Earth Law Center Blog
Ocean Optimism Making Waves
June 8th marks World Ocean Day, a worldwide call to action to put the Ocean first. In the 15 years since its official recognition by the United Nations, this designation has grown into a global movement, uniting youth leaders, policymakers, Indigenous communities, scientists, and a vast range of both private sector and civil society organizations to protect and restore the Ocean.
This World Ocean Day presents an opportune moment for genuine reflection, allowing us to consider both the challenges confronting the Ocean and to embrace optimism for the future. Today, we reflect on the recent victories of Earth Law Center’s Ocean Rights program and how we can further catalyze action to change the tides on Ocean health.
The Ocean Race One Blue Voice Pavilion in Newport, Rhode Island, May, 2023. Photo by Rachel Bustamante
Ocean Rights Gains Momentum
The initiative “Towards a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights (UDOR)” is gaining remarkable momentum! Launched in March 2022 with The Ocean Race, Nature’s Rights and the municipality of Genoa, Italy, the UDOR aims to create a shared global vision of positive human-Ocean relationships and give the Ocean a voice and representation within a multinational governance system.
The government of Cabo Verde signed on in 2022 to lead the introduction of Ocean Rights within the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023, and with the support of Monaco, are leading discussions with governments to increase formal support at the UN and national levels. Additionally, local governments have also formally supported the UDOR, including Itajaí and Santa Catarina, Brasil, Aarhus, Denmark, and Newport as well as the House of Representatives of Rhode Island.
The campaign has fostered dialogue and consultation through six 'Innovation Workshops' thus far, bringing together over 150+ experts, policymakers, business leaders, lawyers, Indigenous Peoples, scientists, NGOs, and stakeholders to engage in meaningful discussions on Ocean Rights. We are now in the process of taking all the input into account and moving towards a draft document outlining a new values-based foundation (or code of conduct) to serve as a starting point for the UDOR and its inclusion in upcoming UN agendas.
In addition, the One Blue Voice petition to collect support has now garnered over 24,000 signatures. We encourage you to actively participate in shaping an ecologically sustainable future for the Ocean by signing and sharing the petition. Your support is crucial in ensuring the thriving and well-being of the Ocean!
The Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights milestone map.
Panama Recognizes Sea Turtles’ Rights
In March 2023, Panama’s President Laurentino Cortizo signed a national law promoting the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles and their Habitats. This law recognizes the rights of sea turtles to live and have free passage in a healthy environment, free of pollution and other human impacts that cause physical damage. Truly a landmark example, this law is likely the first national law to guarantee and identify the rights of a specific species.
Photo by Michael Ryan Clark.
In 2021, Congressman Gabriel Silva proposed the law, which underwent three legal debates to receive input and shape its provisions before ultimately reaching the President's desk. Earth Law Center, in partnership with The Leatherback Project, provided legal feedback to the draft.
This law identifies sea turtles as having individual value beyond the context of human benefits or perceptions, especially given that these highly endangered species offer a window into the health of the Ocean. Occurring in one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, this law opens the door for other species’ rights to be recognized in Rights of Nature supporting countries, and sets a fantastic precedent for future legislation!
New Publication on Sharks and Rights of Nature
Rachel Bustamante of Earth Law Center recently published Beyond Protection: Recognizing Nature’s Rights to Conserve Sharks, in the journal Sustainability, laying out approaches to improve the protection and restoration of sharks and their habitats. Globally, sharks are highly threatened by overfishing, habitat degradation, and climate change. As both keystone species and apex predators, sharks regulate food webs and maintain ecological balance. In fact, sharks are fundamental to maintaining a healthy Ocean!
This paper explores how we can move beyond merely protecting sharks and reimagine a more harmonious relationship between humans, sharks, and the Ocean. This publication is within an emerging body of work that reimagines how we can use Rights of Nature frameworks to enshrine protections for specific species.
What Can You Do?
These three stories are but a small sliver of our work. Continue your involvement and support of Earth Law Center’s many efforts to ensure the Ocean is healthy and thrives.
In addition, support the World Ocean Day movement directly by taking the Conservation Action Focus survey.
Most importantly, continue to spread the word about the importance of conserving, protecting, and empowering the Ocean!
Graphic by UN World Oceans Day
Exploring the Deep-Seas and the Risk of Mining
ELC Ocean Team, Xander Deanhardt and Kendall Fowler
The deep-sea is a region full of biodiversity. Scientifically defined as the area of the Ocean 200 meters or deeper, the deep-sea is now at risk of exploitation from mining. In June 2021, the island nation, the Republic of Nauru, invoked a two-year rule under the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the United Nations body that oversees mining. This action pressures the ISA to complete regulations so that commercial mining of the seabed, a process where machines scour the seafloor for rare minerals, could begin as early as mid-2023. Consequently, if applications from industries wanting to mine the seafloor are submitted, this two-year rule means they could be considered by the ISA even without final guidelines in place to protect the marine environment.
Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2017.
This issue however is not one solely of industry versus environmental proponents. The mineral modules present on the deep-sea floor are rare minerals argued as necessary for the construction of electric vehicle batteries. Some argue that in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and transition the global economy to more sustainable transportation, mining of the deep-sea is required. However, more studies are emerging showing that deep sea minerals will not be necessary by 2050 and car manufacturers such as Volkswagen and BMW, have voiced they will not be using these minerals in their supply chain.
How is DSM being regulated?
The ISA was established under the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has a mandate to regulate and control all mineral related activities in the international seabed and subsoil, known as the “Area” and outside the jurisdiction of any single nation. The ISA is responsible for creating regulations to guide decision making in the Area. Under the ISA’s mandate from the UN, it must act on behalf of all mankind and take necessary measures to ensure effective protection of the marine environment. The ISA has allowed regulated exploration of the Area, facilitating scientific research to guide a better understanding of the deep-sea environment, and has been developing regulations for exploitation for a few years. In September 2022, the ISA announced that the company, Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI, a Republic of Nauru national), was given permission to “test-mine” in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. NORI is projected to remove 3,600 tonnes of polymetallic nodules (the equivalent of the weight of approximately 35,000 blue whales) by the end of 2022.
UNCLOS states that if a nation alerts the ISA that it has the intent to start exploitation of the Area, a two-year deadline is triggered, giving the ISA two-years to complete regulations for exploitation before applications for mining can be submitted. The Republic of Nauru sent a request to the ISA in June of 2021 and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the complexity of the issue, the regulations are not near completion despite the deadline of the two-year trigger occurring in the summer of 2023. If the regulations are not complete by the July 2023 deadline, contractors could start to submit plans of work for mining the deep-seabed and permits may be issued based on only provisional exploitation regulations.
Why is deep sea mining an important issue?
The Ocean is the lifesource of our planet, providing half of the oxygen we breathe, sequestering carbon dioxide and mitigating climate change, and providing jobs, food and livelihood for millions of people. The deep sea has flourished for millenia, supporting some of the most biodiverse and scientifically important ecosystems on Earth, and is vital to the overall health and functioning of the Ocean. Many deep-sea organisms have long life cycles, for example there are sponges found to be 10,000 years old! Little is known regarding deep-sea ecosystems and mining impacts to the deep-sea and Ocean as a whole. However, novel research analyzing the potential harms of mining suggests devastating effects. In fact, initial studies have indicated that the effects of deep-seabed mining on the seafloor could persist for hundreds of years. Other projections suggest that each individual mining operation may disturb between 300 and 800 square kilometers per year, with impacts spreading over an area two to five times larger due to sediment being kicked up by mining machinery. An additional harm would be the noise produced by a deep-sea mine. Studies have estimated that a single deep-sea mine’s noise could travel approximately 500 kilometers, causing disturbances and confusion for several deep-sea creatures.
As noted by the Pacific Blue Line Initiative and others, for millennia, communities and peoples worldwide have revered the Ocean as a living being, and as an ancestor or kin, with whom we have responsibilities to respect and care for. In fact, the Hawaiian creation chant, or Kumulipo, explains how life began from the first organism, a coral polyp found in the deep sea, and is the extension of our genealogy.
Additionally, over 90% of Pacific people rely on the Ocean for their livelihood. Negative impacts on fish in or near the area will be felt by those inhabiting coastal communities. A report by the Deep Sea Mining Campaign and MiningWatch Canada stated that DSM would have negative repercussions for Pacific Islanders, specifically, it would have negative impacts on local fishers which are a main source of wealth, food security, and employment for many in the Pacific. DSM will therefore result in environmental degradation and destruction of livelihoods and habitats across the Pacific and world.
Image credit: Amanda Dillon, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011914117
What can you do?
While some countries and industries push to mine for the minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries from the seafloor, the future of deep-sea mining is still uncertain, and there are many parties trying to shape its future. Several countries, NGOs, marine scientists and policy experts are calling for a moratorium, or ban, on deep-sea mining, citing the unknown extent of harm that deep-sea mining could cause to marine and coastal environments and species. Additionally, several member nations of the ISA as well as NGOs are exploring alternative legal options to halt the possibility of mining contracts receiving conditional approval this year in the absence of completed and adopted exploitation regulations. Many arguments are grounded in the idea that the ISA is mandated to protect the marine environment, and the limited information known about mining the deep-seabed indicates possible irreparable damage and widespread effects. The next meeting of the ISA Council is Starting Now, (in March 2023) make sure your voice is heard, such as signing a petition below or writing to your countries delegates.
Call on your government to add its voice and support a global ban or precautionary pause on DSM.
Click the following link to add your name to the official letter to stop deep-sea mining. Signatures from the letter will be delivered to United Nations and International Seabed Authority representatives.
Support and share the Pacific Blue Line Initiative and Indigenous petition against DSM.
Additionally, watch and share Deep Rising, a new documentary that draws attention to the impacts deep-sea mining would have on the environment as well as other well made educational videos, including this one from Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and learn more!
What about the Rights of Nature?
ELC is exploring how alternative legal pathways may support the global call to stop DSM before it starts. Rights of Nature recognizes Nature as a living being with inherent rights, with the underlying philosophy and ethic that all beings have rights and intrinsic worth merely for existing. Over thirty countries have embraced the Rights of Nature through constitutional amendments, national law, judicial decisions, treaty agreements, local law, or resolutions. Scientific evidence that deep-sea mining will likely harm if not completely devastated marine environments and species runs completely contrary to Rights of Nature, which is now recognized as an integral part to the implementation of the recent global agreement for biodiversity, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity framework. More to come in a second blog on this critical issue, but for now, watch this short video clip discussing the importance of shifting the focus away from the right to use the Earth’s natural resources and toward a Rights of Nature approach.
Get involved and stay up to date on deep-sea mining:
Image courtesy of the NOAA Ocean Exploration, Exploring Deep-sea Habitats off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Rights for the Southern Resident Orcas Gains Momentum
By Michelle Bender, Rachel Bustamante and Kriss Kevorkian
The Southern Resident Orcas are a critically endangered subspecies of orca found primarily off the coasts of British Columbia and Washington in the Salish Sea. They have been at the center of a campaign led by Earth Law Center (ELC) and partner, Legal Rights for the Salish Sea (LRSS), to protect and recover their population by recognizing their inherent rights and the ecosystems on which they depend. The long-term goal is State level recognition of the population’s inherent rights and active steps towards implementation. The campaign was launched in 2018 as a response to their continued decline, despite federal legal protections for nearly two decades. The Southern Resident Orca (“the Orcas”) has only 73 individuals left in the wild. The original scope focused on the entire Salish Sea, but ELC and LRSS decided to pivot and focus on the Orcas as the stepping stone to a broader paradigm shift in Washington, because as the Orcas go, we go.
In 2019/2020, ELC worked on a draft State bill with various legal experts, and focused on education and awareness building. ELC and LRSS have been busy at work, including holding many workshops and roundtables to increase Rights of Nature education in the Pacific Northwest. ELC also created a toolkit which was distributed early in 2022 to provide advocates with the tools they need to support the campaign; including a template resolution, talking points, frequently asked questions and social media templates. You can take action and view the toolkit here. (We encourage viewing the template resolution as a guide while adding the unique views and values of your community. Please let us know when you've done this so we can include you in the campaign.)
Jefferson County Commissioners alongside members of the North Olympic Orca Pod at the signing of the Jefferson County Proclamation
In late 2022, our initiative started to receive significant support at the local level. It began when Port Townsend expressed interest after outreach from LRSS and ELC drafted an updated version of our template resolution in line with a Proclamation. Since December 2022, four cities (Port Townsend, Gig Harbor, Langley, Bainbridge) and two counties (Jefferson County and San Juan County) in Washington State have passed proclamations recognizing the inherent rights of the Orcas (you can view all the proclamations here), and the number continues to grow.
More cities and counties are also considering proclamations and we will continue to update this blog as they come in! These local actions are creating the momentum needed to call for immediate state-level action to address the main threats to the Southern Resident Orcas’ survival. Local organizing and resolutions/proclamations have proven powerful tools to gain state and federal action in the United States, and we hope that 2024 will be the year for a state bill or comparable proclamation in Washington’s legislative session.
Who are the Southern Resident Orcas?
The Southern Resident Orcas are a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest, meaning they play a critical role in sustaining the ecological health of the ecosystems they inhabit and are an important indicator of Ocean health. The primary threats to Orcas include a limited availability of their primary prey, chinook salmon, underwater noise and toxic contaminants polluting their habitats. They are highly social creatures that are culturally, spiritually, and economically important to the people of Washington State and the world. To explore more about the Southern Resident Orcas and their ecological importance, read more here.
How can recognizing their rights help their dire situation?
Recognition of their inherent rights demonstrates that we value their population and acknowledge their ecological needs. For example, the Port Townsend proclamation states that the Orcas have inherent rights to: “life, autonomy, culture, free and safe passage, adequate food supply from naturally occurring sources, and freedom from conditions causing physical, emotional, or mental harm, including a habitat degraded by noise, pollution, and contamination.” Recognizing the inherent rights of the Orcas is not only crucial for the protection and recovery of their population but also for respecting and upholding the cultural, spiritual, and economic importance of these creatures to the Indigenous communities who have lived in the region for millenia.
Approximately 30 countries already have hundreds of Rights of Nature laws, with dozens at the local and tribal levels in the United States. For example Santa Monica's Sustainability Rights Ordinance, the Nez Perce's resolution recognizing the rights of the Snake River, and both San Francisco and Malibu have passed resolutions protecting the rights of whales and dolphins in their coastal waters.
Take action to help protect the Southern Resident Orcas and their ecosystems!
Overall, this campaign is making significant progress in advocating for safeguarding and recovering their declining population. The support of cities and counties in Washington demonstrate a growing recognition of the urgent need to protect this species and their habitat. However, more action is needed to ensure their long-term survival.
To help protect the Southern Resident Orcas and their ecosystems, you can stay informed and engaged by following the progress of this ongoing campaign, learning more about these magnificent species, and advocating for stronger protections.
Previous blogs on this campaign: