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May 1, 2023

Toledo voters approved a bill of rights for Lake Erie. A group wants the same for the Ohio River

Toledo voters approved a bill of rights for Lake Erie. A group wants the same for the Ohio River

Feature photo by Bill Rinehart/WVXU “An advocacy group wants Cincinnati to recognize the right of the Ohio River to thrive. Members of Citizens for the Rights of the Ohio River Watershed are circulating a petition to get an amendment to Cincinnati’s charter on the ballot. Susan VonderHaar says CROW members want to give the river a seat… Read more »

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Community Wires, Corporate Agriculture, Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Issues, News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Apr 14, 2023

The Myth of American Democracy: The Ruling Class Crusade Against Community & Nature

The Myth of American Democracy: The Ruling Class Crusade Against Community & Nature

Wednesday, April 19th at 6:30 PM (Central Time) CELDF’s Tish O’Dell will be a panelist on for the upcoming discussion, The Myth of American Democracy: The Ruling Class Crusade Against Community & Nature hosted by Athens Community Rights Coalition at Ohio University.

Read More | Community Wires, Events, News, News from the Grassroots

Nov 17, 2022

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

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.”

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Press Releases

Jun 15, 2022

A Living Tribute to Philip Jurus

A Living Tribute to Philip Jurus

In February 2019, just days before the Toledo special election on the Lake Erie Bill of Rights in Toledo Ohio, Philip Jurus heard an interview on NPR about the upcoming vote. The interview moved him to write to me and share a poem he had written about Lake Erie and her distressed condition back in… Read more »

Read More | Community Wires, News

May 19, 2022

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

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.

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, Corporate Agriculture, Issues, Rights of Nature

Apr 18, 2022

Grant Township is fighting back | PennLive letters

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 »

Read More | Community Wires, News

Sep 17, 2021

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Newsletter: Ohio Update

Ohio communities over the past decade have worked hard to protect ecosystems and their communities from various harmful projects. They did the work of asserting democratic rights to alter and reform their government. They collected signatures, argued in court, battled in lopsided campaigns and even won a few only to have the courts overturn their… Read more »

Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, News

Sep 15, 2021

Newsletter: New England Update

Newsletter: New England Update

Residents are blowing the whistle on large-scale industrial solar arrays that require the cutting of old-growth forests in favor of destructive greenwashing.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News

Sep 13, 2021

Newsletter: Building a Movement in Pennsylvania

Newsletter: Building a Movement in Pennsylvania

Community Rights organizing began in Pennsylvania over two decades ago. Since then, dozens of local laws have been adopted that ban everything from factory farms, to the spreading of sewage sludge, to oil and gas fracking and pipelines.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News, News from the Grassroots

Sep 8, 2021

Newsletter: Updates on Defunding Violence

Newsletter: Updates on Defunding Violence

The Defunding Violence Ordinance has been circulating in activist communities across the country. It continues to be a living document that both informs and is informed by grassroots efforts to defund and depower the institution of policing.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, Defunding Violence, News

Jul 29, 2021

Youth Declaration on the Rights of Nature and Future Generations

Youth Declaration on the Rights of Nature and Future Generations

Earth Law Center and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) Youth Hub led two sessions on “Youth and the Rights of Nature Movement: shifting the paradigm for all future generations” at the first IUCN Global Youth Summit April 7-9. As a result of the Rights of Nature sessions, a Declaration was drafted.… Read more »

Read More | Community Wires, Issues, News, Resource Links, Rights of Nature

Jul 29, 2021

Glen Ford, Veteran Journalist And Founder Of Black Agenda Report, Dies At 71

Glen Ford, Veteran Journalist And Founder Of Black Agenda Report, Dies At 71

Glen Ford spent more than four decades delivering the news from a Black perspective on a national scale.

Read More | Community Wires, News

Jun 27, 2021

Appellate Court Rules Lincoln County Aerial Spray Ban Invalid

Appellate Court Rules Lincoln County Aerial Spray Ban Invalid

Lincoln County voters passed Measure 21-177, banning aerial pesticide spraying in the county in May of 2017. Representatives of the timber industry promptly sued to overturn the ban.

Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, News

Dec 17, 2020

Guest Blog: John Marshall: A Case Study of Institutional Racism

Guest Blog: John Marshall: A Case Study of Institutional Racism

This essay discusses our courts of law as epitomes of institutional racism and the role played by Former Chief Justice John Marshall. This guest blog is part of a continuing effort to re-name law schools after Former Chief Justice Marshall, who owned over 200 slaves. Dealing with institutional racist past and trying to right some of the wrongs.

Read More | Community Wires, News, Press Releases & Blogs

Dec 6, 2020

Remembering Debra White Plume

Remembering Debra White Plume

Seen through her guileless eyes, the humble truth of our kinship and solidarity beneath the real—though disproportionately unequal—oppressions of empire, became clear.

Read More | Community Wires

Dec 2, 2020

Oregon: How Corporate Constitutional Rights Came to Be and How They Control Our Communities

Oregon: How Corporate Constitutional Rights Came to Be and How They Control Our Communities

Save the Date! Join the Oregon Community Rights Network in this upcoming event on corporate constitutional rights.

Read More | Community Wires, Events

Nov 6, 2020

Remembering a Rights of Nature Warrior

Remembering a Rights of Nature Warrior

Reekumani Greendeer was a fierce advocate for Nature. We will honor his memory through continued efforts for the Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Oct 5, 2020

Oregon Community Rights Organizer Featured in New Documentary ‘THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE’

Oregon Community Rights Organizer Featured in New Documentary ‘THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE’

A new documentary, “THE PEOPLE vs. AGENT ORANGE”, follows the primary component of the notorious chemical Agent Orange. The film follows resistance in the United States, France, and Vietnam, and features Carol Van Strum, an active participant in Community Rights and Rights of Nature organizing in Oregon. Join the premiere virtually for Oregon audiences at the Eugene Environmental Film Festival, October 2-11. It will be available on PBS in April 2021.

Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs

Sep 17, 2020

Module 3: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Module 3: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module Three- Decolonizing Nature – A Movement’s Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the final module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Sep 3, 2020

Module 2: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Module 2: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module Two- A Lakes Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the second module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Aug 27, 2020

Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State

Webinar: Webinar: Nature’s Rebellion Against the Corporate State! Register for Module One – A Community’s Voice in the Rebellion. Sign up for the first module in this three part webinar focused on Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

Read More | Community Wires

Aug 27, 2020

COMING SOON: World Premiere of ‘Invisible Hand’

COMING SOON: World Premiere of ‘Invisible Hand’

From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement. Attend the virtual world premiere followed by a panel discussion around the Rights of Nature Movement.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots

Aug 12, 2020

Defending the Rights of Lake Erie

Defending the Rights of Lake Erie

Read the pro se argument defending the Lake Erie Bill of Rights presented by Toledo resident, Mike Ferner, on behalf of Lake Erie and the Toledoans who passed the law.

Read More | Community Wires

Jul 20, 2020

THESIS: Anticapitalism and Environmentalism in the American Rights of Nature Movement

THESIS: Anticapitalism and Environmentalism in the American Rights of Nature Movement

Canadian honors student, Camylle Lanteigne, unpacks the connection between anticapitalism and ecocentrism in the Rights of Nature Movement. Her research focuses on CELDF’s philosophy as a framework for her arguments.

Read More | Community Wires, Corporate 'Rights', Democratic Rights, Rights of Nature

Jul 14, 2020

Virginia Network Launched to Challenge Corporatism and Dillon’s Rule, Advance Rights of Nature

Virginia Network Launched to Challenge Corporatism and Dillon’s Rule, Advance Rights of Nature

The Network has been initiated by residents who worked to protect Buckingham County, Virginia from a proposed large-scale fracked gas compressor station for the now-defeated Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs

Jun 9, 2020

New Hampshire Supreme Court: Allow People to Defend Against Corporate Lawsuits

New Hampshire Supreme Court: Allow People to Defend Against Corporate Lawsuits

Nottingham, New Hampshire residents appeal Supreme Court to defend their Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance. Adopted in 2019, this ordinance secures the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human societies, bans all corporate activities that infringe that right, and grants residents the right to defend the law in court.

Read More | Community Wires, News, Press Releases

Apr 22, 2020

Common Dreams: Abolish Earth Day

Common Dreams: Abolish Earth Day

For 50 years, environmentalists have celebrated the illusion that the law is on their side. Earth Day’s laws have systematically failed to guard against mass species die-offs, the climate crisis, deadly air pollution, the corporatization of freshwater, and the largest loss of biodiversity in human history.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots

Apr 20, 2020

50 Years of Earth Day – What Are We Celebrating?

50 Years of Earth Day – What Are We Celebrating?

This year CELDF will be hosting an online Q&A with organizers who have been engaging communities across the country in paradigm-shifting work for decades.

Read More | Community Wires, Events, News from the Grassroots

Apr 6, 2020

People Power in a Time of Pandemic

People Power in a Time of Pandemic

In this interview, Kai speaks on the current state of community rights, gives an explanation of the events taking place in Grant Township, and talks about how we must take this time during Covid-19 to progress forward in the movement.

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

Apr 2, 2020

Rolling Stone: Nature Scores a Big Win Against Fracking in a Small Pennsylvania Town

Rolling Stone: Nature Scores a Big Win Against Fracking in a Small Pennsylvania Town

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a toxic frack waste injection well in Grant Township. The DEP cited the Township’s Home Rule Charter, which includes a “Community Bill of Rights,” in their decision. Through the Charter that residents adopted in 2015, they banned injections wells as a violation of the rights of the community and the ecosystems that sustain them. CELDF assisted in drafting and defending the law.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Resource Links, Success Story

Mar 21, 2020

Dear Mike DeWine: A Letter on Ohioan’s Constitutional Rights and Public Health

Dear Mike DeWine: A Letter on Ohioan’s Constitutional Rights and Public Health

Ohio Organizer Tish O’Dell responds to Gov. Mike DeWine’s concerns for public health and constitutional rights during the COVID-19 crisis. Let’s hope he upholds his own words when it’s time to recover and rebuild.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Resource Links

Mar 17, 2020

Community Stories: Claiming the Law

Community Stories: Claiming the Law

Bryan Twitchell shares a guest blog about the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s ongoing resistance to the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, Canada.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News

Mar 6, 2020

The Indiana Gazette: Court sides with Grant Township on injection well

The Indiana Gazette: Court sides with Grant Township on injection well

As the Pennsylvania DEP attempts to block Grant Township’s defense of their ban on fracking injection wells, the court rules that the case can move forward. Grant argues they have the right to local governing authority to protect against corporate harm.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success Story

Feb 28, 2020

Press Release: Judge Refuses to Acknowledge Lake Erie’s Rights

Press Release: Judge Refuses to Acknowledge Lake Erie’s Rights

In Toledo, OH, a federal judge joined a long list of enablers complicit in the destruction of the natural world by invalidating the democratically enacted Lake Erie Bill of Rights charter amendment.

Read More | Community Wires, News, Press Releases

Feb 26, 2020

Breaking the Spell of Misguided Obedience

Breaking the Spell of Misguided Obedience

Toledo organizer Markie Miller drafted this letter to Lake Erie the night before the federal hearing. In honor of this moment in history, we share her letter here.

Read More | Blogs, Community Wires, News

Feb 6, 2020

Rights of Nature: Ohio Organizer Tish O’Dell on Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Rights of Nature: Ohio Organizer Tish O’Dell on Top of Mind with Julie Rose

If corporations have individual rights under US law – like freedom of speech – why not a grant a lake or forest or river the same status? Ohio organizer Tish O’Dell talks about Toledo’s groundbreaking law – the Lake Erie Bill of Rights – and the Rights of Nature Movement!

Read More | Community Rights, Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Resource Links, Rights of Nature

Feb 3, 2020

Who Speaks for Lake Erie?

Who Speaks for Lake Erie?

Toledoans are tired of waiting for action out of Columbus. State and federal authorities — who are supposed to protect the lake, and the people who rely on it for drinking water, recreation and more — should step up to their responsibilities.

Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots