Ecuador voters to decide if nature has inalienable rights
It sounds like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council. But Ecuador is engaged in nothing less than an effort to redefine the relationship between human beings and the natural world. And as crazy as it may seem, the movement to give nature legal rights didn't start in Ecuador's Amazon forest or its Galapagos Islands -- it started years ago in the United States, in cities and towns seeking to fight off coal mines, incinerators and factory farms. Aided by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Pennsylvania, about a dozen municipalities have abandoned the old-fashioned way of halting development -- through the appeals process -- and are placing outright bans on environmentally disruptive activities.
For example, in Pennsylvania, Southampton prohibits corporate ownership of farms, and Wayne passed an ordinance that gives the town the power to keep out corporations with criminal histories. The Defense Fund gets much of the credit (or the blame) for these decidedly anti-business, grass-roots efforts. It even offers ready-made ordinances to protect ecosystems. Ecuadorean officials called the group when they were crafting the new constitution, and now it's fielding calls from Australia, Italy, South Africa and Nepal, which is writing its first constitution.
No other country has gone as far as Ecuador in proposing to give trees their day in court, but it certainly is not alone in its recalibration of natural rights. Religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Constantinople, have declared that caring for the environment is a spiritual duty. And earlier this year, the Catholic Church updated its list of deadly sins to include polluting the environment.
Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost indistinguishable from its regional geography -- the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Sierra. How this new area of constitutional law will work, however, is another question. We aren't ready to endorse such a step at home, or even abroad. But it's intriguing. We'll be watching Ecuador's example.
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I would vote yes.
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- JanforGore
- added this
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- Vierotchka
- added September 04, 2008
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It is so good to see positive actions taken when there are so many negative ones flooding our airwaves.
I would definetely vote yes!
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....Nature......right..........
Large percentage of Humans......wrong....
Golden Ruler......animal wrapped in cotton....
Johnnie Hargrave.......9/20/03....10:20 P.M.
They killed my best friend
And drug him into town
Cut him up
In little pieces
And passed him all around
They put him in a coffee table
And they put him in a door
Some of him in some kitchen cabinets
Also in a floor
And they stood around
And said isn’t he pretty
He has made my house complete
Humans have many needs
We need to drink
We need to eat
And.................... breathe...........................-
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- Relevations
- 4 months ago
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Imagine the repurcussions to companies like Monsanto and others, including oil companies looking to drill in this country should this pass. I'm all for it. It is time to take our Earth back. They've taken enough.
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This is great. This is the movement we need for more protection of the land. Ecuador would be a great start but it needs to spread - - and fast! Giving nature rights sounds like some contrived loophole in government but man is it genious. Equal protection for all things living!
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- outtheinside
- 4 months ago
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Jan do you realize that Obama has been REALLY outspoken about the environment while McCain and Palin haven't even grazed it???
Check ou the story on here about Obama and the rising temperatures of the world.
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- Beatrix_Kiddo
- 4 months ago
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Hopefully humankind is beginning to recognize that we are a part of this incredible system - the natural world. The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. (Chief Seattle)
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Now THAT is a step in the right direction!!!!!!!!!!
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Defending and protecting Nature by rule of Law.
Thnk about that for a while.
Heaven, help us all. -
It's too bad humans think they have the right to rule over nature, but I think the idea is more about ruling over people's mis-use/abuse etc of nature by giving nature law representation...
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Yes, and for those who do believe we are endowed by our "creator" with certain inalienable rights... it should follow that if they believe that same creator created this Earth to sustain us in pursuing those rights, that this Earth also should benefit from having those same inalienable rights. I think what Ecuador is doing is wonderful. Would be something great to see states pursue in their constitutions here in the US.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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This is really great.
It seems like it'd be common sense for everyone,
but alas. -
This would be great to see here and it requires a shift in thinking about our relationship to the natural world. There is more in the world to consider than just "drill, baby drill."
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Yeah it'll be great news if it gets passed but if it doesn't, what exactly does that say? If it gets shot down then I worry what sort of precedent it creates for the rest of the world.
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- satanskidney
- 4 months ago
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Yes, this is one vote I will be watching. I'm wondering how it would affect the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest. I'm sure loggers are working to see this does not pass.I'm going to try to get more information on this vote.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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While I think if passed, this would set a good precedent, I ask, (quite rhetorically):
What kind of world do we live in where we have to establish and administer rights to NATURE?
What does that say about mankind?
I believe it says that all we extrude, strip, slash-and-burn, drill into, manipulate, package, consume and discard has, through the days of our industrial Age, made it necessary in many areas of the world to enact legislation to actually protect Nature from HUMANS.
Nevertheless, if this is what it will take to bring 'some' respect to the Earth, I hope that it is embraced in Ecuador and, eventually, humanity as a whole.
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This is quite possibly the most awesome and inspiring thing I have read all week.
If only more countries follow suit if this is passed. This could be the beginning of something amazing.
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- Ayahuasca2012
- 4 months ago
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This made my heart lighter. We owe everything to nature, it's time we start paying back.
With today's technologies, there is no reason to have companies that pollute like they do anyways. There are alternatives to everything!
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It's sad that we as a people don't instinctively take care of nature as we should but this is a great way to make sure we do.
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I wonder if other reforms include revoking corporate rights--otherwise the resource extraction and large tourism industries will negate any rights given to the environment.
A yes vote on this will certainly bolster the National Park in the Galapagos and their ability to prosecute cross-border poachers and damaging tour operators.
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Sounds good to me.These folks must be even
more Progressive than the folks in California-and they're
allways 3 years ahead of us here in New York even though we're 3 hours ahead of them. Wow.Acknowleging
that Nature which is the Manifestation of God's Creation
has rights we can't monkey with.These people must have been reading my mind. Where do I sign up? -
If it helps with conserving whats being taken away, then I would defiantly vote yes. In my opinion however, I think rights are for individual humans, and we should use those freedoms to be shepherds.
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Now is the perfect time. this is one of the biggest pushes against large multi national companies who strip conties of there natural recorence and distroy eco-systems. i hope the these right and laws will be enforced: it is one thing to have a law on the books, it is another enfocreing that law.
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- 4th_Wise_Man
- 4 months ago
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Ironically, the laws of nature will ultimately decide whether or not WE have inalienable rights.
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- darkhorsejim
- 4 months ago
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darkhorsejim: Absolutely. The laws of nature precede the laws of men. It should be a given that nature has inalienable rights... it would be in a world where we mortals understood our place in this web of life.
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- JanforGore
- 4 months ago
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Ah, this is very good news, thanks! This is a conversation about challenging our attitudes, beliefs, and values, this is the essential component of change. Even if it doesn't pass, it will be a catalyst for dialogue in a distinctive way. The kind of paradigm change we need right now takes time. I just hope we have that kind of time.
