% of the world’s oceans are protected. The Earth Law Framework applies this approach to the establishment and governance of MPAs to create a legal obligation to protect coral reefs.

Intro to coral reefs

Ocean health depends, in part, on coral reef health. Coral reefs protect coastlines from damaging effects of wave action and tropical storms, provide shelter to many marine organisms, create essential nutrients for marine food chains, help with nutrient recycling and assist in carbon and nitrogen fixing. 

The total net benefit per year of the world's coral reefs is $29.8 billion. Tourism and recreation account for $9.6 billion of this amount, coastal protection for $9.0 billion, fisheries for $5.7 billion, and biodiversity for $5.5 billion.

Covering approximately 0.2% of the ocean’s floor, coral reefs usually prefer shallow water at depths of less than 150 feet since they require sunlight to grow. However, some live at deeper levels up to 450 feet. Fascinatingly, they photosynthesize but do not make their own food.

Coral reefs are in fact animals that behave like plants. Thousands of polyps (tiny animals) live together to form colonies. They do so by excreting calcium carbonate exoskeleton beneath them. Over time, skeletons of numerous coral colonies accumulate to build the structure of a reef. Other species, fish, algae and microorganisms then build their homes on or around the reef making it a rich ecosystem. One quarter of all ocean species depend on coral reefs.

Threats to Coral Reefs

It takes millions of years for the reefs to form, but just a few decades or less for them to get smothered by pollution and diseases.

Over half of coral reefs have died in the last 30 years due to pollution, warming and acidifying oceans caused by human activity. Scientists predict that human activity will threaten 90% of the coral reefs by 2030 and almost all of them by 2050 if existing practices continue.

Specifically, coral reefs face threats from:

• Physical damage or destruction from coastal development, dredging, quarrying, destructive fishing practices and gear, boat anchors and groundings, and recreational misuse (touching or removing corals).

• Land-based pollution that finds its way into coastal waters:

  • Sedimentation from coastal development, urban stormwater runoff, forestry, and agriculture which smothers corals and interferes with their ability to feed, grow, and reproduce.

  • Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) from agricultural and residential fertilizer use, sewage discharges (including wastewater treatment plants and septic systems), and animal waste which support microorganism growth that harms corals.

  • Pathogens from inadequately treated sewage, stormwater, and runoff from livestock pens which causes coral disease.

  • Toxic substances, including metals, organic chemicals and pesticides found in industrial discharges, sunscreens, urban and agricultural runoff, mining activities, and runoff from landfills which results in coral bleaching.

  • Trash and micro-plastics  can snag on corals and block the sunlight needed for photosynthesis, or entangle and kill reef organisms and break or damage corals.

• Overfishing can alter food-web structure and cause cascading effects, such as reducing the numbers of grazing fish that keep corals clean of algal overgrowth. Blast fishing (i.e., using explosives to kill fish) can cause physical damage to corals as well.

• Coral harvesting for the aquarium trade, jewelry, and curios can lead to over-harvesting of specific species, destruction of reef habitat, and reduced biodiversity.

Figure 2 Bleached corals. Bruno de Giusti via Wikimedia Commons

Traditional coral reef protection

Both local and governmental organizations have made efforts to protect reefs either through setting goals or through funding:

• The International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN) first identified that 70-80% of world’s coral reefs are in developing countries and has since worked to strengthen local communities and assist them in managing marine life and coastal ecosystems.

• In 2012, United Nations Program (UNEP) partnered with Global Coral Reef Monitoring to execute Green Fins which registered 260 centers globally to implement ecosystem-based marine management in coral reef areas, in line with UN’s sustainable development goal 14. As a result, 15.4% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 3.4% of global ocean were protected since 2012.

• Other projects like OneReef restore reefs expand community capacity with science-based monitoring to recover reef health, local trainings, infrastructure to protect reefs and sustainable financing plans. By taking local stakeholders into consideration, OneReef Community Partnership successfully restored 425,000 acres of reef for $2 per acre.

• Coral Guardian, a French nonprofit founded in 2012, focused on raising awareness, conducting scientific research of marine ecosystems and proposing optimistic solutions among general public, youth and businesses.

As laudable as these measures are, more needs to be done. A professor at Stanford University noted that scientists do not change the world; political leaders and people do.

Figure 3 School of fish on corals. Photo by Sagar on Unsplash

Case studies of successful coral reef protection

Australia, Indonesia, Mexico and the Caribbean Islands have all successfully implemented coral reef conservation solutions. These places have used market driven approaches, community engagement, piloting, environmental policies, parametric insurance and Rights of Nature approach to protect coral reef ecosystems. We will now have an insight into some of these noteworthy coral reef stories. 

Victory for the Great Belize Reef 

The second largest barrier reef in the world (and it can be seen from space, see image below), the 200-mile Great Belize Reef hosts 1400 species including endangered ones like the green, loggerhead, and hawksbill turtles, West Indian manatees, the American marine crocodile, and others. UNESCO believes the reef is safe for the time being, and took it off the endangered list in 2018. The Great Belize Reef suffered enormous losses in the years 2009 up until 2018 due to destruction caused by offshore oil drilling. Now thanks to the visionary steps taken by the government and the community, the reef thrives once again.

Figure 4 Great Belize Barrier Reef from space. Jeff Williams (NASA).

So how did Belize do it? According to National Geographic public concerns about the reef heightened after 2011. At that time, a people’s referendum was held, whereby 96% of the people voted to protect the reef and deject oil drilling practices. Oil contracts became illegal due to pressure from the people. In 2016, the government banned offshore oil drilling in all its waters. Then in 2018 the government applied stricter regulations against deforestation of the mangrove trees. UNESCO called Belize’s plan “visionary.”

Not just that, but starting in 2011, the government of Belize also executed other plans to protect its environment. Belize used a new area-based fishing licensing system and verification process to prohibit open access fishing and instead curtailed managed access pilot. Piloting policy aims to improve overall health of the ocean and coral reef ecosystem by licensing fishing and creating no-take zones to sustain marine population. At Belize, only qualified fishermen were permitted to fish. Their fish catch was closely monitored from pilot sites. Unqualified fishers were denied licenses. As a result, fishing violation dropped by 60%.

All these actions, namely environmental taxes for conserving the reef, putting limitations on fishing and boosting its no fishing zone from 3% of its waters to 10%, were appreciated by international organizations. Thus, coral cover increased by 35% and 90% of the species in Belize survived manmade pressures and reproduced. This 9-year struggle resulted in a model to lead ocean and reef protection around the world.

Wakatobi, Indonesia amps up reef protection

5.1 million hectares of coral reefs are located in Indonesia of which 65% is endangered due to destructive fishing practices (namely sand extraction, fishing bombing and overfishing). Many locals in Wakatobi, Indonesia voiced their concerns about the coral reefs.

The manager of the Fisheries office, Nadjib Prasyad stated that protecting coral reefs is like protecting the fish. If coral reefs die, so do the fish. As a result, the government of Indonesia along with Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Project (Coremap) empowered local communities to align on reef protection. They sent out radio messages in villages, trained fishermen, educated students in schools and monitored activities to promote healthy fishing and coral reef management. 

As a result, Indonesia successfully established coral reef management agencies in 358 villages and witnessed an increase in the income of Coremap areas by 21% since 2008. Additionally, Indonesia also saw a reduction of 60% in destructive fishing practices since 2005. Coremap now forms part of a Coral Triangle Initiative with 4 other countries that are focusing on preserving the reefs. 

One of a kind mission in St Croix: the making of coral babies to restore reefs

St Croix, in the Caribbean Sea, is home to thousands of coral reefs species. Scientists and researchers at this island used unique tactics of growing corals in nurseries and relocating them to abandoned reefs.  

Figure 5 Photo by Juanma Clemente-Alloza on Unsplash

Nature Conservancy along with its partners used sexual reproduction measures to grow coral babies. Teams swam underwater to collect gametes (eggs and sperm) from Elkhorn Corals. As a result, 750,000 coral embryos spawned in protected nurseries. Over the years, more corals and a diversity of fish re-appeared in that region.

Enter parametric insurance

Parametric insurance offers a new approach to coral reef protection.

Let’s take Hawaii as an example, a place highly exposed to natural disasters. Traditionally, Hawaii depends on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program to support disaster recovery. In addition to a limited budget, federal funds only support specific initiatives – leaving the vast majority of losses for the State and counties to pay for. When a storm occurs, like Hurricane Iniki near Waikiki, it means three years of total government spending.

Traditionally, a disaster happens then months (or years) later payouts appear -  while parametric insurance pays out as soon as an index is reached (in as quickly as ten to twenty one days). Payout for this type of coverage is set in advance of purchase, by estimating the loss as accurately as possible, subject to certain conditions being satisfied. The policy cost is based on a predetermined trigger. In case of Hawaii, if it uses parametric insurance, that could set a trigger for natural disaster to be based on the maximum wind speed of a hurricane as it passes through a specific covered area, such as the Ala Wai watershed. So, any hurricane with one-minute maximum winds of ninety-six miles per hour or higher, as it passes through the Ala Wai watershed, would result in a payout. 

Not just an idea, Mexico has already used this approach to protect part of the Mesoamerican Reef along its Yucatan Peninsula from hurricanes as we have seen above. Although 80% of the the corals in the Mexican Caribbean face bleaching or have disappeared, hurricanes cause the most short term damage. Tourism, which generates about $9 billion a year, helps fund the trust. 

In 2006, Mexico’s state government of Quintana Roo, along with Nature Conservancy, pioneered the use of parametric insurance and created a Coastal Zone Management Trust to protect coasts and corals in the Caribbean from hurricane damage.

The government made use of a pre-set financial arrangement of loans and taxes, from local governments and nearby hotels and tourist industry, to protect beaches, wildlife and corals in the Caribbean from hurricane damage. This policy not only acted as a defense mechanism and made reefs more resilient towards damage but it also saved time and helped diminish disputes among various groups regarding economic activities.

How Earth Law can help coral reefs

Rather than treating the ocean and its inhabitants as property, a growing global movement proposes to make Nature a subject that holds rights. This approach strengthens the innovations currently underway to protect coral reefs. 

Building on wins around the world, Rights of Nature proposes recognizing ecosystems and species as legal entities. The Earth Law framework goes beyond the traditional methods of “resource” management[ii] to provide a clear legal mandate for managing protected areas as part of a system,[iii] and as part of the whole that humans are also a part of.

Earth Law recognizes that Nature has inherent rights to exist, thrive and evolve. Seeing coral reefs through this lens will help strengthen legal accountability to protect coral reefs. Like many rights-based movements, Rights of Nature will help shift norms in how we see entities that previously did not have rights.

What would this look like in practice?

Decisions that might affect ocean health need to factor in the cost that suffered by a third party as a result of an economic transaction – ocean ecosystems themselves. So the ocean stops being property and a commodity to be bought and sold, and instead becomes a subject with the right to exist, thrive and evolve.

Activities maintain or improve ocean health, and do not further damage it. That means reduced take or no take zones, adoption of eco-tourism and other means of livelihood for local communities, enforced and managed MPAs, inclusion of all stakeholders (including general public and ecosystem guardians) in decision making.

Adopt an approach of early prevention – proactive action to save reefs now, rather than wait for them to further deteriorate. Precautionary management means considering the longer term impact of any activity and remembering that marine ecosystems recover slowly, with many factors at work that we don’t entirely understand yet.

Communities gain the right to defend local marine ecosystems, and take an active role in reef preservation. Recognizing the rights of reefs will ensure healthy livelihood for the locals, promote ecotourism and maintain richness of the ecosystems.

If humans have rights based on their existence, shouldn’t oceans and corals? Read more with responses to frequently asked questions.

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Applying Earth Law to the Humane Treatment of Factory Farm Animals

Figure 1 Concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), Unionville, Missouri, United States, owned by Smithfield Foods via Socially Responsible Agricultural Project

By Janay Brun 

“People feed, shelter, and breed cattle and hogs, and in return the animals provide food and clothing. We must never abuse them, because that would break an ancient contract. We owe it to animals to give them decent living conditions and a painless death,” Dr. Temple Grandin.

Rethinking bacon 

Studies have proven that pigs are smart; show empathy; have a sense of self and complex social lives; good long-term memories; and problem-solving abilities on par with chimpanzees. So why do humans treat animals they depend on for sustenance so poorly and with such little respect for their complex inner lives? 

Figure 2 Gestation crates for sows via farmsanctuary.org

It is estimated that 80% of sows live their lives crammed into cages only big enough to allow them to stand or lie down in – that is it! Pigs in factory farms spend their lives with their own waste decomposing under grates beneath them, emitting poisonous gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. If the big industrial fans pumping in fresh air fail, then the pigs can be asphyxiated. Such a scene is described in Barry Estabrook’s Pig Tales: An Omnivore's Quest for Sustainable Meat. 

But milk is ok right? 

Research has shown cows are smarter than people give them credit for and possess high cognitive abilities. Cows form social hierarchies, develop friendships, and hold grudges. In addition, scientists have observed that cows and their calves are affected physically and mentally when separated after birth. All cattle also suffer during de-horning. The lasting effect of these traumas lead to changes in the bovines’ brains that result in “a negative cognitive bias akin to pessimism.”

Yet, calves are taken from their mothers after birth so their milk can be bottled for humans. Calves are then sold as veal. Most cows are kept separated on factory farms, housed in stalls or tied up. Beef cattle are left to their own devices out in the American west to survive drought, famine, fires, and getting stuck in dried up water tanks — only to then be shipped to feedlots for “grain finishing.” The cattle kept in the feedlots are usually confined in close quarters indoors, creating a stressful situation for the animals. As a result, they become more susceptible to disease and the change in their diet can result in digestive issues. 

Eggs don’t hurt anyone right? 

Figure 3 Baby chick Photo by Designer VietNam on Unsplash

Chickens are highly communicative and use sophisticated signals to express their intentions. They empathize with others in danger; are problem solvers; and can reference past experiences and apply those to current situations. In addition, unhatched embryos can communicate with each other and the mother hen.

Nevertheless, male chicks have been filmed being ground up alive on factory farms. Chickens raised for breast meat have been genetically selected and pumped with antibiotics so they become top heavy and distorted to produce the meat coveted by consumers. Egg laying hens are crammed into cages for the extent of their short life span, one to two years, and even “cage free” chickens can live in cramped, indoor, artificially lit spaces. Most chickens have some disease from living among their waste and feathers and in such cramped quarters. Since chickens naturally form small groups to establish a social hierarchy, the cramped, over-crowded spaces lead to stress, fights (chickens are routinely debeaked because of this), sickness, and death.

Turkeys, the “bird of courage” according to Benjamin Franklin, share much of the same behaviors as their wild counterparts. Just like chickens they are crammed into spaces so stressful that they can attack one another. To prevent further injuries to their stock, factory farms routinely debeak, de-snood (the red flesh by the beak that is used for attracting mates) and remove several toes of the birds without anesthetic. Turkeys get so big in the chest from selective breeding for the prized meat consumers love that they cannot mate naturally and must be artificially inseminated by workers known as “milkers.” A 2013 Washington Post article found that over one million turkeys and chickens are not properly stunned before being thrown into the scalding pot to loosen their feathers, thus are conscious while being boiled to death.

The Web of Life

The premise of Earth Law is that all components of the Earth have a right to exist, thrive, and survive. So how do we juxtapose this view when it comes to eating animals? When it comes to animals Earth Law is not just a matter of animals having a right to exist but also having a right to live and behave as they are naturally inclined to do.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) – a 20th century switch from small farms – have led to some devastating environmental impacts violating the basic tenets of Earth Law. The Chesapeake Bay has been negatively affected by farming practices, including factory farms of animals, for decades. An overabundance of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment from animal manure, chemical fertilizers, and compaction of the soil has contributed to the bay’s dead zones, algae blooms, fish kills, and the polluted streams that run into the bay. 

On the U.S. northwest coast there is an additional threat besides the nitrogen and phosphorus run-offs from factory farms. Fish farms threaten wild populations of fish and have the potential for upsetting the local aquatic ecosystems. There are no barriers between the “farms” and the ocean. This allows other marine life to get stuck and die in the nets. Farmed fish loaded with antibiotics can and have escaped poorly maintained farm nets, creating devastating environmental impacts such as the cross breeding with and eating of native species, not to mention competing with them for food and introducing new diseases to ecosystems.

Figure 4 Typical animal waste lagoon, North Carolina. Bob Nichols / Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

And across America where small family farms have been replaced with the factory farm, local communities are at risk of detrimental environmental impacts. The use of antibiotics on factory farm animals has led to “superbugs,” which create health risks for all species. 

Animal waste is often stored in “lagoons.” They are vulnerable to flooding after rain or heavy storms, threatening local waterways and the main body of water into which they drain. In addition, pathogens that are naturally occurring in fecal matter such as E. coli, salmonella, and fecal coliform have the potential to contaminate the environment, including the ground water.

Concentrated animal farming operations create even more health risks to local communities. Gases emitted from the manure can cause flu like symptoms, create respiratory problems, and even neurobehavioral issues in humans.

Lastly, the production of fertilizers to grow the animal feed and the animals’ transportation to market are established contributors to the enormous production of greenhouse gases.

Thus, the intertwining of factory farms and natural ecosystems cannot be separated – it is all one system. And the denial of animals’ right to exist as they would naturally leads not only to their torturous existence for human consumption but also to the mistreatment of water and land ecosystems so they, too, cannot survive and thrive. Fortunately, consumers are starting to become aware. 

Consumer Demand for Ethical Meat 

Social media has brought the plight of factory farm animals to the public. Activists from around the world have been able to film (sometimes covertly) the mistreatment of factory farm animals so that humans can become aware of their role in today’s food paradigm.

Most recently activists were able to film turkeys that had been marketed as “humanely and ethically treated.” The birds were diseased and dying in an industrial farm in Utah. Similarly, activists in California filmed sick, injured, and dying chickens in crowded conditions on a factory farm that marketed its animals as “free range” and sold them to Amazon and Whole Foods. If one peruses YouTube one can view literally thousands of videos of animals being abused to feed people. But there is some hope. 

Wilcox Family farms  has three locations: Washington, Montana, and Oregon. The Wilcox family “farms” chickens and sells them to grocery chains – large and small – including CostCo. Over the past twenty years Mr. Wilcox’s customer base has been asking questions about how he farms. Mainly, concerns have been raised about the welfare of the chickens and the surrounding environment. And Mr. Wilcox responded. 

Wilcox Family Farms is now certified as humane, organic, all natural, cage free, Non-GMO and salmon safe – respecting the natural waterways in and around the properties by keeping chicken manure out of the water and eliminating the use of pesticides for the benefit of the watershed and all its inhabitants.

The fast food giant, McDonalds has also felt the pressure from its customers to change to more humane and respectful treatment of the animals and environments in which it sources its profits from. It was reported that in 2013 McDonalds began using 100% sustainable fish. The company has also committed to transitioning to cage-free eggs and sourcing sustainable beef for its products. They’ve also pledged to end gestation crate use for all pork they buy by 2022.

Walmart, the leading food supplier of America has also pledged to change its standards. The company now “believes animals should be treated humanely throughout their lives.” Walmart supports the “Five Freedoms” of animal welfare; transparency; the responsible use of antibiotics; and a sustainable food system. Walmart has also pledged to take corrective actions when they become aware of animal abuse cases in their supply chain. Subway and Chipotle have also pledged similar promises.

Earth Law as part of the solution

Animals, just like the environment, have scant legal rights internationally. In the U.S. domestic pets are still viewed as property under the legal system. Farm animals have few federal legal protections and are mostly exempt from state anti-cruelty laws. People who try to expose animal cruelty on farms are subject to so called “ag-gag” laws that target whistleblowers. Big agriculture continues to push legislation that benefits them like the “Right to Farm” bill. Europe, on the other hand, has led the way for decades.

The London based group, Farm Animal Welfare Council first published the “Five Freedoms” of domestic animals in 1979. These include: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, or disease; freedom to express normal behavior; and freedom from fear and distress. The Five Freedoms were adopted into legislation by the European Union in 1998. Why can’t the same happen in the U.S. and across the globe?

In the U.S. changes are starting to occur. In 2016 Massachusetts was the first in the country to ban the sales of any products produced from confined animals. Currently — thanks to activists and supporters — California will introduce a ballot measure in the November 2018 election that would ban ALL cages of hens and chickens, gestation crates for sows, and veal crates for calves. This initiative would apply not just to California farmers but to ANY farmer that wanted to do business in the state. 

Earth Law recognizes that rivers and cattle should have individual legal standing under the eyes of the law. Waters should be legally protected to flow freely and sustain themselves like cattle should legally be able to move freely and have access to everything that supports their nature. As watersheds and oceans are starting to gain legal status through the work of Earth Law Center and their partners, animal rights need to be included in order to complete the picture. Earth Law Center has now initiated such action.

As of April 2018, Earth Law Center has partnered with Legal Rights for the Salish Sea, PETA and the NonHuman Rights Project to launch the Puget Sound Initiative. This initiative aims to support the local and indigenous communities of the Puget Sound and Salish Sea, including the endangered Southern resident orca population.

The orcas of this population are not only vulnerable to noise pollution, vessel activity, and underwater military exercises, but also contaminants and prey availability. Their main source of  prey, wild salmon were just recently protected by Washington’s Governor Islee thanks to an initiative launched by the Wild Fish Conservancy known as Our Sound, Our Salmon. The new law will ban open-water Atlantic salmon aquaculture to protect the ecological diversity of the Puget Sound, specifically the wild salmon that the orcas are dependent upon for their survival. 

In conclusion, water and land can only be protected from pollution and destruction if we recognize that Nature is not property but a complex web of interactions on which we depend for our survival. The humane treatment of animals equals the human treatment of our lands and waters. 

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Seeking Rights for Natural Forests in El Salvador

Figure 1 Photo by Paulius Dragunas on Unsplash

Earth Law Center (ELC) and Sí Por La Naturaleza (“Yes for Rights of Nature”) have partnered in a bid to secure Rights for Natural Forests. Sí Por La Naturaleza has already submitted a proposal for the country’s Legislative Assembly to pass a Declaration on the Rights of Natural Forests, which was co-drafted by ELC.

If passed, El Salvador would become the first country to recognize the inherent rights of natural forests, representing a major leap forward in the global effort to reverse forest destruction and degradation.

Introduction to El Salvador

El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America with 6 million people. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country is tucked away along the Pacific Ocean, with Honduras to the northeast and Guatemala to the northwest. 

Cave paintings provide the oldest evidence of humans in El Salvador dating back to at least 6000 BC. From there, the Lencas, Olmecs and Mayans built their consecutive empires until the Spanish arrived, enriching the Spanish Crown from 1528 to 1811 plus the 14 families who later became the coffee oligarchy and ruling class. To shake off the yoke of authoritarian rule, a Civil War raged from 1980 to 1992 claiming 75,000 lives.

El Salvador has emerged to consolidate both democracy and peace, electing five consecutive democratic presidents with peaceful transitions of power. Public services have expanded and inequality has declined, driven by income growth for the poorest 20 percent in 2016. This makes El Salvador the most equal country in Latin America for the same year, after Uruguay (and more equal than the United States).

Layers of a forest

Many layers make up a forest: the forest floor, the understory and the canopy. Each layer has its own ecosystem – plants and animals that differ from the other layers.

• Forest floor contains decomposing leaves, animal droppings, and dead trees. Decay on the forest floor forms new soil and provides nutrients to the plants. The forest floor supports ferns, grasses, mushroom and tree seedlings.

• Understory is made up of bushes, shrubs, and young trees that are adapted to living in the shades of the canopy. For young saplings in a deeply shaded part of the forest, the network sustains them. Lacking the sunlight to photosynthesize, they survive because big trees, including their parents, pump sugar into their roots through the network.

• Canopy is formed by the mass of intertwined branches, twigs and leaves of the mature trees. The crowns of the dominant trees receive most of the sunlight thus produce the most food. The canopy forms a shady, protective "umbrella" over the rest of the forest.

The type of forests depends on the system of classification: the biome in which they life, leaf longevity of the dominant species (whether they are evergreen or deciduous) or type of leaves (broadleaf, coniferous, needle-leaved, or mixed).

Importance of Forests

Regardless of the type of forest, a recent paper demonstrates the importance of keeping forests intact.  Intact forests help mitigate climate change, maintain water supplies, safeguard biodiversity, and protect human health.

Intact forest landscapes (IFLs), or vast stretches of unbroken forest wilderness, are some of the most important ecosystems in the world. Their intactness makes them uniquely valuable to nature—they regulate temperature and rainfall across continents, provide homes to indigenous peoples, have some of the highest biodiversity rates and store huge amounts of carbon, among other benefits.

Forests host 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and 300 million people. The planet has lost about 80 percent of its native forests, resulting in the extinction of countless species and displacement of many communities, especially indigenous peoples.

Forests protect watersheds which supply fresh water to rivers—critical sources of drinking water. Healthy urban and rural forested watersheds absorb rainfall and snow melt, slow storm runoff, recharge aquifers, sustain stream flows, filter pollutants from the air and runoff before they enter the waterways; and provide critical habitat for fish and wildlife. Forested watersheds also provide abundant recreational opportunities, help support local economies, provide an inexpensive source of drinking water, and improve the quality of life.

Forests absorb water and hold soil in place, thus reducing the risk of mudslides that result from natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. By soaking up excess rainwater, forests prevent run-offs and damage from flooding. When forests release water in the dry season, they also help provide clean water and mitigate the effects of droughts. 

Figure 2 El Salvador Vegetation and Land Use via Wikipedia

Loss of Forests in El Salvador 

While the people of El Salvador has been doing well in recent decades, the forests have not. El Salvador is the second most deforested country in Latin America after Haiti.

Almost 85 percent of its forested cover has disappeared since the 1960s, leaving about 5 percent of the land area forested. Less than 6,000 hectares are classified as primary forest. 

Deforestation in El Salvador has had serious environmental, social, and economic impacts. Today over 50 percent of El Salvador is not even suitable for food cultivation, and much of the country is plagued with severe soil erosion.

Denuded hillsides leave the country vulnerable to devastating mudslides—in October 2005, landslides killed more than 50 and required the evacuation of more than 34,000 residents. Degraded forest areas are more susceptible to fires, as well, with fires in 1998 alone causing more than $172 million in damage. 

Stepping up protection of Nature in El Salvador

El Salvador has lost about 85 percent of its native forests since the 1960s, outpacing the global rate of deforestation. Forests located within the regions of Cordillera del Bálsamo and Cordillera Apaneca Ilamatepec, as well as forests within many other regions, are being destroyed for short-term economic interests. For other forests, it is already too late.

Figure 3 Lookout point at Parque Nacional El Imposible ElmerGuevara

Fortunately, several forest ecosystems still exist. Take, for example, the tropical mountain forests within Parque Nacional El Imposible, home to more than 400 tree species and many rare and endangered animal species—the Motmot, King Vulture, and Tamandua mexicana (a species of anteater). Another is the cloud and pine-oak forests within Parque Nacional Montecristo, whose wet climate and diverse ecosystems support a splendid variety of orchids, mosses, over 275 endemic bird species, and pumas, to name a few.

Figure 4 The King Vulture, a species native to El Salvador’s forests

El Savador’s government has also stepped up efforts to protect natural forests, committing to a National Restoration of Ecosystems and Landscapes Program. The Plan focuses on four priority areas, with a long-term plan to reforest or restore one million—half the size of the country—hectares by 2030.

Specifically, the program fosters agricultural systems that are both friendlier to biodiversity and resilient to climate change —such as agroforestry— and aims to restore key ecosystems such as terrestrial forests, mangroves, and swamps.

El Salvador also committed to widescale ecosystem restoration, including of forest ecosystems, through the U.N. Decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. This commitment is also in furtherance of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 15—“Life on Land”.

The government didn’t stop there. In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban mineral mining.

Despite its history of significant deforestation and forest degradation, El Salvador appears to be committed to restoring its ecosystems to health. Both its social and environmental leaders and its government appear to be ready to embrace a new generation of environmental protections.

Could recognition of the Rights of Nature be their next step in restoring a harmonious relationship with the planet?

Campaign to Give Rights to Natural Forests

System change is possible where there is a dedicated grassroots movements and politicians who are willing to embrace new paradigms. That is what we have seen in El Salvador, where a Rights of Nature movement has gained significant momentum in under a year.

Figure 5 Sí Por La Naturaleza’s first press event, held on March 20, 2019

The group Sí Por La Naturaleza has been behind much of this progress. It is a new coalition of lawyers, engineers, university students, and others who are united by the belief that nature has fundamental rights that must be recognized in law. And they are already creating change in El Salvador.

"We are more concerned about taking advantage of nature than protecting it for our own subsistence,” says Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos on his Facebook page. “But we can still change. Let us say ‘yes’ to the rights of nature.”

The group is focusing its attention on the need to recognize the inherent rights of natural forests in El Salvador. By doing so, the country can begin to protect and restore forests as a right, rather than continuing the flawed paradigm in which forests are treated as mere property to fuel short-term economic interests. It would be a game changer.

Towards this goal, Sí Por La Naturaleza, in partnership with Earth Law Center, has proposed a “Declaration of the Rights of Natural Forests in El Salvador,” or “Declaración de los Derechos de los Bosques Naturales en El Salvador” in Spanish. It states that natural forests are living entities with certain inalienable rights, including rights to life, to integral health, to support native biodiversity, and to independent legal guardianship, amongst others. The proposed amendment also recognizes related human rights, including the right to a healthy and sustainable climate. 

Figure 6 Our partners Eneas Santos and Emanuel Orellana from Sí Por La Naturaleza appeared on the TV program Tu Mañana ("Your Morning") to speak on the Rights of Natural Forests in El Salvador

The campaign is quickly gaining steam. Over the last month, Sí Por La Naturaleza launched the Declaration of the Rights of Natural Forests, hosted a media event on the campaign to give legal rights to natural forests, spoke on multiple television shows, and appeared in newspapers. There is now a robust national conversation in El Salvador about how to evolve their relationship with forests.

Overall, it seems that El Salvadorians are eager to embrace a new environmental paradigm based on the rights of natural forests and other ecosystems. While the idea of giving legal rights to forests is new, the concept of nature having inherent value is intuitive to local citizens, many of whom already have a deep connection with Nature.

“Giving legal rights to El Salvador’s natural forests is a gift, not only to ecosystems and species, but to all of El Salvador, particularly its future generations,” said Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos. “Without thriving natural forests, our planet cannot support humans nor millions of other species.”

What’s Next

Figure 7 Sí Por La Naturaleza handing the Declaration of the Rights of Natural Forests to Deputies of the Legislative Assembly

We are confident that El Salvador will take the next step by officially recognizing the rights of natural forests. 

Be sure to follow Earth Law Center’s social media and newsletters for updates.

Also check out the Facebook page of Sí Por La Naturaleza. We also hope that El Salvador will help inspire other countries to evolve their own relationships with their forests while there is still time.

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Rights of the Pacific Ocean Initiative

Figure 1 Endangered African Penguin by Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE (CC BY-SA 2.0)

By Celeste Coughlin

The United Nations hosted the first-ever United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017, to create an action plan surrounding the enforcement of Sustainable Development Goal 14 on the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans. This conference was the culmination of years of ocean rights advocacy work. Notably, the conference embraced the future of legal rights of the ocean. Alongside Cook Island Prime Minister Henry Puna urging recognition of the Rights of the Ocean, Earth Law Center presented its Ocean Rights Initiative to the UN General Assembly. The initiative, signed by over 70 organizations from 32 countries, urged the United Nations, governments and practitioners to adopt a holistic and rights-based approach to ocean governance.

The Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Conservation International Pacific Islands Programme and Centre International de Droit Comparé de l'Environnement (CIDCE) also launched a voluntary commitment at the United Nations Ocean Conference.

The commitment includes a feasibility study leading to the drafting of a regional convention, open to all signatories by 2020, recognizing the Pacific Ocean as a legal entity with its own legal rights. Such a framework has been successfully applied in New Zealand (the Whanganui River, Te Urewera National Park and Mount Taranaki), in India (Narmada River) and in Colombia (Colombian Amazon, Pisba Highlands and Atrato River).

In November 2018, 22 participants from 8 countries, including Earth Law Center, attended a two-day gathering in New Zealand on the feasibility of such an idea. Together, participants agreed it was worth pursuing and produced a statement based on the collective thinking of those present. The statement reiterates the kinship Pacific Islanders have with the Ocean and the recognition that the Ocean is an entity, a being, and our source of life. A regional (or international) convention to legally recognize and protect the Rights of the Pacific Ocean is one way that Pacific Islanders can begin to develop a system that helps them adapt, mitigate and address the root cause of climate change.

The Statement is the first step by participants of the gathering towards advancing a paradigm shift in how we treat the Ocean, and signals intent to preserve the ocean for all life for future generations. Next steps identified by those present include: creating a questionnaire for Island Nations to provide input,  research and drafting of how a new regional convention will comply with and advance existing laws, and conducting outreach and education to mobilize widespread support.

“We have a responsibility and obligation to conserve, protect and defend the rights of the Ocean; the rights of past, present and future generations of all beings rely on respect for the rights of the Ocean.” Statement of the Collective thinking.

With this powerful call to action in mind, we look to the various examples of Rights of Nature already in place within Island Nations.

Figure 2 Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) near its whale calf, breaching off to keep away males.(Tahiti, French Polynesia) © Jérémie Silvestro / Wikimedia Commons

Pacific Island Nations & Biodiversity

The Pacific Island nations are made up of 18 Pacific Island Countries and Territories, 30,000 individual islands, and thousands of square kilometers of coral reef that has been mapped and tracked over the last 5 decades. The 7 million people who are citizens of the Pacific Island Countries who depend on the coral reefs as a part of their daily life rely on the sustainability of the reefs.

These island reefs are home to 30% of all of oceanic life. The unique climate and rich biodiversity make the Pacific Islands a true bio-gem. This part of the world is often written off by Western culture as undeveloped, but it is this particular lack of development that has allowed many types of ocean life to flourish and thrive in the tropical waters of the Pacific Islands.

Figure 3 Map of the Cook Islands

Cook Islands 

The Cook Islands created the Te Marae Moana Sanctuary in 2017. The Prime Minister of the Cook Islands said at the UN Ocean Conference, "[W]e must consider the rights of the ocean. For just as those who have been treated unfairly have found it necessary to fight for and claim their rights, so too has the ocean been treated with injustice and disrespect. And so now we find it necessary to fight for the rights of the ocean.”

The sanctuary is “the world's largest integrated ocean management system.” Te Marae Moana is considered “the largest commitment by any country to integrate ocean conservation and management from ridge to reef and beyond.”

The primary purpose is the protection and conservation of the ecological, biodiversity and heritage values established by native Cook Islanders. Established over the entire Cook Islands marine space, the act also encompasses 1000 meters above in the air and 1000 meters below the seabed, which lends itself to three dimensional protections to prevent future oil pipelines. The secondary purpose is integrated management which focuses on stakeholder participation.  Economic use is the tertiary priority.

Creating the Sanctuary in this way, signifies a transition from most Marine Protected Areas. Here, the entire space is created with the highest level of protection. In fact, they protected the whole area outright, and do not allow large scale fishing and seabed mineral activities within 50 nautical miles of the islands. ​Now that everything is protected, they then decide if and where activities are permitted through a process of impact studies, advisory opinions and council approval. This means that if activities like fishing or seabed mining are on the table, those wishing to undertake those activities must make the case that it will be consistent with the primary purpose of conservation.​

Figure 4 Bay on North Shore, New Zealand by Abaconda Management Group from New Zealand (CC BY-SA 2.0)

New Zealand 

New Zealand leads the world in legal personhood legislation having designated a national park, river and sacred mountain as legal persons.  This feat has allowed the sustainable conservation of natural resources to continue unimpeded.

In March of 2017 New Zealand passed its first legal personhood law protecting the land of Te Urewera. The forested area began its journey as a national park that was turned back to its original inhabitants; the Ngāi Tūhoe people as part of an agreement that acknowledges the ‘Mist People’s deep connection with the land there. 

Secondly, the Māori tribe of Whanganui in the North Island of New Zealand has won recognition for the Whanganui River as an ancestor for 140 years. This recognition of the Whanganui river as a person with two appointed representatives from the government and from the tribe serves as a template for the rest of New Zealand’s native people to follow as well. 

Most recently, we see the Taranaki volcano granted rights to personhood too. Mount Taranaki is categorized as a dormant volcano. The mountain lies in the Egmont national park and is the first mountain in New Zealand to be awarded the status of personhood. 

Lastly, the Hauraki Gulf is a coastal bay off the Northern Island of New Zealand. It is a protected wildlife area established in 2000. The gulf is home to many endangered species of marine animals, award winning wineries, and wilderness sanctuaries. Though the Hauraki Gulf initiative does not specifically codify legal rights for the Park, the Sea Change Marine Spatial Plan proposes the recognition of the Park’s rights by calling on communities “to think of the environment as having its own rights.” It also creates the guardianship system with the local native people and extends guardianship to all.

New Zealand's recognition of these peoples’ ties to the world sets forward a powerful precedent in moving the rights of the Pacific Ocean forward.

Australia 

The Australian Parliament passed the Water Act of 2007 and as a result, water  is protected under the law. This act doesn’t recognize the rights of nature or grant the rights of personhood but it’s a bureaucratic measure to regulate the means of water extraction and use across the continent without granting water the rights to personhood per se. This is one means of managing resources that has proved effective in Australia.

Figure 5 Bondi Beach, Australia by Alex King on Unsplash

As the driest continent in the world, Australia has to consider its resource use carefully. Assigning rights to creeks, lakes, and harbors is a good first step but as an island continent they can do more by extending their moral identification and sympathy to the Pacific as a whole. This will also better defend the rights and cultures of natives to Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. 

New Caledonia

In New Caledonia, a French sovereign state, the Kanak Charter states, "the lands, resources and natural space as well as the tangible and intangible traditional knowledge attached to it constitute the natural heritage of the Kanak people, for which it is the guarantor and custodian in the eyes of future generations." This led to the development of new law, the environmental code, that states "man belongs to the natural environment which surrounds him and conceives his identity in the elements of this natural environment which constitutes the founding principle of Kanak society. In order to take into account this conception of Kanak life and organization, certain elements of Nature may be recognized as having legal personality with their own rights, subject to the laws and regulations in force." This provides the starting foundation needed for recognition of the Pacific Ocean as a legal entity with rights. 

What would the Convention mean for Island Nations? 

The Pacific Island Nations face rapid land loss and possible extinction because of rising sea levels, further erosion of legal protection, and a warming planet. This threatens the 7 million people living among the island nations. Today we have an opportunity to work with these communities to build legal protection for the resources that are so valuable not just to those communities but to each of us.

Recognizing the Rights of the Pacific Ocean would begin building sustainable models for growth and protection. The Convention represents the first major step towards rights of nature law in the region coupled with a plan to closely monitor these systems to ensure their effectiveness.

Codified protection of the Pacific Ocean grants power to indigenous peoples and would designate Pacific Islanders as the guardians of the Pacific Ocean, providing the traditional knowledge needed to understand the Oceans’ limits and how to create a harmonious relationship with the Ocean. This would also empower Pacific Islanders to build businesses surrounding the Ocean, as they deem appropriate, that support and conserve the Ocean while providing for jobs and livelihoods. 

This, of course, would not be without an outside check. Similar to the set up of the Te Urewera Act, it is likely that there would be a two pronged check and balance management system to the Pacific Ocean Rights.

Further benefits from the Convention on the Rights of the Pacific Ocean include:

• Local communities gain the right to defend marine ecosystems from harm

• Indigenous nations regain economic power from legal recognition of the long-standing relationship they have with their local ecosystems

Figure 6 Baby Sea Lion, Galapagos. By Michelle Bender.

Finally, the Convention would redress accountability for greenhouse gas emissions. Whereas the current system gives the Kingdom of Toga the same burden as the People’s Republic of China without any regard for their contribution to climate change – the new Convention would also recognize that the Pacific Islanders have in fact contributed very little to greenhouse gas emissions.

We depend on the ocean for our well-being so it’s time to start taking care of marine ecosystems. That protection means recognizing Rights for the Pacific Ocean so we can restore and protect ocean health. Won’t you join us?

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The Orchid and the Wasp: Toward Becoming Vegan and Establishing Earth Law

Figure 1 PHOTO BY RACHAEL GORJESTANI ON UNSPLASH

by Christopher Frederic Lapinel

“No poet, no artist of any art, has [their] complete meaning alone…The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. [They] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same.”

-T. S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent

Shift Toward a New Paradigm

Veganism is rising. It’s indisputable. In the past few years, it experienced explosive growth. Even if you aren’t a vegan, you have probably tried vegan cuisine and know some vegans— maybe even on purpose.

The movement gained critical mass in 1944 with the formation of the Vegan Society. Now, however, it has grabbed hold within the mainstream and picking up steam as it goes. In the US alone, people who report becoming vegan jumped 600% (from 4 million in 2014 to 19.6 million) in 2017. Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany, however, lead the way, exhibiting the highest percentage of vegans and vegan products. As a result, you can now wander into practically any food store on three continents and get products meant for the vegan-curious. If you can diminish cruelty and still treat yourself to tasty meals, after all, why not? This growing call for vegan cuisine, however, has not merely carved a culinary niche but further re-mapped how the public relates to issues as varied as food, nonhuman rights, climate change, and human rights. Thus, as this movement toward veganism continues, we see legislation evolving too. This is the power of incidental activism intersecting with direct action. 

In this respect, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, India, and Colombia are showing the way, establishing to varying extents what’s now known as Earth Law: a legal framework recognizing that Earth as a whole (particularly the biosphere and the individual species sustaining and depending upon the ecosystems within it) possesses inherent rights that the law must protect.

Figure 2 MARINE IGUANA, GALAPAGOS by DAVID ADAM KESS (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Even as you’re reading this, Earth Law Center partners with local organizations plus PETA, the Nonhuman Rights Project and the United Nations and others to effect a paradigm shift in legal protection of Nature. The central assertion of this international partnership is that modern laws treat the natural world as human-property, destined for exploitation and degradation, rather than as an ecological partner with its own right to exist, thrive, evolve. 

You’re probably thinking at this moment: “Earth Law? Sure, sign me up! But how do we get there from veganism?”

You’d be surprised.

By going vegan and enacting a legal framework to a) protect Earth’s biosphere from exploitation while b) funding initiatives to restore and replenish its biodiversity we might reverse climate change. The World Wildlife Federation reported that: “Today species are going extinct at an accelerated and dangerous rate because of non-natural environmental changes caused by human activities.”

Figure 3 CRITICALLY ENDANGERED TREE PANGOLIN BY VALERIUS TYGART (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Some of the activities have direct effects on species and ecosystems, such as habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation (such as overfishing), and the spread of non-native species and diseases. Some human activities have indirect but wide-reaching effects on biodiversity as well, including climate change and pollution.

All of these threats have put a serious strain on the diversity of species on Earth. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), globally about one-third of all known species are threatened with extinction. That includes 29 percent of all amphibians, 21 percent of all mammals, and 12 percent of all birds.

If we do not stop the threats to biodiversity, we could be facing another mass extinction with dire consequences to the environment, and human health and livelihood.” This rapid dwindling of biodiversity — beyond the issue of losing so many species of flora and fauna we haven’t even begun to understand yet — is terraforming Earth, but not in a good way. It creates an environment hostile to the existence of life as we know it.

Figure 4 seals Photo by Oskar Malm on Unsplash

 Kurt Vonnegut explores a bittersweet potentiality for human survival on Earth in his novel Galápagos, wherein due to an accident of fate our species survives for another million years into the future, but having evolved fur and flippers. The ghost of Leon Trout, Vonnegut’s narrator, reassures us that humanity will be much happier in this future. No longer able to use tools, our imagination and capacity for language diminish as does our ability to reason and to lie. We swim by day, hunting fish, which we eat raw. By night we huddle for warmth beneath the stars, much like seals.

Veganism benefits Earth

With regard to human rights, a study sponsored by Oxford Martin estimated that conservatively if everyone went vegan now we could save eight million people, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds, and that healthcare-related and climate damage related savings would equal $1.5 trillion by 2050. 

A statement put out by the United Nations Environmental Programme declared: “Our use of animals as a food-production technology has brought us to the verge of catastrophe,”  and added that the consumption of meat is “the world’s most urgent problem.” Veganism and Earth Law can address this issue as well. A decreased reliance on animals and animal by-products will make more efficient use of our agricultural resources: conserving potable water, increasing food production, and bringing down the associated costs. 

The United Nations has further stated that going vegan could even end world hunger by eradicating food inequality and waste, saving the lives of 2.5-3 million children under the age of five yearly. Just to get a dim idea of the magnitude of food waste in the US, watch the documentary Just Eat It.

The Incidental Activism of Becoming Vegan

So there you have it. The many reasons to at least try veganism, even if you ultimately go vegetarian. Yet maybe you find yourself asking: “What does it really mean to be a vegan though?” Maybe the answer to that is up to you, as an incidental activist. The incidental activists, the ones who make their ethical journey part of daily life, are the real leaders. It’s from their ranks that everyone else steps forward. And that’s why if Earth Law is to succeed, you must accept your part in ending the exploitation that’s brought us a minute to midnight in our time on Earth. We need incidental activism. In fact, it’s more important than anything else. Yes, social change requires in-the-streets activists, community organizers, entrepreneurial visionaries, spiritual leaders, and legislators. But that’s a whole-lot of nothing without you. 

At its most basic, veganism is about swearing off food that’s made from or by animals. That’s the short answer. At the next level, one also stops wearing clothes or using products that exploit or abuse animals. Maybe you know people who’ve chosen this path for health. Maybe you know people who’ve chosen it out of compassion; or for ethical, spiritual, or political reasons. Or more likely, each of them has chosen it based on individual desires, an intersectional web pulling from all of the reasons above and reweaving itself repeatedly over time. In fact, the Vegan Society (founded in 1944) only arrived at following definition as of 1988: 

“A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms, it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”

Is it really possible or feasible, however, to ‘be’ a vegan? In my opinion? Bluntly? No. Philosophically speaking, perhaps there can be no stable vegan identity or label one should rightfully claim. After all, is there an ‘essential’ vegan-ness to any individual? Is there an achievable moral summit at which you can be utterly certain you aren’t indirectly exploiting animals? Not really. You should also consider that you could compromise your health. Or your efficacy, by unconsciously perpetuating class, racial, or cultural schisms. Khushbu Shah covered the implicit biases of mainstream veganism in her article The Vegan Race Wars: How the Mainstream Ignores Vegans of Color.

“[Donald] Watson, lauded by many as the father of mainstream veganism, went on to found The Vegan Society, which helped solidify veganism’s place as a lifestyle. But these ideologies and traditions had flourished in communities of color for centuries prior, if not longer. Eastern religions like Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism all advocate eschewing animals and animal products in some format because of the belief systems centered around nonviolence.” Shah added Rastafarianism and the Black Hebrew Israelites to this list of vegan and vegan-esque (vegan-ish?) communities shaping the global movement.

So, I ask this, can’t it be that veganism is an unending process of perpetual creation— a process of becoming? Can’t it be that it’s in this process of veganizing that we map out and evolve the legislation that’s shaping Earth Law?

Perhaps, if you will, grant philosophical latitude, veganism could be defined as a process of expanding one’s immanent awareness, based on principles of compassion and non-violence. Maybe? Could it be that your subjective interaction with and experience of a concept, such as veganism, is how said concept propagates itself, evolving into a workable paradigm, a new reality? And if so, what would the implications be? How could this reshape our legislation, our planet? 

If we can use this broader vision of veganism, can we affect the actuality of environmentalism, or more specifically the Earth Law movement, more effectively? By making veganism more exploratory and inclusive (less proscriptive), veganism’s social flow can reshape the entirety of humanity’s relationships. With animals, each other, ecological systems, our planet— even our solar system. 

To better illustrate this grassroots take on veganism, which is doubtless raising hackles, let’s look to nature itself and the roundabout manner with which highly specialized species evolve. We have been taught, for instance, by the likes of the BBC that the hammer orchid tricks the male thynnid wasp in order to propagate itself. The idea of trickery is tongue-in-cheek. What do flowers and insects know of lying, fakes, or forgery? Biologists, on the other hand, describe how the orchid mimics the appearance and pheromones of female wasps to lure male wasps seeking mates. A useful description, I guess. Yet can an orchid mimic something that it cannot directly perceive? What’s more, this so-called mimicry suggests that the wasp-attractive pheromones or labellum are not integral or genuine features of these orchids. And how does this reductive answer address the process, the art of mutual identification and the co-creation of each other, again and again across a gazillion generations? Don’t these flippant answers betray the glitch in our thinking? The glitch that has us isolate two subjects (ie wasps and orchids) and analyze them as though their relationship weren’t a crucial aspect of their existence? Is this why we humans struggle so to perceive our own interconnectivity with Earth’s ecosystems? 

Figure 5 HAMMER ORCHID BRUNDRM (CC BY-SA 3.0)

In A Thousand Plateaus, the philosophers Deleuze and Guattari elegantly reevaluate the wasp-orchid symbiosis described above. “The orchid does not reproduce the tracing of the wasp; it forms a map with the wasp…What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real.  The map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon itself; it constructs the unconscious.”(A Thousand Plateaus, 12)

The orchid does not trick the wasp or mimic the wasp. They evolved together. The lifecycle of the wasp is woven into the lifecycle of the orchid and vice versa. You could liken this relationship to a personal conversation such as you’ve had in which you and your counterpart push and pull at each other’s unconscious, shaping it within that moment into a shared map— a mirror of reality on a small scale, intimately subjective. Pushing this metaphor a little further, when you walk away from such a conversation you could consider yourself “pollinated” because you walk away with concepts and desires you otherwise wouldn’t have had. This affects how you behave, what you say, and what connections you can make with others. In the same passage, Deleuze and Guattari go further. Expounding on the concept of the map, the shared unconscious relationship, they illustrate its power: “The map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation. It can be drawn on a wall, conceived of as a work of art, constructed as a political action or as a meditation.”

Figure 6 Thynnid wasp by Melissa McMasters from Memphis, TN, United States (CC BY 2.0)

For the bulk of human existence, we have existed within the bounty of nature’s balance. Rapid technologic advances in the past two hundred years have psychologically alienated a significant minority of our species from our natural habitat (our ecosystem), allowing for hyper-industrialized exploitation, pollution, disease, and mass extinctions— with exponentially compounding consequences. For the majority of our population, who while reaping little to no reward from the technologic advances, still live in close contact with nature and deal most closely with the causes and effects of climate change (floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, refugee migrations, fracking, toxic spills, monoculture, theft of natural resources, slavery, etc) right now could not seem like a better time to organize for Earth Law. And we have seen just this as indigenous people from around the world have mobilized. Whether as Water Protectors in the US, in North Dakota or Louisiana. Or at the Paris Climate Accord in 2015, when indigenous activists took to the Seine in kayaks to protest rights their rights being stricken from the pact. And of course, we must recognize those who have adopted Earth Law or some form of it. Like the aforementioned nations Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, India, and Colombia. But also cities like Mexico City, Marseille, Pittsburgh, Crestone, and Santa Monica; as well as several townships across Scotland. Many of whom have signed on to help conserve biodiversity not just of Earth’s terrestrial surface but also its waterways.

Arguably, that which does not affirm your inmost desire denies your autonomy. Denies your freedom. Denies your existence. Such a relationship is sterile. Should we attempt rigid compartmentalization of nature’s place in our lives, then we deny the flow of our ecosystem’s demands, deny its value, and deny its wildness until our gradual alienation from its complexity blocks our capacity to affirm our own existence and live fruitfully. To reverse this, we need to take stock of ourselves as a species (and as individuals with personal agency) and realign ourselves with the flow of the planet. By becoming vegan we take an initial step to unfold our awareness (ethically, compassionately, and with clear-eyed reason) to the other animals and living systems that share this intimate space on Earth with us; co-evolving with and mapping us, even as we map them. The next step is to shape new laws from our newfound awareness: Earth Law.

Legally ending the countless iterations of arrogance and cruelty bound-up in the business of where our food and clothing comes from (and by what means) — not to mention where it goes as we discard it all — we will gradually ease the damage done. And one day, several generations from now, perhaps Earth will mediate for us in the shared unconscious; allowing it to redraw the map that has our species circled in red. Maybe then we can be the wasp to the splendid orchid we call Earth.

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