News From the Community Rights Movement - Page 3 of 30

May 11, 2022

Building Our Children’s Trust Needs to Start With Reality

While we’re being told by scientific authority that decisive action to reduce carbon emissions is mandatory within the 2020’s, the legal theory underlying Juliana is risky and time-consuming. Worse, “victory” in Juliana would mean contradictory and self-defeating technological fixes which are misleadingly cast as proven ways to salvage life on the planet. In these potentially closing moments of human existence, the inhabitants, human and otherwise, deserve a whole lot better.

Read More | Blogs, News

May 4, 2022

A Court Hearing for Grant Township: Eight Years Later, and Still No Injection Well

As many are aware, CELDF has stood with the people and ecosystems of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA, population 700) in their courageous efforts to keep a frack waste injection well out of the community.

May 4, 2022

It’s Not All Bad

Over the last 15 years, grassroots work that establishes rights for human and natural communities has expanded in ways that no one could have foreseen. And while we will celebrate the legal and the political victories, the truth is that none of this would have happened without people…

Read More | Blogs, News

Apr 27, 2022

Less is More: Confronting the American Nightmare of Stuff

The system has worked hard to create obedience in a number of ways and to cover up and misdirect the true impacts of what our obsession with stuff has resulted in. Yet the misdirection continues to keep our obedience to stuff as if the seeking out and possessing of stuff is akin to our biological need to breathe.

Read More | Blogs, News

Apr 20, 2022

Some things never change, but we better start!

“Claiming to fight for clean water because the human community depends on clean water to bring in more tourism or that we need to destroy an entire ecosystem for lithium so that humans can continue as they have, misses the point of why we need to change. The other species in the river don’t benefit from more tourism and the plants and the animals on top of the lithium deposit and the aquifer beneath it won’t benefit either.”

Read More | Blogs, News

Apr 18, 2022

Grant Township is fighting back | PennLive letters

April 20th is a big day in Harrisburg for the rights of communities to defend their water from industrial pollution. For years Grant Township, in Indiana County, PA, has been resisting the placement of injection wells on their land. In 2015 Township residents adopted a Home Rule Charter containing a “Community Bill of Rights.” This… Read more »

INVISIBLE HAND film viewing and discussion, June 12th

If corporations have rights, why not Nature? Join the Virginia Community Rights Network (VACRN) and its partner organizations for the virtual viewing and discussion of the award-winning film Invisible Hand. Watch the 90-minute movie during the 24-hour window. Then join us for a zoom discussion. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) organizers Tish O’Dell and Ben… Read more »

Read More | Events, News

Apr 14, 2022

The Ohio River Watershed: How to Keep it Healthy

PART 2: WHO SPEAKS FOR NATURE? APRIL PUBLIC FORUM – Women’s City Club of Greater CincinnatiTUESDAY, APRIL 19, 7 PM via ZOOM The forum will look at a new legal strategy for protecting our water and natural environment from the emerging new threats of industrial pollutants. PANELISTS Tish O’Dell, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)Susan… Read more »

Read More | Events, News

Apr 13, 2022

Earth Emancipation Now!

Earth Emancipation Now!
Synopsis: The American Empire was built on the model of European colonialism and the enclosure of the Commons. The Federalists, who crafted the U.S. Constitution, emulated Old World Empires by privatizing government and transforming the whole natural world into property. They erected an aristocracy of wealth by vesting in property itself the authority to govern. Our common environment is legally enslaved to the whims of its owners and they, by virtue of that ownership, govern us. There is no alternative to save planet Earth but to emancipate Nature from legal enslavement as property.

Read More | Blogs, News

Apr 12, 2022

Earth Day Film Presentation at the Taos Center for the Arts in New Mexico on April 23rd 10 AM

A showing of the documentary “The Invisible Hand” at the Taos Center for the Arts in New Mexico will take place, with its producer, Melissa A. Troutman, who will speak about rights of nature along with live-streamed members of CELDF for a Q&A. The Rio Grande is in great danger and needs our bodies and… Read more »

Read More | Events, News

Apr 11, 2022

DAMAGES Podcast: The Backlash

Episode DescriptionIn 2019, after a decade-long campaign, voters in Toledo Ohio voted to approve the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, effectively giving the lake personhood. It drew an incredible amount of attention. This wasn’t San Francisco hippies or Brooklyn hipsters talking about rights of nature, this was middle-aged moms in the Rust Belt, and that… Read more »

Read More | Multimedia, News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Apr 1, 2022

Portland Democracy School: May 2022

Join our community partner as they host a Portland Democracy School event.

Read More | Events, News

Mar 22, 2022

OHCRN 2022 Empowering Community Film Festival: Santiago Rising

Filmed during the weeks after protests began, Santiago Rising meets social movements, protesters, and ordinary people in their struggle for equality and human rights. The film charts the build-up to the historic vote, in October 2020, that saw Chileans vote for a new constitution to replace the one imposed during the brutal Pinochet dictatorship. Santiago Rising emphasizes… Read more »

Read More | Events, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots

Mar 22, 2022

Podcast with GrassRoot Ohio: Death by Democracy- Episode 2 – w/ Tish O’Dell

Carolyn Harding with Tish O’Dell, a powerful voice for justice in Ohio, the US, and Globally. Tish has been a Community Organizer for CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) since 2012 assisting residents to organize rights-based initiatives in their communities in order to help them “make real” the just and sustainable communities they envision for… Read more »

Mar 16, 2022

Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits Symposium: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward

CELDF’s Tish O’Dell is speaking on Panel #4, “Contamination of Water.” This Panel will take place on Friday, March 25 from 11:40 AM – 12:45 PM.

Terry Lodge, activist attorney with CELDF, is speaking on Panel #2, “Contamination of Land.” This panel will take place on Thursday, March 24 from 11:50 AM – 12:55 PM

American University Washington College of Law’s Program on Environmental and Energy Law and Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief, in association with the Animal Law Society, Energy Law & Policy Society, Environmental Law Society, and Native American Law Students Association are excited to host this year’s annual Symposium, “Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward” over Zoom from 10 AM – 1 PM on March 24 and 25, 2022. Over the course of four panels—activists, professors, legal and policy experts, climate scientists, and professors will discuss the international and domestic contamination and overuse of water and land from modern environmental law, indigenous, and rights of nature perspectives. The panelists will explore the devastating impacts of some of nature’s biggest threats, including pollution, deforestation, and industrial fishing.

Mar 15, 2022

LEBOR like bill in New York seeks Rights of Nature for Great Lakes

New York State Assemblyman Patrick Burke, a 37-year-old Democrat from the Buffalo area, has introduced legislation “that will create a Great Lakes Bill of Rights with the goal of securing legal rights for the entire ecosystem and giving people and nature a role in the decision-making process regarding current and future projects that impact the… Read more »

Read More | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Mar 10, 2022

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment discussion from the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference PIELC.

Mar 10, 2022

Andrea Bowers: Can the world mend in this body?

The Lake Erie Bill of Rights and CELDF are influencing Bower’s work on Rights of Nature.

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Mar 2, 2022

NYS Assemblyman Patrick Burke Introduces Great Lakes Bill of Rights

The bill paves the way for litigation against polluters on behalf of the ecosystem Press ReleaseThursday, February 24th, 2022 NYS Assemblymember Patrick B. Burke Office Contact: Brendan Keany, Communications Director716-608-6099 | keanyb@nyassembly.gov CELDF Contacts: Tish O’Dell, Organizer440-552-6774 tish@celdf.org Ben Price, Organizer717-254-3233 benprice@celdf.org Buffalo, NY – New York State Assemblyman Patrick Burke has introduced legislation… Read more »

Read More | Press Releases

Mar 1, 2022

Change That Matters by Jim Hightower | Creators Syndicate

Jim Hightower mentions CELDF in his publication on the growing Rights of Nature movement and the importance of protecting the health and survivability of ecosystems worldwide.

CELDF’s Ongoing Commitment to Expanding Community Rights

“The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.”

Read More | Press Releases

Feb 8, 2022

Thacker Pass Statement

We are firm in our support of human and civil rights for all people, including the transgender community, without exception.

Read More | Press Releases

Feb 1, 2022

Guest Blog: The Journey of a Film

It’s an uphill battle against some of the most powerful lobbies on earth. The threats against our health posed by heedless profit-seeking are heavily empowered.

Read More | Blogs

Jan 27, 2022

Guest Blog: Community Rights in Buffalo, NY

Systems change doesn’t hinge on electing the right candidate – it’s advanced most forcefully when organized communities engage in direct action.

Read More | Blogs

Jan 13, 2022

Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

Protecting Water and Life: Frontline Stories from Ohioans fighting corporate and state power This book features frontline stories from a movement fighting corporate and state power in Ohio. Edited by Tish O’Dell and Simon Davis-Cohen. For over eight years, organizers with the Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) have worked hard with CELDF to propose and… Read more »

Message from the NCRN

Dear friends, Tom Groover, an NCRN and COCRN Board member, along with his wife Karen recently lost everything in the Boulder County Colorado Marshall Fire that started on December 30, 2021. Tom has been on the Board of NCRN since its inception in 2014-2015. I initially spoke with Tom on Sunday January 2nd and then briefly… Read more »

Read More | Blogs

Jan 7, 2022

Donegal County Council votes unanimously to adopt Rights of Nature

In December, the Donegal County Council in Ireland voted unanimously to adopt the Rights of Nature as “an important statement of intention that imbeds the concept as a core value and a keystone concept.”

Read More | Blogs

Jan 5, 2022

Glen’s Parallax Perspectives – Interview with Kai Huschke

Glen Anderson interviewed two experts — Kai Huschke and Elliott Moffett — who have savvy insights and practical experience working to protect environments and establish legal rights for nature.

Lessons from Ecuador

What will it take to advance the Rights of Nature in the United States?

Read More | Blogs

Dec 15, 2021

Portrait of a water guardian – WT Interview with Tish O’Dell

What is the force that propels a woman forward in taking a courageous stand for water and the environment water creates?
Here is what Tish O’Dell told WATERTODAY Ohio.

Historic Rights of Nature Victory in Ecuador

The plaintiffs were able to introduce scientific studies that supported their claims that current government regulations would harm the forest ecosystem and sacred species.

Read More | Press Releases

Dec 14, 2021

Virginia Community Joins Global Rights of Nature Movement

Industrial gold mining has been shown to devastate local communities, including through the depletion of water tables and poisoning of water systems.

Read More | Press Releases

Dec 8, 2021

Local Democracy Denied: Informational Session

It has been a long road for Lincoln County in their search for protection from the practice of aerial spraying of pesticides by big timber.

Restoring Mother Earth Law

Restoring our relationship to nature means restoring our human systems, including the legal system, to function just as healthy ecosystems do. Learn and discuss how we’ve gotten to this point, what is happening now to transform deep structures, and how traditional ways and the efforts to include justice into law for humans and non-humans is moving more and more into reality.

2021 in Review

We are witnessing tremendous gains for the Rights of Nature movement and an expansion of awareness about the injustices perpetrated by highly centralized state government systems.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 25, 2021

Newsletter: Washington Update

The WACRN is now working to operationalize the network to be that change agent it set out to be nearly 10 years ago.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 24, 2021

PA Constitutional Change

House Bill 1716 is a proposed amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution. It would secure the right of self-government to every community in Pennsylvania.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 23, 2021

Metallic Mining and Freedom from Toxic Trespass

The Virginia Community Rights Network has finalized text for an Ordinance Requiring an Assessment of the Compatibility of Metallic Mining with the Right to Freedom from Toxic Trespass.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 21, 2021

New Hampshire Municipal Outreach Campaign

As a means to gain feedback from local elected officials, the NHCRN launched a municipal outreach campaign this September.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 20, 2021

Challenges to Implementing Rights of Nature in the U.S

The intentional conflation of privileged property of this sort with personal property, the product of individual labor and creativity, perpetuates distrust of Rights of Nature.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 19, 2021

Newsletter: Oregon Update

Justice continues to be denied in Oregon. Community rights efforts in Lane and Lincoln counties have, quite wrongly, found themselves mired in the Oregon court system on issues that should’ve been considered and resolved by the people of their respective counties.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 18, 2021

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Ohio communities have worked hard over the past eight years, proposing charter amendments and ordinances recognizing local self-governance and rights of nature.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 16, 2021

Community Rights Lane County Issues Values Statement

Community Rights Lane County educates and mobilizes citizens about their rights to local community self-governance. They believe decisions affecting communities must be made by community residents – the people directly impacted by these decisions and laws that authorize harmful corporate activities.

Read More | Blogs

Nov 11, 2021

BOOK: One-Block Revolution

CELDF’s Kai Huschke was centrally involved in the first-in-the-nation Community Bill of Rights and Worker Bill of Rights. His chapter for the new book One-Block Revolution, details the community building behind the efforts.

Q&A with SUNDANCE, Executive Director of Cleveland A.I.M.

How do we unite to create a more just and sustainable vision for the future. What are the possible next steps?

COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT

Community Rights at the Oregon Supreme Court: Understanding the Impacts of Denying Direct Democracy

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Events

Nov 2, 2021

Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series

Would recognizing Rights of Nature affect you, the community and possibly the planet? Instead of looking at nature as mere property and as resources, what if we shifted the lens and the law to recognizing nature as living and therefore entitled to rights to life, to flourish and thrive?

Legal Self Defense

Legal Self Defense understands that the U.S. Constitution guarantees neither fairness nor safety, but that de-escalation skills coupled with some targeted legal knowledge can improve your security during interactions with law enforcement.

Read More | Defunding Violence, Publications

Oct 26, 2021

International Meeting: Rights of Nature Experiences

Join Siembra Centro Sociojurídico para la Defensa Territorial and others at this roundtable event on Rights of Nature Experiences.

Honor The Treaties in Your Community

The destruction, privatization and incorporation of settler municipalities on these landscapes and waterways has violated the treaties. It’s time for municipalities to actually recognize and become governed by their local treaties.

Read More | Blogs

Announcing CELDF's Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

Sneak Peek! -- End of Year Newsletter 2022: We are Nature

Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

Building Our Children’s Trust Needs to Start With Reality

A Court Hearing for Grant Township: Eight Years Later, and Still No Injection Well

It’s Not All Bad

Less is More: Confronting the American Nightmare of Stuff

Some things never change, but we better start!

Grant Township is fighting back | PennLive letters

INVISIBLE HAND film viewing and discussion, June 12th

The Ohio River Watershed: How to Keep it Healthy

Earth Emancipation Now!

Earth Day Film Presentation at the Taos Center for the Arts in New Mexico on April 23rd 10 AM

DAMAGES Podcast: The Backlash

Portland Democracy School: May 2022

OHCRN 2022 Empowering Community Film Festival: Santiago Rising

Podcast with GrassRoot Ohio: Death by Democracy- Episode 2 – w/ Tish O’Dell

Lucrative Losses & Poisonous Profits Symposium: An Overview of the Domestic and Global Exploitation of Nature and the Way Forward

LEBOR like bill in New York seeks Rights of Nature for Great Lakes

“New Normal” Needs a New Constitutional Amendment

Andrea Bowers: Can the world mend in this body?

NYS Assemblyman Patrick Burke Introduces Great Lakes Bill of Rights

Change That Matters by Jim Hightower | Creators Syndicate

CELDF’s Ongoing Commitment to Expanding Community Rights

Thacker Pass Statement

Guest Blog: The Journey of a Film

Guest Blog: Community Rights in Buffalo, NY

Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

Message from the NCRN

Donegal County Council votes unanimously to adopt Rights of Nature

Glen’s Parallax Perspectives – Interview with Kai Huschke

Lessons from Ecuador

Portrait of a water guardian – WT Interview with Tish O’Dell

Historic Rights of Nature Victory in Ecuador

Virginia Community Joins Global Rights of Nature Movement

Local Democracy Denied: Informational Session

Restoring Mother Earth Law

2021 in Review

Newsletter: Washington Update

PA Constitutional Change

Metallic Mining and Freedom from Toxic Trespass

New Hampshire Municipal Outreach Campaign

Challenges to Implementing Rights of Nature in the U.S

Newsletter: Oregon Update

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Community Rights Lane County Issues Values Statement

BOOK: One-Block Revolution

Q&A with SUNDANCE, Executive Director of Cleveland A.I.M.

COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT

Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series

Legal Self Defense

International Meeting: Rights of Nature Experiences

Honor The Treaties in Your Community

Support just, fair, and sustainable communities