Search Results for: rights of nature

Donegal County Council votes unanimously to adopt Rights of Nature

by celdf

In December, the Donegal County Council in Ireland voted unanimously to adopt the Rights of Nature as “an important statement of intention that imbeds the concept as a core value and a keystone concept.” 

“It is not a legal construct,” according to Sinn Féin councillor Albert Doherty, who introduced the measure — meaning the action wields no legal authority.

In a sane culture, there would be no need for legally codified Rights for Nature. But Ireland, like much of the world, suffers the legacy of the British Empire, which robbed the people and the land of their kinship and replaced interdependence as a core value with the rule of property, aristocratic privilege, and human supremacy.

It is good news that after centuries of exploitation, subjugation, clear-cutting, coal mining, ecocide and genocide by the Empire, a return to pre-enclosure, pre-privatization common sense is being entertained. However, after so long a history of coerced separation from nature’s kinship — through official policy on the island — we can hope for more. Instead of affirmations and aspirations, Ireland needs an enforceable law that holds violators of nature’s rights accountable. Now, that would be something to celebrate.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Historic Rights of Nature Victory in Ecuador

by celdf

CELDF applauds those who have worked to enforce Ecuador’s constitutional rights for Nature, enshrined in 2008.

Mercersburg, PA: In a landmark ruling, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador has enforced the nation’s constitutional “Rights of Nature” provision to halt mining concessions issued in the Los Cedros Protected Forest ecosystem.

ENAMI EP, Ecuador’s national mining company, held the mining rights, which had been granted in two-thirds of the reserve. Thanks to the ruling, stemming from a lawsuit originally brought by the decentralized autonomous government of Cotacachi near Los Cedros, permits in the forest must be cancelled. 

“This is a wonderful example of how the Rights of Nature can be enforced as a way of combating the industrial siege against ecosystems and communities by investors who profit from untethered corporate encroachment,” said Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. 

The companies argued their activities automatically respect the Rights of Nature by complying with existing government regulations. (In a press release, the company said that it had obtained all of the required permits, that it consulted with local communities and that no environmental damage had occurred.)

The lawsuit and court’s rejection of existing environmental regulations as insufficient to protect the Rights of Nature is groundbreaking. “We have to move beyond the current environmental law paradigm that is based on broken connections with nature and must ensure that Rights of Nature activism continues to push that existing law changes to meet the needs of nature and people,” said Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

The plaintiffs were able to introduce scientific studies that supported their claims that current government regulations would harm the forest ecosystem and sacred species.

CELDF salutes the organizations involved in this case, including the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

CELDF played a small role in drafting Ecuador’s Rights of Nature language and has continued to advance lawmaking that pushes the needle on the Rights of Nature. Let’s keep the pressure on and ensure this global movement prevails and continues to accelerate.

The stakes could not be higher.

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About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

Photo by Reiseuhu on Unsplash

Virginia Community Joins Global Rights of Nature Movement

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Chad Oba
Friends of Buckingham
chado108@icloud.com, 434-806-6332

Heidi Dhivya Berthoud 
Virginia Community Rights Network
heidi@vacommunityrights.org, 434-979-9732

Ben Price
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
BenPrice@celdf.org, 717-254-3233

Virginia Community Joins Global Rights of Nature Movement, Takes Stand Against Proposed Gold Mining

A ‘Community Bill of Rights’ includes safeguards for ecosystem rights. 

Buckingham County, Virginia: As gains are made across the globe to secure paradigm-shifting Rights of Nature, a group of residents in Buckingham, Virginia have mobilized in opposition to proposed corporate gold mining by advancing a “Community Bill of Rights.” The ordinance includes language to safeguard the rights of ecosystems and would protect the health, safety and general welfare of residents. It will be presented to the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors.

The ordinance:

  • Secures the rights of ecosystems and residents from “toxic trespass”
  • Asserts the democratic right and responsibility to make decisions locally to protect communities from corporate extraction
  • Requires any metallic mining operation in the county to show proof that a project of similar scale and method, having operated for over ten years, and having also been idle for ten years following mining operations, has no record of toxic impacts on people or the environment.

In June 2020, Buckingham residents learned that Canadian company Aston Bay Holdings was conducting exploratory drilling for gold in the county. The company is now targeting three sites in Buckingham for industrial metallic mining.

Industrial gold mining has been shown to devastate local communities, including through the depletion of water tables and poisoning of water systems.

Friends of Buckingham and the Virginia Community Rights Network are jointly proposing the ordinance, titled: “Ordinance Requiring an Assessment of the Compatibility of Metallic Mining with the Right to Freedom from Toxic Trespass.”

Copy of ordinance: https://vacommunityrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Buckingham-County-VA-Toxic-Trespass-Ordinance_10-4-21.pdf 

An online petition has been established to support this ordinance. Buckingham residents can sign here: http://bit.ly/bhamord 

Volunteers can contact Friends of Buckingham or the Virginia Community Rights Network.

“Gold mining would change the character of our community, and pollute our clean water and environment. This ordinance is essential to protect our people and community” 
-Harvey Shelton, Deacon Jerusalem Baptist Church, Buckingham County

“We request the Buckingham Board of Supervisors to enact this law and do their duty to protect the health and safety of the community and the environment from the toxic harms of industrial metallic mining in Buckingham. We want them to protect us and the land and act as if they want to stick around here for generations to come.” 
-Debra Branch, a directly impacted resident

“Corporate profits must not take precedence over our health. The right to do exploratory drilling and/or mining does not give these corporations the right to harm us or our environment.” 
-Paul Barlow, Buckingham resident who lives only a few miles from an area that Aston Bay has been prospecting

“The deep caring and concern that residents have for each other and their communities is the wellspring from which this effort flows, to protect ourselves, our water, air and land. This is Creation Care.”
-Swami Dayananda, a directly impacted landowner

“The allure of good paying local jobs is deceiving, as the mining companies bring in their own skilled workers. Furthermore, the promise of tax revenue is misleading as the true, devastating costs to the community include forever toxic waste dumps that are not reclaimable.” 
-Kenda Hanuman, Friends of Buckingham Gold Committee Co-Chair

“The impacts of commercial mining for metals are well-documented. These operations threaten to contaminate the water sources of nearby and downstream communities and are a hazard to public health and the environment. Although we are very concerned about the location of new metallic mining landing anywhere in the state of Virginia, it brings us to a bigger and more urgent question: We cannot continue to develop mining while destroying the very sources that sustain all life on Earth.” 
-Chad Oba, Friends of Buckingham President

Friends of Buckingham
http://www.friendsofbuckinghamva.org/ 
info@friendsofbuckinghamva.org
@FriendsofBucki1
434-226-0282

Virginia Community Rights Network
http://www.vacommunityrights.org/ 
info@vacommunityrights.org
@VAComRights
(434) 253-5510

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Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

Photo by Caleb White on Unsplash

Challenges to Implementing Rights of Nature in the U.S

by Ben Price

Legislation and judicial rulings securing legal Rights for Nature and individual ecosystems have lit-up the political landscape around the world. In the United States we face serious obstacles. 

Implementation of this emerging paradigm confronts the hyper-protection of monopolistic legal rights vested in property like land, minerals and water, which are insulated from democratic governance by design. The intentional conflation of privileged property of this sort with personal property, the product of individual labor and creativity, perpetuates distrust of Rights of Nature (RoN). We must challenge these pillars of privilege:

Property over Rights: The biggest difficulty in establishing RoN in the U.S. is the superior deference given by law to privileged property and wealth accumulation, over and above the legitimacy of human and civil rights, including the right of personal property.

Commerce over Community: The U.S. Constitution vests full authority in Congress to veto state and local laws that interfere with interstate commerce. This puts RoN in a precarious relationship to law. Local enforcement of rights-based ecosystem protections are routinely blocked.

Precedent over Current Needs: Legal precedents are treated as inviolable social values, even as they continue to despoil Earth and hold in contempt human rights and RoN. 

Monetization of Nature: Schemes such as carbon trading, Natural Asset Companies and other market-driven attempts to contain the natural world within the orthodoxy of capitalist dogmas pretend to be reasonable approaches to protecting Nature. In fact, they are false solutions that threaten to further objectify Nature as property.

Watering Down: Subordinating RoN law to administrative law runs the real risk of nullifying its transformative potential. Highly publicized faux Rights of Nature initiatives like the Orange County, Florida popularly enacted “Right to Clean Water” law plays into the existing paradigm of regulating the rate of environmental destruction, and legalizing it.

Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash

International Meeting: Rights of Nature Experiences

by Community Partner

October 27th @ 3pm EDT, 2pm COT

The recent emergence of avant-garde socio-legal perspectives that acknowledge nature as a subject of rights caused interesting transformations and questions about our current legal and political systems.

Join Siembra Centro Sociojurídico para la Defensa Territorial and others at this roundtable event on Rights of Nature Experiences.

Invited speakers include National Organizer, Ben Price, as well as others from Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, and the US to share their experiences on the implementation of the Rights of Nature.

This event was shared live on Facebook

Book: The Politics of Rights of Nature

by Outside Publication

Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future

Authored by Craig M. Kauffman and Pamela L. Martin

Kauffman and Martin tell how community activists, lawyers, judges, scientists, government leaders, and ordinary citizens have formed a global movement to advance Rights of Nature as a solution to the environmental crises facing the planet. They compare successful and failed attempts to implement Rights of Nature at various levels of government in six countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, India, New Zealand, and the United States—asking why these laws emerged and proliferated in the mid-2000s, why they construct Rights of Nature differently, and why some efforts at implementation are more successful than others. As they analyze efforts to use Rights of Nature as a tool for constructing more ecocentric sustainable development, capable of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development goal of living “in harmony with Nature,” Kauffman and Martin show how Rights of Nature jurisprudence evolves through experimentation and reshapes the debates surrounding sustainable development.

Rights of Nature Principles

by celdf

CELDF has been involved in establishing legal Rights for Nature in Western law for over two decades, from the beginning of this movement’s contemporary phase. We recognize that institutionalizing the Rights of Nature requires a cultural paradigm shift that challenges and changes our legal, social, and moral behavior. For life on Earth to survive, and for humanity to persist as one of the millions of living species, we must make a profound commitment, and that means acting earnestly, honestly and with integrity, not merely agreeing in principle with the need for transformation. 

New laws must represent the values, morals, and needs that will shape our culture, one that supports and sustain a thriving and diverse Earth community. Giving preference to human convenience and luxury over the survival of non-human species has never been a viable strategy for a healthy future. The economic system that has been built on that value system now threatens to eradicate a significant part of the planet’s biosphere, while further enslaving the greater part of humanity in service to the privileges of the merest minority. 

The necessary paradigm shift is attainable. By following the lead of Indigenous culture and knowledge, we must re-establish humans as a part of Nature and not apart from it. This will automatically yield positive results for the majority of people and all of the living planet.

We have already seen cases of opportunistic co-optation of the term “Rights of Nature” that, if allowed to stand unchallenged, will work to dilute, neutralize and defeat this movement. Therefore we offer this statement of the indispensable principles of the Rights of Nature, without which, we believe its tenets will remain aspirational at best.

Rights of Nature recognizes and honors that Nature has inalienable rights and is not property to be owned and exploited. Nature includes all ecosystems and living beings including trees, rivers, mountains, forests, animals, oceans, and humans, and all inorganic habitats in which organic beings dwell. These rights are a recognition that humans are only one species on Earth and respecting the Rights of Nature is necessary for Earth’s balance and interconnected health.

A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the obligations we share as stewards of life-supporting ecosystems must be institutionalized, recognizing Nature as a legal entity and rights holder. We call upon communities, peoples, organizations, and governments to enact, implement, and enforce Rights of Nature policies and laws that meet these minimum criteria: 

  1. Recognize inherent rights of Nature and its constituent ecosystems, habitats, and natural communities to exist, flourish, evolve, and regenerate, and to restoration, recovery, and preservation;
  2. Ensure that these rights are independent of and never subordinate to, supplemental to, or regulated by, other laws, including administrative regulations and legal concepts, such as “personhood,” which could monetize Nature by making it subject to litigation;
  3. Provide that the protection of the Rights of Nature places immutable obligations and responsibilities on human society;
  4. Guarantee the Right of Nature to appear as the real party of interest in administrative proceedings and legal actions affecting these rights;
  5. Provide that residents of communities who are committed to protecting these rights for the ecosystem in which they live and participate, not defined by political boundaries, be authorized to represent those ecosystems, in the name of those ecosystems, and as members with legal standing, in any and all legal proceedings;
  6. Require that damages derived from these proceedings be used solely to protect, repair, and restore Nature in the affected ecosystem to its prior natural state.

Photo by Akanksha Sharma on Unsplash

Youth Declaration on the Rights of Nature and Future Generations

by Outside Publication

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.

The aim of the Declaration is to galvanize youth around a common initiative; gain support and visibility of it across the globe, pushing for our policy demands within the IUCN and other forums and institutions and create a social media campaign around our commitments that raise awareness around the Rights of Nature and future generations.

Here are the links to the Declaration. You can download it in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Hindi.

Read more from GARN on the Declaration here.

Newsletter: Building International Rights of Nature Solidarity

by celdf

CELDF is honored to work in solidarity with a new French-speaking network to advance the Rights of Nature in Europe. The network includes Loire Parliament, Valentransition, A.R.B.R.E.S., id-eau, Notre Affaire à Tous and others. 

“We are now working to grow the network with other similar organizations and communities active in the defense of the ecosystems in which they live,” says Marie Toussaint, a convenor of the network and member of the European Parliament.

In January 2020 Notre Affaire à Tous and Toussaint were among over 1,000 individuals and organizations who signed a public statement of support for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. Messages came in from across the globe, including from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Romania, Australia, Sweden, Italy, France and England. 

Building off this solidarity, CELDF Organizer Tish O’Dell, who worked on the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, participated in a symposium in early 2021 calling for the recognition of the Rights of Nature within Europe. International solidarity and sharing of lessons-learned is powerful in weaving together the many local fights we face internationally. We are honored to participate.

Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash

The Rights of Nature in the U.S.A.: Legal and Social Debates

by celdf

4:00 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Join Carolina Public Humanities for a public screening of the acclaimed documentary “Invisible Hand” (2020) and dialogue with activists, advocates, and scholars on the current struggles and advancements of the rights of human and natural communities in the USA.

Film Screening: 4:00-5:30 pm ET
Panel Discussion: 5:45-6:45 pm ET

Documentary:
The Invisible Hand (2020) from Joshua B. Pribanic, Melissa A. Troutman, and Mark Ruffalo

Panelists:

Tish O’Dell, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)

Tish has been working as a Community Organizer for CELDF since 2013. Tish is also a founding board member of the Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN) and she co-founded the grass-roots organization Mothers Against Drilling In Our Neighborhoods in her hometown of Broadview Heights, Ohio. With her work, she assists residents to organize rights-based initiatives to “make real” the just and sustainable communities they envision for the future.

Markie Miller, Toledoans for Safe Water

Markie lives on traditional Myaamia Ancestral Land. She is a volunteer organizer for Toledoans for Safe Water, the Ohio Community Rights Network, and previously for the National Community Rights Network. She currently serves on the CELDF communications team. She is an ambassador for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights and the Rights of Nature, speaking at the United Nations, appearing on The Daily Show, and numerous local, national and international media outlets.

Catherine Admay, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

Catherine is a lawyer, a scholar, and a teacher in the areas of human rights, law and development, global health, the comparative constitutional law of socio-economic rights, conflict transformation, and interdisciplinary engagements with the law (ethics, arts, storytelling). She co-founded NYU Law’s first international law clinic and founded and directed Duke Law School’s first international development law clinic.

Registration for this event is now closed. View the discussion below.

Want to host your own screening? Contact us!

Invisible Hand Screening: Rights of Nature Network Atlantic Canada

by celdf

7:30 PM Atlantic Time (Canada)

Join us for a virtual screening of the award-winning film Invisible Hand, a documentary exploring the global Rights of Nature movement, followed by a Q&A with organizers from CELDF.

Invisible Hand is a “paradigm-shifting” documentary about the ‘Rights of Nature’ Movement. The defining battle of our times where Nature, democracy, and capitalism face off.

CELDF organizers, featured in the film, will be joining us for a post-screening Q&A. CELDF has helped dozens of communities in the US and around the world in recognizing the Rights of Nature and asserting their Community Rights.

Can we join the Rights of Nature movement and build the local power necessary to stop the corporate assault on our forests and watersheds?

What are the barriers stopping our local communities from protecting our ecosystems and saying no to clear cuts, aerial herbicide spraying, open-pit gold mines, or any other ecological harm permitted by the province?

We’ll continue our conversation on the rights of Nature and try to answer some of these big questions and any other questions you might have.

The event hosted by Rights of Nature Network Atlantic Canada and co-sponsored by Sierra Club Atlantic Canada Chapter.

Register

Rights of Nature, Rights of the People vs. State-Authorized Corporate Toxic Practice in Front of Oregon Courts

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kai Huschke
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Community Organizer
Celdf.org
kai@celdf.org
509-607-5034

Oral arguments for reinstating the aerial pesticide spray ban and on the rights of the Siletz River ecosystem in Lincoln County are scheduled for the Oregon Court of Appeals on June 1.

NEWPORT, OR: Arguments on the assertion of local democracy over state-sanctioned corporate public health violations and a Rights of Nature law will be presented on June 1. For over two years, the Freedom from Aerially Sprayed Pesticides Ordinance of Lincoln County successfully banned corporate aerial spraying of pesticides as a violation of natural ecosystems’ rights and people’s rights to clean air, water and soil. The circuit court overturned the ban citing an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model state law that protects corporate polluters from democratically adopted local law. 

Oral arguments will be viewable on June 1 through the Oregon Judicial Department Catalogue (Rex Capri, Wakefield Farms, LLC v. Dana Jenkins, Lincoln County; Lincoln County Case No. 17CV23360): https://oregoncourts.mediasite.com/mediasite/Catalog/catalogs/default

Lincoln County voters adopted the ordinance in May 2017, the first of its kind in the nation. In September 2019, a county circuit court judge nullified the will of the people and overturned the ban, ruling in favor of the timber industry.

“Severely depleted salmon runs and worsening drought conditions in the West continue to expose the need for a paradigm shift in legal relations with ecosystems. In fact, movements to advance the legal rights of ecosystems are blossoming across the continent and globe because of how catastrophically conventional law has failed the planet,” says Kai Huschke, Community Organizer for CELDF.

“Aerial spray of pesticides is illegitimately legalized violence against all life and must stop….Our rights must always override corporate profit,” said Maria Sause, one of the founding members of Lincoln County Community Rights, the group behind the ordinance.

Ecosystems in court

In lower court oral arguments, the attorney representing the Siletz River ecosystem, which appeared through local resident Carol Van Strum, said “We have filed a declaration by a human person, who is a part of that ecosystem just as she would be a member of an organization or association.”

“[Existing environmental laws] have done nothing, they’ve literally allowed the poisoning to go ahead,” says Van Strum. “From the publication of Silent Spring people have been trying to correct the poisoning of the planet basically; of our air, our water, our soil, our food. There is a good reason she is called Mother Nature. She is the source of all life….We need to give nature the means to say no.”

Van Strum’s battle against the chemical industry was recently profiled in the forthcoming PBS documentary “The People vs. Agent Orange.”

The judge did not allow the rights of the Siletz River watershed to be heard as a separate legal party to the lawsuit, but suggested her decision could be appealed. The judge said, “It absolutely is [an appealable order], and I’m inviting you to, and I said before, I think this is one that will be gaining more interest as opposed to less in the future for all the reasons that you just stated.”

The appeal read, “The ability of ecosystems to participate in lawsuits is not limited by the term ‘person,’ but rather, that term may properly encompass an ecosystem, just as it has come to include corporations and other types of associations….There is no inherent or fundamental right to aerially spray pesticides. In contrast, the ecosystem has a fundamental right to exist and thrive.”

June 1, 2021 oral arguments will present these issues to the Court of Appeals, which will issue an opinion on whether the state law does interfere with local democracy and whether the Siletz River ecosystem can protect its rights in court.

State and corporate interference with local democracy

In overturning the ordinance in 2019, the lower court ruled Oregon’s 1995 Pesticide Control Act removes residents’ control over the pesticide industry. “Corporate actors have engaged in a concerted national strategy to undermine people’s power to protect the health of their communities through self-governance. This case is not only blatantly political, it is functionally state-sanctioned violence against people and nature itself,” said Kai Huschke, Community Organizer for CELDF.  

The law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP that is challenging Lincoln County’s ordinance employs a top lobbyist for Oregonians for Food and Shelter, a group funded by chemical giants Monsanto and DuPont. Additionally, CropLife America, a national lobbyist group funded by Monsanto, DuPont and others, waged an ultimately unsuccessful multi-million dollar propaganda campaign against the Lincoln County ordinance, as revealed by The Intercept. These corporations have been found to be members of the corporate American Legislative Exchange Council, which wrote the model language for Oregon’s 1995 Pesticide Control Act, now ORS 634.055 and ORS 634.057. 

The extensive legal filings include arguments advancing a new theory of local-state relations to prevent state interference with local democracy. They can be found at: http://u.pc.cd/aJj and http://u.pc.cd/20RotalK 

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About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

Newsletter: The Rights of Nature Are Blooming

by celdf

It’s happening. The Rights of Nature movement is exploding as communities rise up around the world to demand a paradigm shift in our legal system’s relationship to the earth and her ecosystems.

So far in 2021, Rights of Nature has advanced in places including Oaxaca, Mexico, through a constitutional proposal; France, where a network of organizations has been launched; Canada, through sister law making by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality in northern Quebec to recognize the rights of the Magpie River; Rights of the Arkansas and the Salt Fork Rivers will be recognized in Ponca Tribal Law; and Minnesota, where Indigenous water protectors are opposing Line 3 to defend rights of wild rice. Campaigns and organizing are proliferating as we go to print.

Powerful corporate special interests are terrified. In late 2020 the American Petroleum Institute (API) filed a brief in opposition to a federal civil rights case in which CELDF is supporting local communities’ right to vote on qualified local Rights of Nature laws in Ohio. The same day, a bill was introduced in Missouri to try to ban Rights of Nature laws, an apparently desperate attempt to ward off the Rights of Nature uprising before it starts. (Tip to Missouri lawmakers: Ohio’s legislature did that too, and it hasn’t worked to stop this movement.)

In February 2021, Forbes published an article titled “How Businesses Can Prepare For The Upcoming Legal Rights Of Nature.” The fight is on.

We are now in the middle of what can be understood as the second of three phases in the movement. The first was the novelty of the idea: can we even imagine ecosystems having rights? The second is this new popular demand for ecosystem rights and the grappling with concepts and working out the legal mechanisms for how the new paradigm works. The third phase, which we have not yet gotten to, will be a confrontation between ecosystem rights and corporate constitutional rights, and whether we will all have to pay corporations to stop exploiting and destroying the earth (it does, in the end, all come down to money). The second phase that we are now entering will decide whether Rights of Nature will be a true paradigm shift in our legal systems or just a new shade of lipstick for the pig. CELDF is committed to making Rights of Nature law genuinely protect ecosystems and uphold human rights, indigenous rights, and self-determination in the process. We hope for your support in making the change that is necessary. 

“Blue Dicks Blooming” by tdlucas5000 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Financial Threats to Rights of Nature Lawmaking

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Michelle Sanborn
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Community Organizer
michelle@celdf.org
603-524-2468

Corporate ‘person’ uses constitutional rights law to justify attorney fees from the Town of Nottingham, targeting people’s use of direct democracy for climate action.

NOTTINGHAM, NH: Corporate personhood “rights” are once again being weaponized to financially punish and intimidate a local community that took a stand for the Rights of Nature and future generations. On April 23, 2021, Nottingham Water Alliance (NWA), which campaigned to adopt a Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance, filed a brief opposing a corporation’s demand for over $50,000 in attorney fees from the taxpayers of Nottingham.

“These desperate tactics deny liberty and justice to the people of Nottingham. We should be free to protect the health and safety of our whole community. These tactics will not stop this movement. It’s time for state constitutional change,” says Peter White of NWA.

In Nottingham, a resident plaintiff and his corporate shield, G&F Goods, LLC, filed a lawsuit against the Ordinance, arguing it unconstitutionally discriminates against corporations. (The courts decided to protect corporate privileges and overturn the law.) Threats to freshwater systems and climate disruption prompted residents to popularly adopt the Ordinance at their 2019 town hall meeting. It secures rights of ecosystems “to naturally exist, flourish, regenerate, evolve, and be restored” and rights of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.”

The Town, which has refused to defend the direct democracy vote of the people, opposes the demand for attorney fees and said the whole “case was entirely unnecessary.” “A day late and a dollar short to wait until a motion for attorney fees is filed to make such a statement. The Town could have filed a motion to dismiss from the very beginning and instead, town officials capitulated to a single dissenter and denied the local NWA the opportunity to defend the Ordinance when the Town knew they were not going to defend it themselves,” says CELDF’s Michelle Sanborn.

Court documents are available upon request.

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About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

ADVISORY: Oral Arguments in Civil Rights Appeal Advancing Rights of Nature and Local Democracy in Ohio

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Tish O’Dell
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Ohio Community Organizer
CELDF.org
tish@celdf.org
440-552-6774

The State of Ohio has engaged in deliberate and evasive repression tactics against city and county ballot measures. Will the court back up this mockery of democracy?

Cincinnati, OH: Plaintiffs from seven Ohio counties, representing Rights of Nature laws and other measures protecting local democracy from corporate special interests, filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit in a federal civil rights case against the State of Ohio. Oral arguments will be presented tomorrow, April 20.

This follows the filing of briefs against the plaintiffs by American Petroleum Institute, Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

Oral arguments are scheduled for Tuesday, April 20, 1:30 pm EST and can be listened to here: https://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/live-arguments

Plaintiffs were petitioners for local initiative campaigns that involved thousands of volunteer hours. All successfully qualified various measures that were then blocked from the ballot for often arbitrary reasons by an election apparatus controlled by the Ohio Secretary of State and backed by Ohio’s courts.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is supporting the plaintiffs.

These measures, from Youngstown, Toledo, Columbus, and Portage, Medina, Athens, and Meigs counties, sought to defend vital ecosystems and waterways, and all advanced structural changes to local governance to protect local democracy from corporate special interests. They would have outlawed practices such as hydraulic fracturing, fracked gas pipelines, frack waste injection wells, and infused community control over harmful corporate practices. One proposal aimed to control corporate campaign contributions in local elections.

“With all we are seeing in the country today, it is obvious that people do not feel ‘represented’ by their electeds and so the initiative is a peaceful way for the people to self-govern and make change they feel is necessary. As John F. Kennedy once said, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.’ How prophetic his words now seem. The plaintiffs in this case are attempting to make peaceful change by giving voters a voice in critical decisions. Which side of this prophecy will the court support?” said O’Dell.

The following are statements from plaintiffs and petitioners:

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the court chooses to ignore the constitution and instead look to unjust case law in ruling against the peoples’ right to the initiative process. Allowing our board of elections to scrutinize petitions before the people vote is a clear violation of the separation of powers.”
~Saraquoia Bryant, Athens County Bill of Rights Committee

“Weeks, months, and years of researching facts, giving talks, organizing community water testing, pouring over county documents, discussing county charters with community members, only to have our citizen initiatives trashed by public officials supposed to serve the public have fired me up to dismantle this corrupt system and rebuild a real democracy.”
~Gwen B. Fischer, Portage County Community Rights Group

“Ours is one more collective struggle for voting rights to protect ourselves and future generations from chemical and fossil energy pollution. Our small effort is of planetary importance.”
~Jerry Dolcini, Sustainable Medina County

“Our all-volunteer group, Columbus Community Bill of Rights, has been trying to give a voice to the voters of Columbus to proactively protect their water and environment from the toxic, radioactive harms of fracking waste since 2014.”
~Bill Lyons, Columbus Community Bill of Rights

“Groups across the state filed complaints with the courts, assuming that the judicial branch would recognize the injustice of being denied ballot access. The results were that some communities were given ballot access and others were not, even during the same election cycle. This federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of communities who experienced voter suppression and unequal access to the ballot under the law. We wonder how people can find any justice in this fixed system where corporate special interests are allowed to write laws that ‘regulate’ themselves and where judges then use illegitimate and unconstitutional laws to silence the voices of the people. Fortunately, we the people understand that together we will persist with the intention that we don’t lose until we quit.”
~Susan Beiersdorfer, FrackFree Mahoning County

“The question today is: how interested are we in continuing to have a republic that actually allows for a share of constituent rule when needed?”
~Greg Pace, Columbus Community Bill of Rights

“In the case of the Medina County Charter initiative, our elected officials, at the behest of the oil and gas industry, have trampled our constitutional rights for far too long. I think we need to continue to take up the cause of self-governance because the elected officials are not responsive to the people. We will not give up! We can’t live this way and why should we? They will continue to steal our lives, if we let them.”
~Kathie Jones, Sustainable Medina County

“It is truly disheartening, and frankly un-American, when people volunteer for hours and hours over months speaking to their neighbors on an issue that affects us all, getting thousands of signatures, succeed to meet all the requirements for placing an issue on the ballot, and then get denied for dubious reasons. In a moment. The spirit of our country, the engagement of the public, the trust in our public servants is all in question on this issue before the court.”
~Mary Emhoff, Sustainable Medina County

For more context read the 2019 CELDF report “In Plain Sight,” on repression tactics in Ohio: https://celdf.org/in-plain-sight/

###
About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

International Rights of Nature Solidarity

by celdf

For Immediate Release
Tish O’Dell
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Organizer
tish@celdf.org
1-440-552-6774

Philippine Bernard
Marie Toussaint Team
Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament
philippinevalerie.bernard@europarl.europa.eu
Tel. Brussels: +32 2 28 47201
Mobile: FR: +33 6 70 80 26 06
Office – Brussels: ASP 08 G 261

Virginie Bonneau,
id-eau
virginie.bonneau@id-eau.ch
+41 78 825 02 7

Following international support for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, CELDF is honored to work in solidarity with a new French-speaking network to advance Rights of Nature in Europe.

OHIO, UNITED STATES: The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund applauds the formation of a French-speaking network to advance Rights of Nature in Europe. The network includes the following groups:

  • Loire Parliament, an initiative of the organization POLAU that is working to recognize the rights of the Loire river and its ecosystems. They are thinking collectively about how to represent the river and ecosystem within a democratic institution.
  • The local organization Valentransition that is also working on a similar project on the Escaut river, which is afflicted with a massive industrial pollution crisis in the North of France.
  • The organization A.R.B.R.E.S., which carries a Declaration of the Rights of the Trees.
  • The organization id-eau that is working on a campaign for recognition of the rights of the Rhône river.
  • Notre Affaire à Tous, a climate justice organization formed in 2015 and anchored in the fight for the preservation of nature.
  • Lobby de Poissy in France, which is part of the Kids of Planet’s Rights collective, who have drafted a European Declaration of Planet’s rights, submitted to the European Commission.
  • Nature Rights, an NGO advocating for the protection of nature and the rights of indigenous people.
  • Wild Legal an interactive legal program where students, experts and citizens collaborate for the Rights of Nature.

“We are now working to grow the network with other similar organizations and communities active in the defense of the ecosystems in which they live,” says Marie Toussaint, European Parliament member.

“The initiatives for the defense of the rights of Nature are multiplying in France and it appeared important to us to put together our forces, our creativity and our hopes,” says Marine Calmet, president of Wild Legal.

In January 2020 Notre Affaire à Tous and Toussaint, were among over 1,000 individuals and organizations who signed a public statement of support for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. Messages came from across the globe, including from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Romania, Australia, Sweden, Italy, France and England.

Building off this solidarity, CELDF Organizer Tish O’Dell, who worked on the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, participated in a symposium calling for the recognition of the Rights of Nature within Europe. International solidarity and lessons-learned sharing is key for the linking of the many local fights we face in the global Rights of Nature movement. We are honored to participate.

“It is exciting to read about several French-speaking communities joining together to form a network to advance Rights of Nature in Europe,” says O’Dell. “Sometimes when working towards paradigm-shifting cultural change that seems so obvious and yet so challenging, it is difficult to feel like any progress is being made. But this is progress!

“Here in the United States CELDF staff have been working with local communities for over two decades and have supported local communities working to protect the environment using Rights of Nature strategies. We soon realized that many of these communities shared many of the same challenges and so our next task was to help communities connect with one another to build a greater coalition of power, and so “Community Rights” networks were formed. The news that three French-speaking communities are joining together to form such a network is truly exciting.”

Even though the process for how laws are passed varies between communities and countries, the cultural shift that will push for legal change will come from the local level and push upward.

“Water connects us all. Grassroots organizing can feel small at times, but we build on one another. These collective efforts across the globe build momentum toward a shift in our understanding that water is life,” says CELDF’s Markie Miller, a key local organizer for LEBOR.

Announcement of the French-speaking network (French): https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2021/01/24/un-reseau-francophone-dedie-aux-droits-de-la-nature_1818233/

Statement in support of Lake Erie Bill of Rights: 

###

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is helping build a decolonial movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international levels.

For All to See: Bias of New Hampshire Judiciary Exposed in Rights of Nature, Healthy Climate Proceedings

by celdf

For Immediate Release:

Michelle Sanborn
CELDF Organizer
michelle@celdf.org
603-524-2468

Amidst ecological catastrophe, Granite State judges have chosen to overturn local right to climate law in order to protect corporations from hypothetical “harm.”

NOTTINGHAM, NH: Facing industrial threats to freshwater systems and climate disruption, residents of Nottingham popularly adopted a Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance at their 2019 town hall meeting. The ordinance secures rights of ecosystems “to naturally exist, flourish, regenerate, evolve, and be restored” and rights of townspeople to a “climate system capable of sustaining human societies.” Residents may enforce these rights by suing corporations who infringe on them.

“The ensuing corporate legal challenge and court proceedings, culminating in last week’s decision by the Rockingham trial court to overturn the ordinance, has exposed a systemic bias within the New Hampshire judicial system,” says New Hampshire-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) Organizer Michelle Sanborn.

This historic case has illuminated realities within the judiciary that are of critical public concern:

  • No access: Both the trial court and state supreme court denied the people and ecosystems of Nottingham a voice and their “day in court” by rejecting the townspeople as “intervenors” in the case and not allowing oral arguments.
  • Arbitrary hypocrisy: The courts upheld corporate constitutional “rights,” a judicial invention—not actually enumerated in any state or federal constitution—while denying residents’ clearly-enumerated rights in the state constitution and federal constitution. Including the assertion that government is “instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men.”
  • Acceptance of convoluted corporate arguments: The goal of the Nottingham Water Alliance (NWA), the group of residents who wrote and petitioned for the law, is to protect the people and ecosystems of Nottingham from intentional corporate dumping of toxic waste. The plaintiff, a mail-order company run out of a private residence, convolutely argued that somehow the ordinance would be used to prohibit or fine the company for actions such as disposing of cardboard at the local dump. The ordinance was never enforced against the company and did not classify disposing of cardboard as a toxic activity.
  • Loss of rights through a system of public “municipal corporations”: Claims were made that the Town of Nottingham—a municipal corporation legally subordinate to private corporations and the state—has no authority to adopt protective laws that the state has not enabled. But it was not even the Town of Nottingham (the municipality) that passed the law, it was the townspeople.
  • False theory of democratic representation: Courts refused to see the public’s standing, claiming residents are sufficiently represented by elected politicians, even when those officials refuse to defend a direct democracy measure. This left democratic rights no recourse. Town officials did not defend the law, in essence, violating their oath of office to uphold the state constitution.
  • The trial court overstepped its authority: The trial court ignored the NWA’s amicus argument that because the Town officials were not defending the ordinance, there would be no “controversy” so as to elicit vigorous arguments on both sides. Therefore the court lacked standing to hear the case. The court’s refusal to acknowledge this did away with even the pretense of neutrally in applying its own rules.

“It is our responsibility to take meaningful action on behalf of future generations,” says John Terninko of NWA. “But our judicial system is not letting us.”

A detailed history of the controversy is available in court documents.

Copies of the latest decision and all other documents are available upon request.

###

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

The Rights of Nature: An Extension of Human Rights?

by celdf

Register today for this upcoming virtual discussion in a series led by Marie Toussaint, elected Member of the European Parliament.

Join us Tuesday 12 January, at 12:30 p.m EST for the third episode of our conference series, entitled “Nature rights: an extension of Human rights?”.

Panelists Include:

David Boyd, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment

Valentijn Punt (Netherlands), Earth Law Centre

Tish O’Dell (USA), Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Ngozi Unuigbe (Nigeria), University of Benin

After the death of one young woman, Ella Adoo-Kissi, from air pollution in a poor neighborhood of London, we must address the close links and connections between the recognition of Nature’s rights and the protection of Human rights. More than ever, human rights are being violated because of the destruction of nature and we have to work towards the recognition of Nature’s rights as a condition and a tool for the respect and protection of human rights.

Please attend on Tuesday, January 12 to engage in this crucial discussion.

FACEBOOK EVENT

REGISTRATION

Register today for this upcoming virtual discussion in a series led by Marie Toussaint, elected Member of the European Parliament.

Join us Tuesday 12 January, at 12:30 p.m EST for the third episode of our conference series, entitled “Nature rights: an extension of Human rights?”.

Panelists Include:

David Boyd, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment

Valentijn Punt (Netherlands), Earth Law Centre

Tish O’Dell (USA), Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Ngozi Unuigbe (Nigeria), University of Benin

After the death of one young woman, Ella Adoo-Kissi, from air pollution in a poor neighborhood of London, we must address the close links and connections between the recognition of Nature’s rights and the protection of Human rights. More than ever, human rights are being violated because of the destruction of nature and we have to work towards the recognition of Nature’s rights as a condition and a tool for the respect and protection of human rights.

Please attend on Tuesday, January 12 to engage in this crucial discussion.

FACEBOOK EVENT

REGISTRATION

‘The Courts Are a Sham’: New Hampshire Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Rights of Nature, Healthy Climate Arguments

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 24, 2020

CONTACT:
Michelle Sanborn
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
New England Community Organizer
michelle@celdf.org
603-524-2468

Amidst ecological catastrophe, movements for a paradigm shift in law have made global gains in 2020. Granite State judges have chosen to reject a request for a people’s defense of a municipal Rights of Nature and healthy climate law.

‘We are in crisis and the courts are not on our side.’

NOTTINGHAM, NH: As jurisdictions across the globe advance new rights for ecosystems and human rights to a healthy environment in 2020, on December 23, the New Hampshire Supreme Court declined to allow community members to defend the Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance. The ordinance secures rights of ecosystems and the right of townspeople to a climate system capable of sustaining human societies. (It bans all corporate activities that infringe those rights.) Residents of Nottingham, NH, USA had demanded they be allowed to defend this historic law after municipal officials capitulated to corporate intimidation.

“This decision exemplifies how people are shut out of courts in the United States, it further enshrines the courts’ position as a protector of corporate ‘rights’ and elite rule,” says Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) New England Community Organizer Michelle Sanborn. “The courts are a sham.”

“The courts have done it again,” says Gail Mills of the local grassroots group Nottingham Water Alliance (NWA). “They give the benefit of the doubt to the ‘rights’ of corporations, but we can’t even defend the law? We are in crisis and the courts are not on our side.”

The town’s ordinance recognizes rights of ecosystems and residents to be free from corporate chemical trespass and toxic waste dumping. Nottingham residents adopted it through the voter-initiative process at a 2019 Town Meeting. CELDF assisted NWA in drafting the law.

“The community faces corporate threats and a changing climate,” continued Sanborn. “Nottingham residents took the key step of putting into place a legal framework to address the climate crisis locally.”

After passing the law, residents never got a day in court. A corporation sued to intimidate local electeds and overturn the law, claiming its corporate “rights” were being infringed upon. Local politicians folded and the courts proceeded to shut residents out of the courtroom process. This left the ordinance undefended. On December 23, the Supreme Court agreed with corporate interests that residents have no “standing” to defend the law they passed, setting the precedent that local governments can refuse to defend a measure passed by a democratic vote of the people—undermining the autonomy of the initiative power.

“We the People of Nottingham have been SCROOGED by the NH Supreme Court, the lower courts, and our Nottingham Select board who chose not to stand up for our Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance that would protect our health, safety, and ecosystems from corporate polluters,” says Peter White of NWA. “Our rights as residents of Nottingham are being trampled on. The only remedy is a people’s revolution!”

A corporation, G&F Goods, LLC, complained the ordinance unconstitutionally discriminates against corporations. Court proceedings in this case, filed by NWA’s attorney Kira Kelley, include emerging discussions about the specifics of Rights of Nature. To read those or any court documents, reach out to kakelley436@gmail.com or simon@celdf.org.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 24, 2020

CONTACT:
Michelle Sanborn
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
New England Community Organizer
michelle@celdf.org
603-524-2468

Amidst ecological catastrophe, movements for a paradigm shift in law have made global gains in 2020. Granite State judges have chosen to reject a request for a people’s defense of a municipal Rights of Nature and healthy climate law.

‘We are in crisis and the courts are not on our side.’

NOTTINGHAM, NH: As jurisdictions across the globe advance new rights for ecosystems and human rights to a healthy environment in 2020, on December 23, the New Hampshire Supreme Court declined to allow community members to defend the Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance. The ordinance secures rights of ecosystems and the right of townspeople to a climate system capable of sustaining human societies. (It bans all corporate activities that infringe those rights.) Residents of Nottingham, NH, USA had demanded they be allowed to defend this historic law after municipal officials capitulated to corporate intimidation.

“This decision exemplifies how people are shut out of courts in the United States, it further enshrines the courts’ position as a protector of corporate ‘rights’ and elite rule,” says Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) New England Community Organizer Michelle Sanborn. “The courts are a sham.”

“The courts have done it again,” says Gail Mills of the local grassroots group Nottingham Water Alliance (NWA). “They give the benefit of the doubt to the ‘rights’ of corporations, but we can’t even defend the law? We are in crisis and the courts are not on our side.”

The town’s ordinance recognizes rights of ecosystems and residents to be free from corporate chemical trespass and toxic waste dumping. Nottingham residents adopted it through the voter-initiative process at a 2019 Town Meeting. CELDF assisted NWA in drafting the law.

“The community faces corporate threats and a changing climate,” continued Sanborn. “Nottingham residents took the key step of putting into place a legal framework to address the climate crisis locally.”

After passing the law, residents never got a day in court. A corporation sued to intimidate local electeds and overturn the law, claiming its corporate “rights” were being infringed upon. Local politicians folded and the courts proceeded to shut residents out of the courtroom process. This left the ordinance undefended. On December 23, the Supreme Court agreed with corporate interests that residents have no “standing” to defend the law they passed, setting the precedent that local governments can refuse to defend a measure passed by a democratic vote of the people—undermining the autonomy of the initiative power.

“We the People of Nottingham have been SCROOGED by the NH Supreme Court, the lower courts, and our Nottingham Select board who chose not to stand up for our Freedom from Chemical Trespass Ordinance that would protect our health, safety, and ecosystems from corporate polluters,” says Peter White of NWA. “Our rights as residents of Nottingham are being trampled on. The only remedy is a people’s revolution!”

A corporation, G&F Goods, LLC, complained the ordinance unconstitutionally discriminates against corporations. Court proceedings in this case, filed by NWA’s attorney Kira Kelley, include emerging discussions about the specifics of Rights of Nature. To read those or any court documents, reach out to kakelley436@gmail.com or simon@celdf.org.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

###

BREAKING: Gas Company Files Federal Lawsuit To Overturn Small Pennsylvania Township’s Rights of Nature Law…Again

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2020

CONTACT:
Chad Nicholson
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Pennsylvania Community Organizer
chad@celdf.org
207-541-3649

Suit comes weeks after a well failure by the company in the Township, and as industry ratchets up opposition to Rights of Nature nationwide.


‘The fossil fuel industry is terrified the tactics taken in Grant Township are spreading.’


Grant Township, Indiana County, PA: Last Wednesday, Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) sued Grant Township in federal court – for a second time – to overturn the community’s law banning frack waste injection wells. The law, drafted with assistance from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), includes language recognizing the rights of local ecosystems and was democratically adopted by over 70% of Township voters in 2015. Injection wells threaten drinking water, cause earthquakes, and have been shut down in states such as Ohio and California. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also sued Grant Township in 2017, making last week’s filing the third lawsuit to be filed against the Township (pop. 700) for trying to protect its drinking water.

Jon Perry, Chairman of the Grant Township Board of Supervisors, said, “So here we go again. PGE throwing another lawsuit at us to try to bring us to heel, when our community has overwhelmingly said ‘hell no’ multiple times. PGE tried but couldn’t sell this well during this time of economic ruin, and so instead has delivered our community a Christmas present that blames our valid local law for its problems and is suing us again.”

In March 2020, the DEP cited the law as valid in a decision denying PGE a permit to inject waste. PGE is still appealing that decision, and its filings have revealed that the company has been trying to sell the well.

Meanwhile, less than two months ago, in October, a conventional gas well that PGE operates in the Township failed, and has now been shut down and plugged. Dozens of dump containers were filled with contaminated soil and hauled away. At no point did the DEP or PGE notify Grant Township officials of this. That site is less than a mile from the proposed injection well.

Chad Nicholson, CELDF organizer in Pennsylvania, said, “The fossil fuel industry is terrified the tactics taken in Grant Township are spreading. This community continues to act as a lighthouse in a raging storm made up of oil and gas corporations, state permitting agencies, and enabling courts that have crashed down on them for over five years. Yet they remain standing, protecting their own community. They serve as both a warning signal to other communities, as well as a beacon of hope and courage to those who wish to fight back. We at CELDF are proud to continue to stand with them in their fight to protect their water and their community.”

PGE’s actions come as the fossil fuel industry and sympathetic state legislators continue to ratchet up their opposition to Rights of Nature nationwide. On December 1, 2020, the American Petroleum Institute, perhaps the most influential fossil fuel lobby in the nation, filed a brief in opposition to a federal civil rights case brought by CELDF, in defense of local Ohio communities’ right to vote on qualified Rights of Nature laws. Also on December 1, 2020, a bill (HB 54), to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts, was introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives, continuing a national trend.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

 

Photo by Mike Belleme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 15, 2020

CONTACT:
Chad Nicholson
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Pennsylvania Community Organizer
chad@celdf.org
207-541-3649

Suit comes weeks after a well failure by the company in the Township, and as industry ratchets up opposition to Rights of Nature nationwide.


‘The fossil fuel industry is terrified the tactics taken in Grant Township are spreading.’


Grant Township, Indiana County, PA: Last Wednesday, Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) sued Grant Township in federal court – for a second time – to overturn the community’s law banning frack waste injection wells. The law, drafted with assistance from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), includes language recognizing the rights of local ecosystems and was democratically adopted by over 70% of Township voters in 2015. Injection wells threaten drinking water, cause earthquakes, and have been shut down in states such as Ohio and California. The PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also sued Grant Township in 2017, making last week’s filing the third lawsuit to be filed against the Township (pop. 700) for trying to protect its drinking water.

Jon Perry, Chairman of the Grant Township Board of Supervisors, said, “So here we go again. PGE throwing another lawsuit at us to try to bring us to heel, when our community has overwhelmingly said ‘hell no’ multiple times. PGE tried but couldn’t sell this well during this time of economic ruin, and so instead has delivered our community a Christmas present that blames our valid local law for its problems and is suing us again.”

In March 2020, the DEP cited the law as valid in a decision denying PGE a permit to inject waste. PGE is still appealing that decision, and its filings have revealed that the company has been trying to sell the well.

Meanwhile, less than two months ago, in October, a conventional gas well that PGE operates in the Township failed, and has now been shut down and plugged. Dozens of dump containers were filled with contaminated soil and hauled away. At no point did the DEP or PGE notify Grant Township officials of this. That site is less than a mile from the proposed injection well.

Chad Nicholson, CELDF organizer in Pennsylvania, said, “The fossil fuel industry is terrified the tactics taken in Grant Township are spreading. This community continues to act as a lighthouse in a raging storm made up of oil and gas corporations, state permitting agencies, and enabling courts that have crashed down on them for over five years. Yet they remain standing, protecting their own community. They serve as both a warning signal to other communities, as well as a beacon of hope and courage to those who wish to fight back. We at CELDF are proud to continue to stand with them in their fight to protect their water and their community.”

PGE’s actions come as the fossil fuel industry and sympathetic state legislators continue to ratchet up their opposition to Rights of Nature nationwide. On December 1, 2020, the American Petroleum Institute, perhaps the most influential fossil fuel lobby in the nation, filed a brief in opposition to a federal civil rights case brought by CELDF, in defense of local Ohio communities’ right to vote on qualified Rights of Nature laws. Also on December 1, 2020, a bill (HB 54), to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts, was introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives, continuing a national trend.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

 

Photo by Mike Belleme

BREAKING: Major Gains for Rights of Nature Movement Met With Corporate and State Backlash

by Simon Davis-Cohen

Following 2020 developments in Ecuador, French Guiana, the Nez Perce Tribe, Costa Rica, Spain, the Yurok Tribe, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the American Petroleum Institute and lawmakers in Missouri respond to repress momentum in the United States.

So far in 2020, important developments for the global Rights of Nature movement have been made in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and the Yurok Tribe, which helped win an historic agreement to remove dams on the Klamath River (whose rights the tribe formally recognized in 2019.) This week, backlash to the movement has come from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and lawmakers in Missouri.

On December 1, 2020, the API, perhaps the most influential fossil fuel lobby in the nation, filed a brief in opposition to a federal civil rights case brought by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of local communities’ right to vote on qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day the API filed its legal brief, a bill (HB 54), to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts was introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives. The language is almost identical to language passed in 2019, by the Ohio Legislature, that was drafted by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in direct response to the passage of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

Weeks ago, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in McGirt, which ruled that much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations who have sovereignty to pass environmental law (including Rights of Nature lawmaking by the Ponca Tribe), Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and allies sought to undermine the decision by asking Congress to strip environmental authority from tribes. (Ponca Environmental Ambassador Casey Camp Horinek and the group Movement Rights have been organizing to defend tribal sovereignty and the Rights of Nature in the state.)

Additionally, in September, a corporate law firm that filed a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, used civil rights law to demand attorney fees from the City of Toledo, for its fleeting defense of the people’s law. This amounts to financial reprisal against residents of Toledo, Ohio for their enactment of the historic law.

For supporting documentation contact simon@celdf.org.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level

Photo by Robin Sommer on Unsplash

Following 2020 developments in Ecuador, French Guiana, the Nez Perce Tribe, Costa Rica, Spain, the Yurok Tribe, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the American Petroleum Institute and lawmakers in Missouri respond to repress momentum in the United States.

So far in 2020, important developments for the global Rights of Nature movement have been made in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and the Yurok Tribe, which helped win an historic agreement to remove dams on the Klamath River (whose rights the tribe formally recognized in 2019.) This week, backlash to the movement has come from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and lawmakers in Missouri.

On December 1, 2020, the API, perhaps the most influential fossil fuel lobby in the nation, filed a brief in opposition to a federal civil rights case brought by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of local communities’ right to vote on qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day the API filed its legal brief, a bill (HB 54), to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts was introduced in the Missouri House of Representatives. The language is almost identical to language passed in 2019, by the Ohio Legislature, that was drafted by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in direct response to the passage of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

Weeks ago, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in McGirt, which ruled that much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations who have sovereignty to pass environmental law (including Rights of Nature lawmaking by the Ponca Tribe), Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and allies sought to undermine the decision by asking Congress to strip environmental authority from tribes. (Ponca Environmental Ambassador Casey Camp Horinek and the group Movement Rights have been organizing to defend tribal sovereignty and the Rights of Nature in the state.)

Additionally, in September, a corporate law firm that filed a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, used civil rights law to demand attorney fees from the City of Toledo, for its fleeting defense of the people’s law. This amounts to financial reprisal against residents of Toledo, Ohio for their enactment of the historic law.

For supporting documentation contact simon@celdf.org.

About CELDF — Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights – building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level

Photo by Robin Sommer on Unsplash

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