News From the Community Rights Movement

Sep 17, 2024

Tribal Sovereignty, White Man’s Reservations, and the Need for Tribal-Municipal Solidarity To Protect Our Collective Future

Feature photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash Opposing harmful industrial projects – like mines, aerial pesticide spraying, factory farms, or toxic waste disposal facilities – is scary and difficult work. Feeling this fear and confronting the difficulty of the work, it is tempting to cling to false, but comforting beliefs that the communities we belong to… Read more »

The Killing of Lake Erie and Discovering Right Relationship Ten Years Later

On August 2, 2014, Toledo residents awoke to government alerts to not drink, bathe, use or touch the water coming out of their taps. The water could make adult humans very sick and even worse for babies, children, and anyone with compromised immune systems. Fish, animals, and plants weren’t even considered. What was clear though,… Read more »

CELDF Response to “Can granting legal ‘personhood’ to nature stem biodiversity loss?” by Viktoria Kahui

The prospect of liability introduced by conferral of personhood status monetizes the relationship between humans and the rest of nature.

May 28, 2024

Should Rivers & Trees Have Rights?

On May 20, 2024, Rockland Sierra Club, Lower Hudson Group and ROAR (Religious Orders Along the River) hosted this conversation titled: SHOULD RIVERS AND TREES HAVE LEGAL RIGHTS? A new movement is growing around the rights of nature, arguing that rivers, lakes, and forests should have legal rights for themselves, not for their value to… Read more »

Amicus Brief in support of Athens Plastic Bag Ban

Feature photo by Brian Yurasits FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 7, 2024 Contact: Tish O’Dell tish@celdf.org 440-552-6774 Terry Lodge, Attorney CELDF tjlodge50@yahoo.com 419-205-7084 Athens Local Businesses Support Rights of Nature and the City’s Plastic Bag Ban in Amicus Curiae OHIO, Athens County – CELDF has filed an amicus brief in Athens County, Ohio Common Pleas Court… Read more »

Wouldn’t You Say? – Paid Speech Isn’t Freedom of Speech

Feature photo by Christine Roy Like Junk Mail, Junk Speech is Trash Talk Freedom of speech isn’t what it used to be. Toward the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st, its definition was changed in two unprecedented rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, what’s called free speech has… Read more »

May 7, 2024

The Great Salt Lake is Disappearing… So Utah Bans Rights of Nature.

The Great Salt Lake. Image by Erin Testone. A growing number of American jurisdictions are outlawing Right of Nature as we embark on the greatest rates of extinctions in our planetary history. In this essay, Will Falk, encourages Rights of Nature advocates to recognize that we cannot wait for courts and governments to enforce Rights… Read more »

Apr 29, 2024

CELDF Co-sponsoring Justin Nobel’s Musical Book Tour: Petroleum-238

Book cover design by Sabrina Bedford, cover photo by Julie Dermansky Thursday, May 16 from 2-3:30 pm at moCa Cleveland in Cleveland, OH CELDF and moCa Cleveland invite you to this Cleveland stop on author and journalist Justin Nobel’s Book Tour of his just-published book Petroleum-238 on the dangers to all of us and nature from the… Read more »

Read More | Events, Extraction & Pollution, Rights of Nature

Mar 27, 2024

AM I AN ACTIVIST?

Testimony of a Community Organizer CELDF’s Consulting Director, Tish O’Dell, submitted her testimony, “Am I an Activist?” to the 2024 Spring Activism Peace Chronicle publication. Tish has been involved in community rights and Rights of Nature work starting in her own community of Broadview Heights, Ohio, which led to the adoption of Ohio’s first Home… Read more »

Feb 2, 2024

Changing Culture, Changing Law through Art – Andrea Bowers and CELDF: Exist, Flourish, Evolve

Developed through an ongoing partnership with CELDF Exist, Flourish, Evolve is a new, multi-site, multimedia campaign that builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and the Great Lakes ecosystem.

Read More | Press Releases, Rights of Nature

Jan 17, 2024

International Rights of Nature Tribunal rules impacts caused by current forestry model as ecocide

Press release · 11th Local Rights of Nature Tribunal Biobío, Concepción, Chile International Rights of Nature Tribunal rules impacts caused by current forestry model as ecocide The International Rights of Nature Tribunal held its 11th Local Tribunal in the Biobío region in Chile on Friday, January 12, focusing its attention on the violations of the Rights of… Read more »

Read More | News, Press Releases, Rights of Nature

Jan 16, 2024

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.

Happy Holidays from CELDF – Time is of the Essence!

THANK YOU for being part of CELDF’s work for People and Nature.

Read More | Multimedia, Newsletters, Resources

Dec 8, 2023

Reckoning with the truth to get in right relationship with the Great Lakes

Law and culture. Culture and law. Which comes first, and how are they related? CELDF and partners hosted Truth, Reckoning, and Right Relationship with the Great Lakes in the fall of 2023 to wrestle with these questions. This impactful compilation video of that full-day gathering reflects a range of truths from doctors, lawyers, indigenous activists,… Read more »

2023 Year-end Newsletter: Living with Nature

FREE Gifts with tax-deductible year-end donations of $100 or more.

Sneak Peek! — 2023 Year-end Newsletter: Living with Nature

Your efforts to be resilient and resist a system that wants to dominate Nature are critical to the changes we need.

Wouldn’t you say? – Three Beliefs That Doom Western Society

We are neither separate from nor superior to, but rather part of and utterly dependent upon the non-human world around us, inside and out. Wouldn’t you say?

CELDF is seeking a Donor Relations Coordinator | Job Opening

We need you to help us partner with others in fostering a culture and governing system that is all about community-based governing authority in the name of right relationship with Nature. We invite you to apply today!

Truth, Reckoning & Right Relationship

On October 16, 2023 CELDF hosted Part 1 of Truth, Reckoning & Right Relationship for the Great Lakes, Nature, and each other at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Set on the shoreline of Lake Erie, over 70 invited guests were witness to Part 1: Truth and Reckoning of a two-part… Read more »

CELDF’s Kai Huschke presents: Legalized Chemical Warfare – Community Resistance and Resilience to Protect the Future

In 2017 voters of Lincoln County adopted a community rights law banning aerial spray of pesticides by the corporate timber industry. CELDF was involved in assisting in the drafting of the law along with supporting the effort to get it adopted. In 2019 the courts, at the behest of the timber industry, overturned that law leaving public health and… Read more »

Sep 18, 2023

Industrial Society Needs Cultural Transformation to Embrace Rights of Nature

That Begins with the Stories we Tell . . . CELDF’s Education Director, Ben G. Price, is a pioneer in establishing the legal Rights of Nature. He organized the first community on Earth to enact a Rights of Nature law (Tamaqua, PA, 2006). In 2019 he shared what he had learned from nearly two decades… Read more »

Read More | Publications, Rights of Nature

Sep 1, 2023

Beaver Creek Press Release

100% of the water from the Seal Rock Water District (SRWD) comes from Beaver Creek.

Sep 1, 2023

CELDF is seeking a Multimedia Specialist|Job Opening

CELDF is in need of a multimedia specialist who can generate content in a variety of formats and of varying levels of complexity.

Trust the Children, Not the System

Featured photo: The plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana walking and chatting outside the courthouse. (Photo: Robin Loznak) It will take an extended commitment to community organizing to expand the Held ruling into tangible relief as a vital state constitutional protection for nature. The 16 child plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, the Children’s… Read more »

Aug 17, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – When Democracy is Privatized

The centuries-long Enclosure (privatization) Movement in the U. S. is nearing completion.

Aug 16, 2023

Catch this live interview with CELDF’s Kai Huschke, on August 17th at 7pm PDT

CELDF’s Executive Director Kai Huschke will be on “Corporations and Democracy”, a program of public radio station KZYX. He will be discussing the growing attacks on the citizen initiatives process, the expanse of corporate power in our everyday lives, and CELDF’s upcoming California talks – American Delusion. Catch the interview live at 7pm PDT on KZYX. ** If you didn’t catch… Read more »

Read More | Events

Aug 2, 2023

Unmuting Rights of Nature

“In our history, humans were owned at one point. That is the position Nature is currently in.”

Local Governments Are Blocking Ballot Initiatives at the Behest of Corporations

Feature photo by Paul Vernon AFP via Getty Images In 1979, the children’s educational television series Schoolhouse Rock! broadcast a now-classic episode titled “Three Ring Government” about the three branches of the U.S. government — executive, legislative and judicial. “No one part can be more powerful than the other,” proclaimed the narrator, who explains that our system of government… Read more »

Jul 25, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – Ignorance as License

Anti-intellectualism is as American as hot dogs.

Jul 24, 2023

Conversations on Culture, Corporate Power, and the Constitution coming to California in August!

Date/Time/Location: August 21st, 7pm, TBD Los Angeles + August 23rd, 7pm

Read More | Events

Jul 13, 2023

New Moon Mycology Summit 2023

August 9-13, 2023 in Wheelock, VT On August 10th, CELDF’s Michelle Sanborn will be presenting at the New Moon Mycology Summit on the Rights of Nature. The New Moon Mycology Summit is a gathering for communal learning around environmental + social justice through the lens of fungi. With 50+ presenters from various fields, this multi-day outdoor… Read more »

Read More | Events

Jul 10, 2023

How Do We Speak for the Trees When Our Human Right to Free Speech is Cut Down?

In our legal system, one is either a legal subject (humans and corporations) or a legal object (nature)

Jul 7, 2023

15 Questions that Are More Useful than “What New Regulation Should We Fight For?”

Difficult as it may be, we’d all be better off focusing on how to change the legal system itself instead of pleading for stricter regulations.

Jul 3, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Law Did not Save Grant Township’s Water, the People of Grant Did

If the persistence of the people of Grant Township in pursuit of justice took ten years for them to prevail, it is because they insisted on the primacy of justice over law that serves the interests of an opulent minority.

Jul 3, 2023

Workers’ Rights are Part of the Community Rights Movement

July 19, 2023, UAW Region 2B Leadership Institute at the Walter and May Reuther UAW Family Education Center in Onaway, Michigan On July 19, 2023, CELDF’s Tish O’Dell will be presenting at the UAW Region 2B Leadership Institute at the Walter and May Reuther UAW Family Education Center in Onaway, Michigan. The goal of this conference is to… Read more »

Jun 19, 2023

Free Speech Advocate Moves to Lift Gag Order Regarding Radioactive Brine Used on Roadways

“SLAPP suits are just another tool used by industry and corporations to silence and intimidate those who speak out against them and their activities,” stated Wyatt Sugrue, Chicago attorney.

Jun 2, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Invisible Empire in Plain Sight

The American dream has turned out to be a nightmare. Wouldn’t you say?

May 31, 2023

Group announces PGE to plug controversial well

According to the CELDF, “not a single drop of frack waste has been injected within the township due to hard work, resistance and resilience.”

May 24, 2023

Waste well to be plugged in Grant Township

Feature photo by Mike Belleme, Rolling Stone GRANT TOWNSHIP — The online publication Marcellus Drilling News headlined the item this way: “Bad Guys Win: PA General Energy to Plug Grant Twp Injection Well.” The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund sees what happened differently, after Warren-based PGE, also known as Pennsylvania General Energy LLC, notified the… Read more »

When We Became Trees – A Short Story by Blake Lavia

“When we became trees, we left behind I and we became We.”

Read More | Community Wires, Rights of Nature

May 12, 2023

Radical Resilience and Restoration for Wetland Rights

On June 28th CELDF’s Kai Huschke will be presenting at the Society for Wetland Scientists annual conference.

Read More | Events

May 10, 2023

Unrepentant and Vindicated: Proposed Frack-Waste Injection Well in Grant Township to be Plugged and Abandoned

To date, not a single drop of frack waste has been injected within the Township due to hard work, resistance, and resilience.

May 4, 2023

Got Community Resistance?

Dean Barlese, an elder of the Pyramid Lake Paiute-Shoshone, who told us “We’ve got to stand up for our ancestors, they gave their lives, they shed their blood fighting for this land.”

May 3, 2023

From Lake to Lagoon: Exploring Sustainability in Cleveland & Venice

CELDF’s Tish O’Dell will be present at this free public event as part of the community programming for the exhibition Everlasting Plastics, curated by the Cleveland gallery SPACES for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennial.

Read More | Events

May 1, 2023

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 »

Apr 17, 2023

Ohio River Rights Campaign Launched by Cincinnati Residents

“We began to understand through this process that we are not only connected to the Ohio River, but that we are part of the ecosystem,” stated Jim Schenk of CROW.

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

Apr 4, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Challenge of Movement Building

“It seems like legal rights for community and for nature would almost be unnecessary if our attitude toward the world were based on reciprocity, responsibility, and accountability instead of maximizing personal advantage.”

Mar 29, 2023

An Earth Day Presentation – No More Enviro-Mentalism: Earth Emancipation Now!

April 18th at 3:00 PM CELDF’s Ben Price will be speaking at Youngstown University in Ohio for Earth Day. Dr. Ray’s Energy and Environment Speaker Series, Ohio Environmental Council, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby Mahoning Valley Chapter present an Earth Day 2023 event on Tuesday April 18th at 3 PM in YSU Kilcawley Center – “No More Enviro-Mentalism:… Read more »

Read More | Events, News from the Grassroots

Mar 28, 2023

Webinar Sheds Light on Community’s Fight Against Fracking Waste Injection Well

Thursday, April 6th at 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT FracTracker Alliance and Halt the Harm Network will host a special virtual screening of the documentary film “Hellbent” on April 6, 2023, at 2 p.m. ET. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and those involved in the fight to protect… Read more »

Read More | Events

Book: ‘Death by Democracy’

CELDF's Proposed Rights of Nature Principles

2023 Year-end Newsletter: Living with Nature

Tribal Sovereignty, White Man’s Reservations, and the Need for Tribal-Municipal Solidarity To Protect Our Collective Future

The Killing of Lake Erie and Discovering Right Relationship Ten Years Later

CELDF Response to “Can granting legal ‘personhood’ to nature stem biodiversity loss?” by Viktoria Kahui

Should Rivers & Trees Have Rights?

Amicus Brief in support of Athens Plastic Bag Ban

Wouldn’t You Say? – Paid Speech Isn’t Freedom of Speech

The Great Salt Lake is Disappearing… So Utah Bans Rights of Nature.

CELDF Co-sponsoring Justin Nobel’s Musical Book Tour: Petroleum-238

AM I AN ACTIVIST?

Changing Culture, Changing Law through Art – Andrea Bowers and CELDF: Exist, Flourish, Evolve

International Rights of Nature Tribunal rules impacts caused by current forestry model as ecocide

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

Happy Holidays from CELDF – Time is of the Essence!

Reckoning with the truth to get in right relationship with the Great Lakes

2023 Year-end Newsletter: Living with Nature

Sneak Peek! — 2023 Year-end Newsletter: Living with Nature

Wouldn’t you say? – Three Beliefs That Doom Western Society

CELDF is seeking a Donor Relations Coordinator | Job Opening

Truth, Reckoning & Right Relationship

CELDF’s Kai Huschke presents: Legalized Chemical Warfare – Community Resistance and Resilience to Protect the Future

Industrial Society Needs Cultural Transformation to Embrace Rights of Nature

Beaver Creek Press Release

CELDF is seeking a Multimedia Specialist|Job Opening

Trust the Children, Not the System

Wouldn’t You Say? – When Democracy is Privatized

Catch this live interview with CELDF’s Kai Huschke, on August 17th at 7pm PDT

Unmuting Rights of Nature

Local Governments Are Blocking Ballot Initiatives at the Behest of Corporations

Wouldn’t You Say? – Ignorance as License

Conversations on Culture, Corporate Power, and the Constitution coming to California in August!

New Moon Mycology Summit 2023

How Do We Speak for the Trees When Our Human Right to Free Speech is Cut Down?

15 Questions that Are More Useful than “What New Regulation Should We Fight For?”

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Law Did not Save Grant Township’s Water, the People of Grant Did

Workers’ Rights are Part of the Community Rights Movement

Free Speech Advocate Moves to Lift Gag Order Regarding Radioactive Brine Used on Roadways

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Invisible Empire in Plain Sight

Group announces PGE to plug controversial well

Waste well to be plugged in Grant Township

When We Became Trees – A Short Story by Blake Lavia

Radical Resilience and Restoration for Wetland Rights

Unrepentant and Vindicated: Proposed Frack-Waste Injection Well in Grant Township to be Plugged and Abandoned

Got Community Resistance?

From Lake to Lagoon: Exploring Sustainability in Cleveland & Venice

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

Ohio River Rights Campaign Launched by Cincinnati Residents

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

Wouldn’t You Say? – The Challenge of Movement Building

An Earth Day Presentation – No More Enviro-Mentalism: Earth Emancipation Now!

Webinar Sheds Light on Community’s Fight Against Fracking Waste Injection Well

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