Environmental Leaders in El Salvador Announce Campaign to Give Legal Rights to Natural Forests

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 30, 2019

Contacts: Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos (eneaswilfredo@gmail.com, +503 70841322)

Roberto Carlos Olivares Martínez (rocolivares@gmail.com, +503 77962043)

Grant Wilson (gwilson@earthlaw.org, +1 510-566-1063)

Ahuachapán, El Salvador: Today, a coalition of environmental and social leaders—including lawyers, engineers, and university students—announced the formation of a group called Yes for the Rights of Nature (“Sí por los Derechos de la Naturaleza”). The group’s first campaign is to recognize El Salvador’s natural forests as living entities possessing fundamental rights.

Towards this objective, the group released a “Declaration of the Rights of Natural Forests in El Salvador,” which calls upon the national government to adopt a strong commitment to Nature, “beginning with the recognition of natural forests as subjects of rights.” Rights of Nature organization Earth Law Center assisted with the legal drafting.

Recognition of the Rights of Nature is increasing worldwide. In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to constitutionally recognize Nature’s rights. More recently, a 2017 treaty agreement in New Zealand recognized the Whanganui River as “an indivisible and living whole” and “a legal person.” Last year, the Supreme Court of Colombia ruled that the entire Colombian Amazon is a subject of rights.

The proposed Declaration would acknowledge 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.

“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 lawyer Eneas Wilfredo Martínez Santos, one of the proponents of the project. “Without thriving natural forests, our planet cannot support humans nor millions of other species.”

El Salvador has lost about 85 percent of its native forests since the 1960s,[1] and the planet as a whole has lost about 80 percent of its native forests, resulting in the extinction of countless species. Forests support about 80 percent of the world’s land-based species and play a key role in the water cycle, carbon cycle, nutrient cycle, and other key processes that act as the very foundation of life on our planet. 

Yes for the Rights of Nature (“Sí por los Derechos de la Naturaleza”) expressed optimism that governmental authorities in El Salvador will support the proposal considering their recent support of ecosystem restoration. For example, in 2011, El Salvador committed to restoring one million hectares of degraded land by 2020 through the Bonn Challenge global restoration goal. El Salvador is also a leader within Initiative 20x20, which aims to restore and protect deforested and degraded lands across Latin America and the Caribbean.

---

Yes for the Rights of Nature (“Sí por los Derechos de la Naturaleza”) is dedicated to establishing Rights of Nature in El Salvador.

Earth Law Center (www.earthlawcenter.org) works to transform the law to recognize and protect nature’s inherent rights to exist, thrive and evolve.

---

[1] Michal Nachmany et al., "Climate Change Legislation in El Salvador," (2015) (citing World Bank statistics).

Earth Law Center Launches Community Toolkit for Rights of Nature

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Grant Wilson (gwilson@earthlaw.org, 510-566-1063)

New York, NY (March 26, 2019)—Today, Earth Law Center (ELC) announces the launch of a Community Toolkit for Rights of Nature as a free tool for local communities wishing to strengthen their protection of Nature. 

Municipalities across the U.S. have passed ordinances and resolutions that recognize Nature as a legal entity possessing rights, including in Santa Monica, CA and Crestone, CO. These local laws bolster existing ecosystem protections and guide a community towards a stronger, more meaningful relationship with Nature.

As with the abolition of slavery, granting women the right to vote, and the civil rights movement, local governments have been at the forefront of enshrining our expanded ethical considerations into law. So too is true with the Rights of Nature movement, with dozens of communities having recognized that Nature is a subject of rights. By contrast, our current legal and economic paradigms generally treat ecosystems and species as mere property.

“Our Toolkit is designed for communities that wish to take bold action in the face of global environmental degradation,” remarked Grant Wilson, Directing Attorney at Earth Law Center. “The effort to save our planet really begins inside town halls and city council meetings.”

The Rights of Nature movement is rapidly growing both in the U.S. and globally. In addition to Ecuador and Bolivia recognizing Rights of Nature nationally, at least three rivers, a national park, and a sacred mountain have also exercised their fundamental rights (the Whanganui in New Zealand, the Atrato in Colombia, the Vilcabamba in Ecuador, and the Te Urewera protected area and Mt. Taranaki in New Zealand). Last year, a judge in Colombia also declared the entire Colombian Amazon to be a subject of rights. 

The Toolkit was developed with significant input from Marsha Moutrie (former Santa Monica City Attorney) and Myra Jackson (Senior Advisor on Whole Earth Civics and Focal Point on Harmony with Nature with Geoversiv Foundation), who are leading experts in the field.

---

Earth Law Center (www.earthlawcenter.org) works to transform the law to recognize and protect Nature’s inherent rights to exist, thrive and evolve. This includes advancing the inherent rights of rivers through initiatives with local partners to secure rights recognition.