2024 Year-end Newsletter: Living in Nature
We hope you enjoy the articles, factoids, features, and spotlights of the…
Newsletters, Resources
Important Updates
We hope you enjoy the articles, factoids, features, and spotlights of the…
Newsletters, Resources
The essays in Wouldn’t You Say? ask challenging questions about modern society,…
News from the Grassroots, Publications
A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the…
Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature
Apr 5, 2018
In the growing recognition of ecosystem rights around the world, today the Colombia Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the Amazon region in Colombia possesses rights.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryApr 5, 2018
State preemption is growing, community members across the U.S. disapprove, and no liberal or conservative political party is coming in to save the day. Instead, people are beginning to take matters into their own hands.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 31, 2018
First initiated with CELDF in the U.S. in 2006, today our Rights of Nature is global. Here, its growing recognition in Australia to protect rivers and indigenous peoples.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 28, 2018
A circuit court judge renders meaningless the right to citizen initiative in Lane County, OR. Here’s how, why, and a call for the people to change our legal structure.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 27, 2018
CELDF, OHCRN, and Ohio communities grieve the loss of Dick McGinn, and celebrate his life and contributions. He was a passionate leader in growing Community Rights in Ohio.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMar 20, 2018
Carol Van Strum has dedicated her life to fighting pesticides. Here an interview with Van Strum and CELDF’s Kai Huschke on pesticides, Community Rights, and protecting our communities from corporate harms.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 20, 2018
Lafayette, CO, residents are unrelenting in their determination to protect their community from fracking harms. At City Council, they insist on enforcement of their Climate Bill of Rights and urge adoption of a non-violent direct action amendment.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 19, 2018
Integrating art with the environmental movement, the 2018 National Water Dance will take place across the U.S. on April 14th. Core Dance is partnering with CELDF and other organizations to build alliances and protect water.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryMar 19, 2018
The Mahoning County, OH, Board of Elections blocks a duly qualified Community Bill of Rights initiative from the ballot in Youngstown. CELDF assists residents to file a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsMar 19, 2018
Community members in Lafayette, CO, rally behind an amendment to their Climate Bill of Rights that would legalize non-violent civil disobedience if necessary to stop fracking harms.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryMar 16, 2018
The New Hampshire legislature takes an historic vote on the first Community Rights state constitutional amendment considered by a state legislature.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryMar 14, 2018
Carol Van Strum, Community Rights advocate and long time activist, receives the international David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding environmental and social justice work.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 14, 2018
Communities can’t adopt the gun laws they believe would best protect their health, safety, and welfare. Here’s why – and what communities can do about it.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsMar 9, 2018
See this story in The Register-Guard on Lane County, OR, residents fighting to protect themselves from aerially sprayed herbicides.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 8, 2018
An Athens County, OH, community member makes it clear: The people of Athens aren’t giving up their rights to govern themselves and protect their community from fracking wastewater, regardless of what the state says.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 6, 2018
Snohomish County, WA, residents partner with CELDF to assert their democratic rights and stop aerial sprayed pesticides.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 5, 2018
CELDF’s Thomas Linzey speaks to an overflowing crowd in Lafayette, CO, on defending their Climate Bill of Rights. The City’s ordinance bans fracking as a violation of rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 4, 2018
CELDF fights for the people’s right to vote in Athens County, OH, court of appeals.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 3, 2018
Our popular Community Rights Papers were printed between 2014 – 2017 and re-frame contemporary and historical events through a Community Rights lens.
Read More | PublicationsMar 1, 2018
This powerful letter-to-the-editor by an Ashland, NH, resident, is what builds a people’s movement.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 1, 2018
Denied their right to vote by the Athens County Board of Elections in Ohio, county residents make their case today in the 4th district court of appeals. Residents qualified a rights-based county charter initiative in 2017 that banned fracking activities.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 28, 2018
Community Rights supporter Carol Van Strum receives the International Lifetime Achievement Award Presented at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, OR.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryFeb 25, 2018
CELDF’s Tish O’Dell shares discoveries of her own white privilege when fracking came into her community – and how Dr. Martin Luther King and Black Lives Matter inform her work with communities today
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsFeb 23, 2018
With bi-partisan support, the New Hampshire House Municipal & County Government committee will vote how to recommend the Community Rights state constitutional amendment CACR19 to the full House next week.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 19, 2018
The people’s Community Rights state constitutional amendment moves ahead with the support of a New Hampshire legislative subcommittee.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryFeb 13, 2018
Columbus Free Press covers Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich and his support for a Community Rights state constitutional amendment.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryFeb 11, 2018
Community members advance community rights in Lane County, OR, fighting for their health and safety against the timber industry’s use of pesticides.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 8, 2018
Taking steps to assert decision-making authority over their own communities, New Hampshire residents work with the CELDF and NHCRN to advance a rights-based state constitutional amendment.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryFeb 6, 2018
New Hampshire supporters of a community rights state constitutional amendment urge the legislative committee to advance the amendment to the House.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 5, 2018
“Local control” today means seizing our local governments and enacting laws to protect our communities and the future of the planet.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsFeb 5, 2018
From ThinkProgress on the efforts of the oil and gas industry to stop Community Rights and Rights of Nature, the courageous communities who refuse to fold, and the growing momentum of this new legal paradigm.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 5, 2018
Plymouth, NH, residents are among the growing numbers of New Hampshire communities using Community Rights to stop projects harmful to their health, safety, and welfare.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryFeb 3, 2018
CELDF stands by Ohio residents. Together, the people succeeded in overturning unjust law, and today they are ramping up their efforts to advance democratic and environmental rights across the state.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryFeb 1, 2018
Lane County, OR, residents urge their county commissioners to place Community Rights measures on the ballot for a vote by the people. Residents are taking action to protect themselves from aerial spraying of herbicides.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsFeb 1, 2018
Plymouth, NH, voters overwhelmingly adopt a rights-based ordinance banning unsustainable energy projects and protecting their right to a sustainable energy future. The measure bans the Northern Pass project.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryJan 31, 2018
As the New Hampshire Community Rights state constitutional amendment moves forward to a legislative committee, Representative Ellen Read voices her support for the amendment. Listen here.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryJan 31, 2018
Facing a massive electrical power corridor cutting through New Hampshire, the people of Plymouth ban the project in their Town using Community Rights. Next step: a statewide amendment codifying Community Rights in the NH constitution.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryJan 29, 2018
Let’s stop lying to each other and stop protesting. Let’s start truth-telling and begin building our communities based on rights. It’s time.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsJan 25, 2018
A former Selectperson from Ashland, NH, writes this LTE on the NH Community Rights state constitutional amendment. We are born with the inalienable right to local community self-government, and we must exercise that right.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 24, 2018
Environmental regulations aren’t doing much for the environment – but recognizing nature’s rights is.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Success StoryJan 23, 2018
New Hampshire residents and the NHCRN advance a Community Rights state constitutional amendment to the legislative committee hearing.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryJan 22, 2018
Sanctioning public interest attorneys for defending Grant Township, PA’s, ban on fracking wastewater injection wells is the next step in efforts to stop communities from refusing harmful corporate projects.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 21, 2018
Why are attacks from the corporate state escalating against communities who are advancing basic rights and protecting themselves from harm? And what’s next?
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsJan 19, 2018
With House Joint Resolution 5 (HJR5), the Ohio legislature is sabotaging the people’s democratic rights.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsJan 17, 2018
Community Rights is growing, and this is the corporate state’s punitive response.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 15, 2018
Dr. Martin Luther King is remembered for his extraordinary leadership in advancing Civil Rights. Let us not forget, either, how the system he and his followers sought to change, punished them for doing so.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsJan 11, 2018
Protecting water means enforcing their Community Bill of Rights fracking ban, says Athens, OH, residents. The rights-based law was adopted overwhelmingly by residents in 2014.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 10, 2018
The people of Grant Township, PA, are fiercely defending their right to clean air and water. A federal judge sanctions two attorneys for standing with Grant and fighting for their rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJan 5, 2018
The corporate state’s judiciary punishes attorneys defending Grant Township, PA, residents against the oil and gas industry by imposing sanctions.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsJan 5, 2018
Abolitionists urged secession to end the slave state. Explore secession to end the corporate state.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs