This past November, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the Los Cedros Cloud Forest ecosystem and local communities’ rights over the rights of a foreign mining corporation. Truly a seminal case for legal rights of nature, the court addressed the regulatory permitting process, the precautionary principle, biodiversity, community input into the decision-making process, and how human rights to clean water and a healthy environment are completely tied to the rights of the ecosystem and nature.
Join CELDF in this conversation about the ruling: what it says, what it means, and how it can serve as an example of how to create rights of nature laws and uphold them. This webinar is only a “kick-off” of a much deeper dive into an analysis of the Rights of Nature movement over the past 16 years. Look for articles and blogs over the summer months and in the fall, a 3-part webinar series with people who have been involved in this movement from all over the world. We will be embarking on a detailed analysis of the movement from a past, historical perspective, a present-day lens, and also looking at examples of potential co-optation of Rights of Nature and things to avoid. Lastly, we will look through a lens to the future and where we see the movement going and what is possible.
CELDF partnered with the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN) to get this landmark decision translated into English so more people will be able to analyze and celebrate what this court was courageous enough to finally do….enforce and uphold the Rights of Nature.
CELDF has been part of the Rights of Nature legal movement from the beginning. In 2006, Tamaqua Borough, PA, passed the very first legislation incorporating legal rights for nature in western law. In 2008, in Ecuador, CELDF participated with others in drafting language for the first time Rights of Nature was written into a national Constitution. This decision is taking that language and breathing life into the Rights of Nature!