Issues Archives

Mar 15, 2023

Watch the video: “Water is Us”

“Water Is Us” was moderated by ORCRN’s board member and CELDF organizer Kai Huschke. Joining him was: On February 22nd the ORCRN’s Webinar Wednesday meandered through a variety of water topics, from current conditions of water access and water quality to how the law sees water, to the growth of rights of nature to protect and preserve water, to… Read more »

Mar 10, 2023

Conservation Today: Kai Huschke and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Kai Huschke, with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, talks to us about the hierarchy of community rights, states rights, and corporate rights.

Mar 3, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – From Rights of Nature to Right Relationship

We are used to extracting not only metallic ores and fossil fuels, but ourselves and our communities from the natural world, and yet we don’t notice the increasing distance placed between us and our natural habitat by the human-made environment.

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Rights of Nature

Feb 28, 2023

RIGHTS OF NATURE PANEL DISCUSSION: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST

Rights of Nature Panel Discussion: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

Feb 20, 2023

Raising Awareness through art – Andrea Bowers: Exist, Flourish, Evolve

The “Exist, Flourish, Evolve” art show will be held at The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and will focus on Rights of Nature and the Great Lakes in particular.

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

Feb 16, 2023

Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) 2023 Panel: “Protecting our Vital Watersheds – Transitioning to Rights of Nature”

March 3rd at 1:15pm to 2:45pm PST/4:15pm to 5:45pm EST. CELDF’s Kai Huschke will be facilitating this panel on “Protecting our Vital Watersheds – Transitioning to Rights of Nature” focused on giving entities in nature such as rivers and watersheds legal rights.

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

Feb 14, 2023

Community Conversation: Rights and Rites

Using illustrator and writer Shaun Tan’s short story “Bears with Lawyers” as a touchstone, this discussion will interrogate the societal conception of rights (and rites) within our current legal system and beyond.

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

Jan 19, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – Saving the Economy Means Not Saving Nature

At the risk of expediting the die-off of most life on the planet, including most humans, judges continue to turn a blind eye toward the rights of natural communities – where humans live in harmony with their environment – while giving full-throated support for legal rights vested in corporate property.

Guest Blog: Badges and Incidents of Slavery

The challenge: How to overcome the white dominance/Black subordination relationship. How to decolonize.

Tumbled by the surf: Figuring out which wave to ride next for recognizing rights

We must think about our history- the Revolutionaries were proposing an alternative to being a colony of England, abolitionists were fighting for an alternative to slavery, the suffragists for an alternative to patriarchy and on and on.

Wouldn’t You Say? – Materialism is Substance Abuse, Literally

Let’s be generous and call the COP–15 agreement a plan for conserving 1% of Earth’s biodiversity. That means that negotiators agreed to sacrifice 99% of Earth’s remaining biodiversity on the altar of human consumption for profit.

Dec 20, 2022

Grant’s Fight is Our Fight

As we head into the new year, please join us in continuing to stand with Grant Township. And let’s not only support them with words or dollars, but also follow their lead and bravely build on their efforts in the communities where we live.

Dec 10, 2022

Do No Harm: Protecting the Rights of Mangroves in Ecuador From Injury

Mangroves, according to the Ramsar definition, are considered wetlands – an area that CELDF is also helping to evolve coming out of the Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands.

Nov 17, 2022

Press Release: Back to the Future — Ohioans Still Poisoned After All These Years

“The spreading of toxic and radioactive well waste brine on Ohio roads and other surfaces threatens all Ohioans,” stated FaCT Brine Education Committee Chair, Ron Prosek. “You could be living or traveling anywhere in Ohio and potentially be exposed to this dangerous material. This is one of the most reckless practices that the State of Ohio has ever allowed.”

Nov 16, 2022

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

Human and ecosystem viability come when we figure out how to orient our culture to be connected to all four parts: Living from, with, in, and as Nature.

Join the OHCRN: Virtual film screening and discussion of “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”

View the film on your own or with others (organize a viewing party!) from Friday November 18 to Sunday November 20. The OHCRN will host a Zoom webinar discussion on Sunday November 20 at 2:00 pm ET. The panel will include the filmmaker, Jim Becket.

Nov 8, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – What Do We Mean by “Community Rights?”

Lakota advocate and water protector Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Wina), upon being introduced to the history of municipal subjugation in the United States during a Democracy School hosted by residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, remarked that “municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.”

Oct 31, 2022

Celebrating Victories in Europe and South America, the Rights of Nature Movement Plots Strategy in a Time of ‘Crises’

A global alliance formed in 2010 to advance an unorthodox legal theory that ecosystems and wild animals have rights, similar to humans. Now, says one leader, those ideas are “legitimate subjects of debate.”

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Oct 28, 2022

CELDF Allies with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature in Siena, Italy

The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) gathered in Siena Italy at the 13th century monastery, Certosa di Pontignano, from October 15-18, and CELDF was there.

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

Sep 29, 2022

The rights of nature movement cannot be stopped

By Pamela Haines September 27, 2022 From the Navajo Nation to a small town in Pennsylvania to Ecuador, then across the world, the idea of enshrining the rights of nature is only growing.

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Sep 28, 2022

Happy Anniversary Rights of Pachamama Ecuador!

We at CELDF want to recognize and celebrate the 14-year anniversary of this historic date when the country of Ecuador codified Rights of Pachamama into their national Constitution.

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

Sep 23, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – What are the Rights of Nature?

The law locks up the man or woman, Who steals the goose from off the common, But leaves the greater villain loose, Who steals the common from off the goose

Read More | Blogs, Issues, News, Rights of Nature

Sep 15, 2022

Water Speaks to Ohio Department of Natural Resources

YES, the waters have a voice in this project….or at least they should.

Sep 15, 2022

Announcing CELDF’s Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the obligations we share as collaborators with life-supporting ecosystems must be institutionalized, recognizing Nature as a unique legal entity and rights holder.

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

Sep 13, 2022

Chile’s Rejection

How could Chileans, after rising up in October 2019 to demand a new constitution, then voting by an overwhelming majority to initiate the constituent process, reject the proposed draft? Why would they align with right-wing forces seeking to preserve the Pinochet constitution? This astonishing result surely demands a multi-causal explanation.

Sep 12, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Nature is What’s Real

You wouldn’t think, in a rational society, that anyone would have to be told this, but reality doesn’t care what anybody believes is true; it just is. And what isn’t, isn’t.

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

Sep 7, 2022

It’s Inevitable – More to Come in Chile

Despite the claims of the corporate-minded, rejection of the new constitution by the voters of Chile is not a repute of what the new constitution contained but one that shows the desperation of the powerful elite to hold on to their planetary destroying levels of greed and the lengths they will go to deny the inevitable.

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Sep 7, 2022

Unveiling Rights of Nature Artwork and Logo

We want to begin this next chapter of the Nature Leads Series by unveiling CELF’s beautiful new Rights of Nature artwork and logo designed by two talented artists and organizers from the St. Lawrence River / Kaniatarowanenneh Watershed, Haudenosaunee Territory, in what is known as the New York State.

Why CELDF will be watching more than sports this Sunday

As Chilean voters are poised to go to the polls this coming Sunday, September 4, to hopefully become the second country in the world to include recognition of the Rights of Nature (RON) in their national constitution, it is obvious just by reading a few headlines in any given week that more countries need to embrace and follow Chile’s lead.

Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Aug 21, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Municipal Maze

Refuse to be complacent. Refuse to be complicit. Refuse to be irrelevant.

Aug 5, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Community Self-Government

Do you know what’s not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution? For one thing, government by the people.

Jul 19, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Property

The Right to Property is Inalienable, Right?
Some rights are defined as inalienable, meaning that they can’t be taken away from you. Heck, you can’t even sell them, trade them, or give them away.

Jul 8, 2022

“Putting the rights of nature on the map. A quantitative analysis of rights of nature initiatives across the world.”

The Rights of Nature (RoN) promote a new understanding of the human
environment, where natural entities are conceived as subjects with intrinsic value independent of human interests. The implementation of this idea
gained momentum in the United States in 2006. One decade and a half later, the idea has spread all over the world.

Read More | News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Jul 6, 2022

Truthout: Nature Isn’t a “Vault” Full of Material Value. It Is a Treasure to Be Valued.

CELDF’s Ben Price wrote this article, featured in Truthout, about a mining corporation’s scam plan, pushed as an environmentally friendly investment opportunity.

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

Jul 5, 2022

Available Now: English Translation & Webinar of the Landmark Decision in Ecuador to Protect Los Cedros Forest over Mining Profits

We at CELDF were excited to be able to read the full decision of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador upholding the rights of the Los Cedros Forest over a mining project and we are sharing that decision with you in both English and Spanish. We want to thank the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature… Read more »

Read More | News, Resources, Rights of Nature

Jul 1, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Personhood

The Right of Free Speech Includes the Right to Clean Air to Speak With Look, if corporate property can be called a legal person, and if that person has a right to speak freely, but no mouth, and if corporate-cozy judges can make us all pretend for real that spending money is the way corporate… Read more »

Jun 14, 2022

The Elephant in the Zoo(m): Should Non-Humans and Natural Resources be Considered “Persons” Under the Law?

NYWBA’s Animal Law and WBASNY’s Environmental Law Committees presents a webinar on June 20, 2022 at 6:00 – 7:30 PM (Eastern Time) On May 18, 2022, the New York Court of Appeals heard the habeus corpus petition involving “Happy the Elephant” and considered whether she is a person under the law. Recent legal efforts in… Read more »

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

May 19, 2022

What do we want? Clean Water! When do we want it? Yesterday!

Our communities deserve more than just the right to Clean Water; our entire ecosystem, our Mother Earth depends on us to end the poisoning. It seems to me we need to recognize the Rights of Nature, and make it illegal to poison Earth and her inhabitants.

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.

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

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

Nov 3, 2021

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?

Read More | Events, Rights of Nature

Nov 1, 2021

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 9, 2021

BOOK FOREWORD: Empowering Municipal Sustainability

They say that knowledge is power, but it’s not true. Knowledge fuels our actions and our actions are power.

Read More | Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Rights of Nature

CELDF is seeking a Grant Writer | Job Opening

Announcing CELDF's Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

New Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

Watch the video: “Water is Us”

Conservation Today: Kai Huschke and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Wouldn’t You Say? – From Rights of Nature to Right Relationship

RIGHTS OF NATURE PANEL DISCUSSION: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST

Raising Awareness through art – Andrea Bowers: Exist, Flourish, Evolve

Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) 2023 Panel: “Protecting our Vital Watersheds – Transitioning to Rights of Nature”

Community Conversation: Rights and Rites

Wouldn’t You Say? – Saving the Economy Means Not Saving Nature

Guest Blog: Badges and Incidents of Slavery

Tumbled by the surf: Figuring out which wave to ride next for recognizing rights

Wouldn’t You Say? – Materialism is Substance Abuse, Literally

Grant’s Fight is Our Fight

Do No Harm: Protecting the Rights of Mangroves in Ecuador From Injury

Press Release: Back to the Future — Ohioans Still Poisoned After All These Years

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

Join the OHCRN: Virtual film screening and discussion of “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva”

Wouldn’t You Say? – What Do We Mean by “Community Rights?”

Celebrating Victories in Europe and South America, the Rights of Nature Movement Plots Strategy in a Time of ‘Crises’

CELDF Allies with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature in Siena, Italy

The rights of nature movement cannot be stopped

Happy Anniversary Rights of Pachamama Ecuador!

Wouldn’t You Say? – What are the Rights of Nature?

Water Speaks to Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Announcing CELDF’s Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

Chile’s Rejection

Wouldn’t You Say? – Nature is What’s Real

It’s Inevitable – More to Come in Chile

Unveiling Rights of Nature Artwork and Logo

Why CELDF will be watching more than sports this Sunday

Wouldn’t You Say? – Municipal Maze

Wouldn’t You Say? – Community Self-Government

Wouldn’t You Say? – Property

“Putting the rights of nature on the map. A quantitative analysis of rights of nature initiatives across the world.”

Truthout: Nature Isn’t a “Vault” Full of Material Value. It Is a Treasure to Be Valued.

Available Now: English Translation & Webinar of the Landmark Decision in Ecuador to Protect Los Cedros Forest over Mining Profits

Wouldn’t You Say? – Personhood

The Elephant in the Zoo(m): Should Non-Humans and Natural Resources be Considered “Persons” Under the Law?

What do we want? Clean Water! When do we want it? Yesterday!

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

DAMAGES Podcast: The Backlash

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?

COMMUNITY RIGHTS AT THE OREGON SUPREME COURT

Shifting the Lens: Energy & Environment Series

Legal Self Defense

BOOK FOREWORD: Empowering Municipal Sustainability

Support just, fair, and sustainable communities