Search Results for: rights of nature

Common Dreams: Rights of Nature Debate Reaches New Heights

by celdf

By Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski

In our April 2020 op-ed for Common Dreams titled “Abolish Earth Day,” we argued that “it’s time environmentalists finally let go of the blind faith they have in the current environmental laws and regulatory system. Doing so will allow them to work in more meaningful solidarity with other movements who have also been abandoned by the law. We must expand on what we think is possible.”

As petitioners for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on settler colonial land that recognizes the rights of a specific ecosystem in the United States, we support a paradigm shift in law toward recognizing the inherent rights of ecosystems and complimentary human rights.

Four days later, in response to our op-ed, National Review contributor Wesley Smith wrote, referring to us, that “two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a ‘failure’ in favor of pushing the ‘rights of nature.’”

“The nature rights movement is gaining traction,” Smith went on. “It has had national and international successes and was endorsed by the prestigious scientific journal, Science….It wouldn’t surprise me if nature rights is embraced as well by the national party, and before long, adopted into the ‘Green New Deal.’”

Sure enough, a few months later, in August, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate Crisis released an “Environmental and Climate Policy Agenda for the Democratic Party” that recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission. It reads:

“Establish a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.”

This recommendation did not make it into the final party platform, but nonetheless is proof of Rights of Nature’s growing popularity and justifies Smith’s fears. Such broader acceptance of the concept presents opportunities, and risks.

Now, corporations and reactionary state legislatures are continuing a coordinated attack on the movement.

This week, 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 our colleagues at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of several communities’ right to vote on duly qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day API filed this legal brief, a bill (HB 54) was introduced in Missouri to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts. Smith celebrated the development. 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 that ruled much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations that 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.)

After filing a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, in September, a corporate law firm 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.

Tribes have led the way. And in less than fifteen years, three dozen laws recognizing the Rights of Nature have been passed in communities in New Mexico, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, California, and elsewhere. A common thread has been the recognition of unique rights for ecosystems, and assertion that they be elevated above corporate-claimed rights to destroy them.

Smith’s response to our Common Dreams op-ed, was a call to action for extractive interests to pay close attention. “The nature rights movement,” he warned, “is gaining traction.”

He couldn’t be more correct. Every week, it seems, the movement grows. People in Spain are now moving to recognize the rights of the imperiled Mar Menor.

This year, the movement has made significant gains in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and elsewhere.

These responses by states and corporate interests are dangerous. But they are also proof of the growing momentum toward a total paradigm shift away from an extractive relationship with the natural world.

It’s about time.

This piece was originally published here.

Photo, San Agustin, New Mexico, USA by Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

By Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski

In our April 2020 op-ed for Common Dreams titled “Abolish Earth Day,” we argued that “it’s time environmentalists finally let go of the blind faith they have in the current environmental laws and regulatory system. Doing so will allow them to work in more meaningful solidarity with other movements who have also been abandoned by the law. We must expand on what we think is possible.”

As petitioners for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on settler colonial land that recognizes the rights of a specific ecosystem in the United States, we support a paradigm shift in law toward recognizing the inherent rights of ecosystems and complimentary human rights.

Four days later, in response to our op-ed, National Review contributor Wesley Smith wrote, referring to us, that “two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a ‘failure’ in favor of pushing the ‘rights of nature.’”

“The nature rights movement is gaining traction,” Smith went on. “It has had national and international successes and was endorsed by the prestigious scientific journal, Science….It wouldn’t surprise me if nature rights is embraced as well by the national party, and before long, adopted into the ‘Green New Deal.’”

Sure enough, a few months later, in August, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate Crisis released an “Environmental and Climate Policy Agenda for the Democratic Party” that recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission. It reads:

“Establish a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.”

This recommendation did not make it into the final party platform, but nonetheless is proof of Rights of Nature’s growing popularity and justifies Smith’s fears. Such broader acceptance of the concept presents opportunities, and risks.

Now, corporations and reactionary state legislatures are continuing a coordinated attack on the movement.

This week, 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 our colleagues at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of several communities’ right to vote on duly qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day API filed this legal brief, a bill (HB 54) was introduced in Missouri to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts. Smith celebrated the development. 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 that ruled much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations that 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.)

After filing a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, in September, a corporate law firm 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.

Tribes have led the way. And in less than fifteen years, three dozen laws recognizing the Rights of Nature have been passed in communities in New Mexico, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, California, and elsewhere. A common thread has been the recognition of unique rights for ecosystems, and assertion that they be elevated above corporate-claimed rights to destroy them.

Smith’s response to our Common Dreams op-ed, was a call to action for extractive interests to pay close attention. “The nature rights movement,” he warned, “is gaining traction.”

He couldn’t be more correct. Every week, it seems, the movement grows. People in Spain are now moving to recognize the rights of the imperiled Mar Menor.

This year, the movement has made significant gains in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and elsewhere.

These responses by states and corporate interests are dangerous. But they are also proof of the growing momentum toward a total paradigm shift away from an extractive relationship with the natural world.

It’s about time.

This piece was originally published here.

Photo, San Agustin, New Mexico, USA by Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

By Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski

In our April 2020 op-ed for Common Dreams titled “Abolish Earth Day,” we argued that “it’s time environmentalists finally let go of the blind faith they have in the current environmental laws and regulatory system. Doing so will allow them to work in more meaningful solidarity with other movements who have also been abandoned by the law. We must expand on what we think is possible.”

As petitioners for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on settler colonial land that recognizes the rights of a specific ecosystem in the United States, we support a paradigm shift in law toward recognizing the inherent rights of ecosystems and complimentary human rights.

Four days later, in response to our op-ed, National Review contributor Wesley Smith wrote, referring to us, that “two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a ‘failure’ in favor of pushing the ‘rights of nature.’”

“The nature rights movement is gaining traction,” Smith went on. “It has had national and international successes and was endorsed by the prestigious scientific journal, Science….It wouldn’t surprise me if nature rights is embraced as well by the national party, and before long, adopted into the ‘Green New Deal.’”

Sure enough, a few months later, in August, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate Crisis released an “Environmental and Climate Policy Agenda for the Democratic Party” that recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission. It reads:

“Establish a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.”

This recommendation did not make it into the final party platform, but nonetheless is proof of Rights of Nature’s growing popularity and justifies Smith’s fears. Such broader acceptance of the concept presents opportunities, and risks.

Now, corporations and reactionary state legislatures are continuing a coordinated attack on the movement.

This week, 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 our colleagues at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of several communities’ right to vote on duly qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day API filed this legal brief, a bill (HB 54) was introduced in Missouri to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts. Smith celebrated the development. 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 that ruled much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations that 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.)

After filing a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, in September, a corporate law firm 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.

Tribes have led the way. And in less than fifteen years, three dozen laws recognizing the Rights of Nature have been passed in communities in New Mexico, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, California, and elsewhere. A common thread has been the recognition of unique rights for ecosystems, and assertion that they be elevated above corporate-claimed rights to destroy them.

Smith’s response to our Common Dreams op-ed, was a call to action for extractive interests to pay close attention. “The nature rights movement,” he warned, “is gaining traction.”

He couldn’t be more correct. Every week, it seems, the movement grows. People in Spain are now moving to recognize the rights of the imperiled Mar Menor.

This year, the movement has made significant gains in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and elsewhere.

These responses by states and corporate interests are dangerous. But they are also proof of the growing momentum toward a total paradigm shift away from an extractive relationship with the natural world.

It’s about time.

This piece was originally published here.

Photo, San Agustin, New Mexico, USA by Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

By Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski

In our April 2020 op-ed for Common Dreams titled “Abolish Earth Day,” we argued that “it’s time environmentalists finally let go of the blind faith they have in the current environmental laws and regulatory system. Doing so will allow them to work in more meaningful solidarity with other movements who have also been abandoned by the law. We must expand on what we think is possible.”

As petitioners for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on settler colonial land that recognizes the rights of a specific ecosystem in the United States, we support a paradigm shift in law toward recognizing the inherent rights of ecosystems and complimentary human rights.

Four days later, in response to our op-ed, National Review contributor Wesley Smith wrote, referring to us, that “two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a ‘failure’ in favor of pushing the ‘rights of nature.’”

“The nature rights movement is gaining traction,” Smith went on. “It has had national and international successes and was endorsed by the prestigious scientific journal, Science….It wouldn’t surprise me if nature rights is embraced as well by the national party, and before long, adopted into the ‘Green New Deal.’”

Sure enough, a few months later, in August, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate Crisis released an “Environmental and Climate Policy Agenda for the Democratic Party” that recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission. It reads:

“Establish a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.”

This recommendation did not make it into the final party platform, but nonetheless is proof of Rights of Nature’s growing popularity and justifies Smith’s fears. Such broader acceptance of the concept presents opportunities, and risks.

Now, corporations and reactionary state legislatures are continuing a coordinated attack on the movement.

This week, 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 our colleagues at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, in defense of several communities’ right to vote on duly qualified local Rights of Nature laws.

The same day API filed this legal brief, a bill (HB 54) was introduced in Missouri to try to ban Rights of Nature in the courts. Smith celebrated the development. 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 that ruled much of Eastern Oklahoma falls within Indian reservations that 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.)

After filing a lawsuit against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, in September, a corporate law firm 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.

Tribes have led the way. And in less than fifteen years, three dozen laws recognizing the Rights of Nature have been passed in communities in New Mexico, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, California, and elsewhere. A common thread has been the recognition of unique rights for ecosystems, and assertion that they be elevated above corporate-claimed rights to destroy them.

Smith’s response to our Common Dreams op-ed, was a call to action for extractive interests to pay close attention. “The nature rights movement,” he warned, “is gaining traction.”

He couldn’t be more correct. Every week, it seems, the movement grows. People in Spain are now moving to recognize the rights of the imperiled Mar Menor.

This year, the movement has made significant gains in Ecuador, French Guiana, Australia, the Nez Perce Tribe, Spain, Costa Rica, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation, and elsewhere.

These responses by states and corporate interests are dangerous. But they are also proof of the growing momentum toward a total paradigm shift away from an extractive relationship with the natural world.

It’s about time.

This piece was originally published here.

Photo, San Agustin, New Mexico, USA by Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Remembering a Rights of Nature Warrior

by Outside Publication

William “Reekumąnį” Greendeer

William “Reekumąnį/ray-ku-ma-nee” (Walks With The South Wind) Greendeer, age 66, of Cashton, Wisconsin, passed away Thursday, November 5, 2020. He was born October 15, 1954 to Orville and Jean (Day) Greendeer in Tomah, Wisconsin.

Bill was a medicine lodge member. He was proud of his culture, preserving and sharing his customs. Bill was an environmental activist and was passionate about the Rights of Nature. Bill was an extremely talented artist and loved motorcycles, especially Harleys.

He is survived by his children, Jessica Greendeer, Ryan Greendeer, Kessa Greendeer, Adam (Jenna) Greendeer, Tama Greendeer, Stella Greendeer, Sage Greendeer; 14 grandchildren; siblings, Jim (Liza) Greendeer, Wallace “Rock” (Gail) Greendeer, Joan (Toby) Greendeer-Lee, Joyce (Corey) TwoCrow, Vicki (Howard) Greendeer, Dolores Greendeer and Vern WhiteEagle, and an aunt, Nadine Sieber, many nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Orville and Jean; a son, Jason; an infant son, Willow; former wife, Taryn; sisters, Lillian Skenandore and Cindy Wagner; brothers, Dean Greendeer and Gerald Greendeer; and a niece, Jennifer Greendeer.

Traditional Ho-Chunk services will be held Sunday, November 8, 2020, 12:00 p.m. at the Greendeer Homestead, 10756 Cty Hwy N, Tomah, Wisconsin. Burial will be held at S1470 Dell Road, Cashton, Wisconsin 54619. Family and friends are invited for visitation Saturday, November 7, 2020, from 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. at the Torkelson Funeral Home in Tomah. The Torkelson Funeral Home of Tomah is assisting the family with arrangements. Online condolences are available at www.torkelsonfuneralhome.com.

To plant a beautiful memorial tree in memory of William “Bill” (Reekumąnį) Greendeer, please visit the Tribute Store.

CELDF Statement on Orange County, FL ‘Rights of Nature’ Law

by celdf

A “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights” was passed by Orange County, Florida voters on Nov. 3, 2020.

 

“Rights of Nature is about recognizing and defending the rights of ecosystems as a whole. That means transformative change including for humans, who are part of the ecosystems we depend upon. This means fighting for basic complimentary rights for all humans, like the right to water for life,” said Markie Miller, an organizer behind the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem.

CELDF applauds Orange County efforts to protect water and vital ecosystems. However, the ordinance that passed on November 3, 2020 is a misuse of the term “Rights of Nature,” which means something very different from what has been passed. An analysis of the “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights” (WEBOR) measure has multiple issues not consistent with transformative Rights of Nature lawmaking.

The measure attempts to work around, rather than challenge, existing legal and political hurdles facing transformative enforcement of the rights of ecosystems and people.

The measure seeks to restrict the “right to clean water” for only citizens who have “legal residence in the United States.” This undermines the rights of undocumented people, and is contrary to the radically-inclusive human rights paradigm that recognition of the rights of ecosystems requires. Human rights transcend citizenship status.

WEBOR bans any “governmental agency, non-natural person or corporate entity” from “intentionally or negligently” polluting. It then says that pollution in this context “shall have the same meanings” as in state law. This effectively means the measure is seeking to define the enjoyment of the Rights of Nature as merely the enforcement of existing environmental law. This falls short, because, in reality, the fulfillment of ecosystem rights requires the wholesale transformation of existing law—not its reiteration.

Additionally, state legislatures across the country have engaged in a concerted campaign to quash new ideas from emerging from the grassroots, including Rights of Nature lawmaking. After Toledo, Ohio’s Lake Erie Bill of Rights inspired some communities in Florida to begin working toward Rights of Nature lawmaking, the Florida Legislature passed a “state preemption” law to ban local Rights of Nature efforts in the state. WEBOR seems to capitulate to this structure by seeking to be in “harmony with any superior state or federal law.”

These are among our critiques of the “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights.”

“What we need is an unequivocal law or Constitutional amendment granting the Rights of Nature and its components—including humans—unalterable supremacy over commercial profits and conferring standing on natural objects to sue for their own protection,” said Carol Van Strum, advocate for a Lincoln County, Oregon Rights of Nature ordinance that stood for two years. Van Strum is the ongoing legal spokesperson for the Siletz River ecosystem in court proceedings to defend the law.

“We insist on real, enforceable Rights of Nature—nothing else will suffice to end our environmental and climate catastrophes,” said CELDF organizers Tish O’Dell, Ben Price, Chad Nicholson, Michelle Sanborn and Kai Huschke.

For more information on the need to protect the core transformational principles of Rights of Nature: https://celdf.org/2020/09/democratic-party-must-not-water-down-rights-of-nature/

Rights of Nature is not a silver bullet reform, but rather part of a mosaic of decolonial legal concepts that must be advanced in tandem to take on the political and legal forces upholding the current destructive status quo.

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.

###

A “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights” was passed by Orange County, Florida voters on Nov. 3, 2020.

 

“Rights of Nature is about recognizing and defending the rights of ecosystems as a whole. That means transformative change including for humans, who are part of the ecosystems we depend upon. This means fighting for basic complimentary rights for all humans, like the right to water for life,” said Markie Miller, an organizer behind the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem.

CELDF applauds Orange County efforts to protect water and vital ecosystems. However, the ordinance that passed on November 3, 2020 is a misuse of the term “Rights of Nature,” which means something very different from what has been passed. An analysis of the “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights” (WEBOR) measure has multiple issues not consistent with transformative Rights of Nature lawmaking.

The measure attempts to work around, rather than challenge, existing legal and political hurdles facing transformative enforcement of the rights of ecosystems and people.

The measure seeks to restrict the “right to clean water” for only citizens who have “legal residence in the United States.” This undermines the rights of undocumented people, and is contrary to the radically-inclusive human rights paradigm that recognition of the rights of ecosystems requires. Human rights transcend citizenship status.

WEBOR bans any “governmental agency, non-natural person or corporate entity” from “intentionally or negligently” polluting. It then says that pollution in this context “shall have the same meanings” as in state law. This effectively means the measure is seeking to define the enjoyment of the Rights of Nature as merely the enforcement of existing environmental law. This falls short, because, in reality, the fulfillment of ecosystem rights requires the wholesale transformation of existing law—not its reiteration.

Additionally, state legislatures across the country have engaged in a concerted campaign to quash new ideas from emerging from the grassroots, including Rights of Nature lawmaking. After Toledo, Ohio’s Lake Erie Bill of Rights inspired some communities in Florida to begin working toward Rights of Nature lawmaking, the Florida Legislature passed a “state preemption” law to ban local Rights of Nature efforts in the state. WEBOR seems to capitulate to this structure by seeking to be in “harmony with any superior state or federal law.”

These are among our critiques of the “Wekiva River and Econlockhatchee River Bill of Rights.”

“What we need is an unequivocal law or Constitutional amendment granting the Rights of Nature and its components—including humans—unalterable supremacy over commercial profits and conferring standing on natural objects to sue for their own protection,” said Carol Van Strum, advocate for a Lincoln County, Oregon Rights of Nature ordinance that stood for two years. Van Strum is the ongoing legal spokesperson for the Siletz River ecosystem in court proceedings to defend the law.

“We insist on real, enforceable Rights of Nature—nothing else will suffice to end our environmental and climate catastrophes,” said CELDF organizers Tish O’Dell, Ben Price, Chad Nicholson, Michelle Sanborn and Kai Huschke.

For more information on the need to protect the core transformational principles of Rights of Nature: https://celdf.org/2020/09/democratic-party-must-not-water-down-rights-of-nature/

Rights of Nature is not a silver bullet reform, but rather part of a mosaic of decolonial legal concepts that must be advanced in tandem to take on the political and legal forces upholding the current destructive status quo.

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.

###

CENSORING THE BALLOT: Civil Rights Appeal Filed to Defend Rights of Nature and Local Democracy in Ohio

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 6, 2020
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

Cincinnati, OH: Plaintiffs from seven Ohio counties, representing Rights of Nature and corporate control ballot measures, have filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit in a federal civil rights case against the State of Ohio. Plaintiffs were petitioners for initiative campaigns that involved thousands of volunteer hours. Some successfully qualified multiple 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.

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. They would have outlawed practices such as hydraulic fracturing, fracked gas pipelines, frack waste injection wells, and infused community control over the harmful corporate practices. One proposal aimed to control local corporate campaign contributions.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is supporting the plaintiffs.

“The media allows sneaky forms of repression to go unnoticed when it focuses only on what is on the ballot. We need to examine how our ballots are being censored,” says Tish O’Dell, CELDF’s organizer who has worked with the plaintiffs’ groups. “These plaintiffs are not alone—Missouri, Massachusetts, Arizona, Oregon—constraints on the scope of elections is a national phenomenon.”

The lawsuit argues the tactics used to keep the initiatives off the ballot in Ohio directly violate residents’ constitutionally protected rights of speech, assembly, to petition the government for redress of grievances, to vote, of due process, and to local, community self-government. It argues a 2016 state law, passed at the height of the local ballot initiative efforts, violates constitutional protections by granting non-judicial bodies the power to interpret the content of proposals and veto them off the ballot, before voting takes place.

This is “a systematic violation of electoral free speech and freedom of association rights,” says CELDF attorney Terry Lodge.

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 election to scrutinize petitions before the people vote is a clear violation of the separation of powers. They are not a judicial branch of government. It is a slippery slope to allow the ideology of a few untrained individuals to stifle the voices of the people and their constitutional right to propose law. What special powers will they grant themselves next? ~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 corporatists 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 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

October 6, 2020
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

Cincinnati, OH: Plaintiffs from seven Ohio counties, representing Rights of Nature and corporate control ballot measures, have filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit in a federal civil rights case against the State of Ohio. Plaintiffs were petitioners for initiative campaigns that involved thousands of volunteer hours. Some successfully qualified multiple 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.

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. They would have outlawed practices such as hydraulic fracturing, fracked gas pipelines, frack waste injection wells, and infused community control over the harmful corporate practices. One proposal aimed to control local corporate campaign contributions.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is supporting the plaintiffs.

“The media allows sneaky forms of repression to go unnoticed when it focuses only on what is on the ballot. We need to examine how our ballots are being censored,” says Tish O’Dell, CELDF’s organizer who has worked with the plaintiffs’ groups. “These plaintiffs are not alone—Missouri, Massachusetts, Arizona, Oregon—constraints on the scope of elections is a national phenomenon.”

The lawsuit argues the tactics used to keep the initiatives off the ballot in Ohio directly violate residents’ constitutionally protected rights of speech, assembly, to petition the government for redress of grievances, to vote, of due process, and to local, community self-government. It argues a 2016 state law, passed at the height of the local ballot initiative efforts, violates constitutional protections by granting non-judicial bodies the power to interpret the content of proposals and veto them off the ballot, before voting takes place.

This is “a systematic violation of electoral free speech and freedom of association rights,” says CELDF attorney Terry Lodge.

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 election to scrutinize petitions before the people vote is a clear violation of the separation of powers. They are not a judicial branch of government. It is a slippery slope to allow the ideology of a few untrained individuals to stifle the voices of the people and their constitutional right to propose law. What special powers will they grant themselves next? ~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 corporatists 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 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.

###

Earth Defenders Warn Against Democrats Undermining ‘Rights of Nature’ Movement With Watered-Down Approach

by Outside Publication

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

The fresh push for recognizing ecosystems as rights-bearing entities comes as the documentary film Invisible Hand premieres worldwide.

Ahead of the Friday night global premiere of Invisible Hand—which its creators are calling the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature movement—some U.S. campaigners fighting to grant ecosystems legal status as rights-bearing entities welcomed the Democratic Party’s recent gestures toward their demands but warned against watering down the movement’s vision.

As the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) explained in a recent video, “Rights of Nature is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The movement advocates for fundamentally rethinking the current treatment of nature as property that landowners or corporations are legally entitled to pollute and destroy.

“Now we’re not talking about giving every tree a lawyer,” noted the video from CELDF, which supports treating ecosystems as living communities. “We’re talking about creating a guardianship so that ecosystems can be seen in court as more than just a place to stick the next future Superfund site—and this idea isn’t new, it’s been around for millennia.”

In a Friday statement from CELDF, advocates detailed developments this year in U.S. politics, highlighting that in June the Democratic National Committee Council on the Environment and Climate Crisis included in its 2020 platform recommendations creating a Rights of Nature commission like the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to explore incorporating the movement’s principles into U.S. law.

Although the final platform—which disappointed climate and environmental campaigners on various fronts—didn’t include the panel’s commission proposal, organizer Markie Miller said Friday “the fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action.”

Miller, a Toledo resident, was involved with the Lake Erie Bill of Rights effort. The Ohio city ultimately allowed the historic legislation to die in court this May, but the measure still garnered international acclaim as “the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem,” according to CELDF.

“We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance,” Miller emphasized. That message, and concerns that a commission created by Democratic leadership would be “sanitized for the political system,” were shared by several other Rights of Nature advocates.

While some members of the movement welcome the party’s partial embrace of the Rights of Nature push, many also remain concerned that Democratic politicians could diminish the legal arguments or co-opt aspects of the political fight.

“In theory, a Rights of Nature commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement,” explained Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder and Indigenous Program director of Movement Rights. She continued:

Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of—and not owners of—the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change.

Mililani Trask, an attorney and leader in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, warned that such commissions can “merely reflect the political system—and water down more transformative demands. At worst Indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized.”

Trask added that if Democrats decide to launch a Rights of Nature commission in the future, they must remain committed to grassroots organizers’ demands and “engage a deep outreach campaign,” underscoring the importance of involving Indigenous Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and Indian Nations.

Diane St. Germain—an advocate for a first-in-the-nation 2008 law that barred corporate water extractions in Barnstead, New Hampshire—denounced the DNC’s interest in establishing a commission as “disingenuous,” charging that its failure to “challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform.”

Even some Democrats, such as New Hampshire State Rep. Ellen Read, who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to empower municipalities to recognize the rights of local ecosystems, worry “there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.”

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth,” Read said. “Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary.”

Despite concerns about intentions and potential consequences of Democratic policymakers backing the movement, Monique Verdin, a citizen of United Houma Nation who is involved with the grassroots collaborative Another Gulf Is Possible, declared that “we are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored.”

Verdin said that “at the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-levels rise and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea.”

“We need real Democratic leadership that understands the well-being of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting, and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems,” she added.

Rights of Nature advocates’ commentary on the Democratic Party preceded the 6:00 pm ET online premiere of Invisible Hand, which executive producer Mark Ruffalo said aims to show “how to fight the forces that put profit above all else while addressing the root cause of our flawed system.”

“Our legal system is rigged to commodify Nature, to favor private property above Life,” said Invisible Hand co-writer and director Melissa Troutman. “It’s a system that makes it perfectly legal to harm innocent people without their consent and threaten the survival of the planet.”

The film “is about witnessing the elephant in the room before it’s extinct,” according to co-writer and director Joshua Pribanic. “It’s showing us that, when face-to-face with the harmful effects of capitalism and our current way of life, Rights of Nature becomes the battle cry. My hope is that wherever you are, this film can speak to your fight.”

Ruffalo, Troutman, Pribanic, and experts featured in the film are set join a public discussion immediately after the Friday screening. Tickets, which cost $1 for Public Herald patrons or $15 on PayPal and are available to the public, can be purchased at Invisiblehandfilm.com

Originally Published by Common Dreams

INVISIBLE HAND premiered on September 4, 2020. Watch the post film discussion and Q&A here.

Photo by elizabeth lies on Unsplash

Democratic Party Must Not Water Down Rights of Nature

by celdf

This August, the Democratic National Committee Council on Environment and Climate Crisis released an “Environmental and Climate Policy Agenda for the Democratic Party” that recommended the formation of a presidential Rights of Nature mission. It reads:

“Establish a commission, similar to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, to explore incorporating Rights of Nature principles into U.S. law.”

This recommendation did not make it into the final party platform, but nonetheless is proof of Rights of Nature’s growing popularity. This presents opportunities, and risks.

Some leaders within the growing Rights of Nature movement in the United States have offered perspective ON the Democratic Party’s actions:

“In theory, a Rights of Nature Commission is a step in the right direction of environmental justice; but in reality, a corporate-friendly DNC platform could derail the real work and advances of the global and national Rights of Nature movement. Rights of Nature is deep system change, not tinkering at the margins of a rigged system. Rights of Nature requires policy and business decision-making based on the needs of the ecosystem as a whole, which will mean a massive and necessary shift of how business is done, including  how communities of color are targeted for the most polluting projects. The question is whether the DNC is ready to embrace the idea that humans are part of — and not owners of — the natural world, and whether their interpretation of Rights of Nature would dilute its framework of revolutionary change. Rights of Nature is rooted in Indigenous cosmology and the idea of Rights as responsibilities — specifically ensuring humans are living in balance with the ecosystems upon which we depend. The Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Indigenous people must be respected and woven into laws to protect humanity and the sacred system of life — which can well function without us, but which we need to survive.” – Pennie Opal Plant, Co-founder and Indigenous Program Director, Movement Rights

“While I’m delighted to see a major political party interested in Rights of Nature policies, I’m also concerned that the DNC may not take seriously the legal paradigm shift that recognizing rights for ecosystems represents. The DNC must include the organizations and lawyers who have been doing this work on-the-ground, in particular the indigenous communities who have been at the frontlines of recognizing the destruction caused by our current nature-is-property paradigm.” – Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, Rights of Nature attorney, clients have included Lake Erie Ecosystem, Little Mahoning Watershed, Crystal Springs Ecosystem, and Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

“When you elevate something into a focus group at the national level and in such a politicized way, commissions like this merely reflect the political system — and water down more transformative demands. At worst indigenous peoples and grassroots environmental groups would be left out. At best, their voices and concerns would be marginalized. When you start forming committees, things tend to be sanitized for the political system. We saw this happen on Climate Change and look where it got us. If such a commission is launched it must engage a deep outreach campaign, and remain committed to transformative demands. In order to ensure such an effort is inclusive of all, a special effort should be made to specifically include indigenous peoples of the US including Indigenous Hawiians and Alaska Natives as well as the Indian Nations.” – Mililani Trask, native Hawaiian attorney, and a leader within the Hawaiian sovereignty movement

“It is so ingrained within colonial legal systems to think that central governments must make decisions on our behalf. Colonial legal systems see law as a punitive force for control only, rather than something people can be taught to follow to bring healing, peace and self-regulation. To decolonize the law and honor Fundamental Law and the laws of earth is to support those who are practicing fundamental indiginous peoples’ laws of nature. It means starting from the grassroots, and building from there, not coming from the top down through a punitive system. It means seeing ancient songs and ceremonies as tools for the transmission and interpretation of law.” – Phil Bluehouse, current member of Navajo Commission on Self-Governance, former director of the Navajo judicial Peacemaking Program, former tribal police officer, who has worked to honor Navajo code’s recognition of Fundamental Law (Title 1, Chapter 2, Subsections 201-206)

“The critics tell us our efforts are meaningless, but find it ‘legitimate’ when an ‘authority’ like the DNC begins to take Rights of Nature seriously. We cannot lose track of the fact that grassroots organizers are pushing this conversation, and the creative approaches to new governance. The fact that the DNC is contemplating this is a testament to the bravery of local communities willing to take action, despite the naysayers.” – Markie Miller, organizer behind the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the first law on United States settler colonial land to recognize the rights of a specific ecosystem

“I give the highest honor to the Ancestors of this Turtle Island. I speak to the heinous crimes against our Mother Earth and all living breathing beings in the circle of life under extinction. We must respond to her call to love, and care for her — our provider of water and life on this earth. Greatest honor to my ancient one Celilo Falls, Wayamtama, flooded but not dead and buried — only a prisoner of war like myself. Denied our right to exist and coexist in the ways designed by the creator of the law of nature that is Natural Law. We maintain the Ceremony to abide by the Natural Law as the Keepers, the preservationists of our territories. We are the Original Stewards of our respective territories here in the Northwest and all across the land. Many treaty rights involve the rights to practice traditional fishing, hunting, gathering and practices, but the true meaning of these rights is much deeper. These rights are about the duty to protect the Law of Nature, to be Stewards of it, to take only what we need for the preservation of our sacred foods and way. Honor the Treaties first, then we can talk about a ‘Commission’!” – Lana Jack, mutual aid organizer for Columbia River villages and the Celilo Wy’am, an unrecognized tribe, founder of Columbia River Indian Center

“Recognizing the Rights of Nature is not some hippie-dippy concept; it is nothing less than the full acknowledgement of the very concrete reality that humanity is a part of the ecosystem, and dependent on the life-sustaining systems of the Earth. Although I commend the DNC for taking up the issue of Rights of Nature, past experience has taught me to be wary. The vast majority of Democrats support the concept, but there is a pro-corporate element in the party structure itself that may seek to either water down, or worse, pervert this push.” – Ellen Read, New Hampshire State Representative who sponsored state constitutional amendment efforts to afford municipalities governing power over corporations, including to recognize the rights of local ecosystems.

“We don’t need the DNC‘s empty promise to form a “commission,” nor the rhetoric. What we need is an unequivocal law or Constitutional amendment granting the rights of Nature and its components — including humans — unalterable supremacy over commercial profits and conferring standing on natural objects to sue for their own protection.” – Carol Van Strum, advocate for Lincoln County, Oregon Rights of Nature ordinance that stood for two years; ongoing human legal spokesperson for the Siletz River ecosystem; author of A Bitter Fog

“While it is important that the Rights of Nature be taken seriously by lawmakers and aspiring lawmakers, it is just as important that the foundational changes to our systems of law and government necessary to end the destruction of Nature are not minimized by empowering a politically motivated commission to ‘study’ the idea. We insist on real, enforceable Rights of Nature — nothing else will suffice to end our environmental and climate catastrophes.  If we have learned anything from studying past movements for real systemic change, it is that once political parties turn the issue into a political debate, the movement weakens or dies. There is no time for this nonsense today. Nature already has more power and authority over humans and corporations, the question is if we have the wisdom to recognize it. – Tish O’Dell, Ben Price, Chad Nicholson, Michelle Sanborn, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund organizers, collectively worked with dozens of communities on settler colonial land to recognize enforceable rights of ecosystems

“The DNC’s interest in “establishing a committee to study the Rights of Nature” is disingenuous. The failure of the DNC to challenge the corporate stranglehold on policy is evident in omissions from the platform, notably, any pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies, to support Medicare-for-All, to legalize marijuana, to defund the police, to abolish ICE, to eliminate student debt, to provide free public college tuition to all, or to divert funding from an obscenely-bloated military budget. It is shameful to pay lip-service to a movement, the Rights of Nature, while apparently having no intention of standing up to corporate disregard for the planet and human health.” – Diane St.Germain, Citizens of Barnstead for a Living Democracy, advocate for first-in-the-nation Rights of Nature 2008 law prohibiting corporate water extractions in Barnstead, NH

“We are at a time when the Rights of Nature must be centered and can no longer be ignored. At the end of the Mississippi River, just north of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic ‘Dead Zone,’ south of the petrochemical corridor known as ‘Cancer Alley,’ our ancestral Houma lands and waters and delta wetland territories are witnessing what happens when the Rights of Nature are ignored, suffering the consequences as sea-level rises and land subsides, as politicians debate over which of our coastal communities are to be sacrificed to the sea. We need real Democratic leadership that understands the wellbeing of life on this planet is dependent upon survival strategies tied to recognizing, respecting and investing in regenerative relationships built in collaboration with the Earth’s intelligence and her interconnected systems.” – Monique Verdin, Citizen of United Houma Nation, Another Gulf is Possible

Some of these statements were featured in news coverage by Common Dreams. 

Rights of Nature with United Church of Christ Pastor

by celdf

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights.”

Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund joins Rev. Dr. Robert Shore-Goss of the United Church of Christ for a conversation about the Rights of Nature.

Shore-Goss and his colleagues are in the beginning stages of working to advance support for Rights of Nature, within the United Church of Christ.

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights,” Shore-Goss said.

The webinar explores Rights of Nature’s challenge to colonial logics of superiority and privatization, and features a presentation by O’Dell on Rights of Nature movement building and the ongoing repercussions of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights campaign.

We’re talking about “a shift of power, in who gets to be involved in making decisions and making laws,” said O’Dell.

Rights of Nature provides a new legal framework that redefines our relationship with Nature, recognizing life-sustaining systems that support all life. Rights of Nature values stewardship over ownership, but the legal changes we seek will require deep cultural changes as well.

Nature and people are not disposable. Rights of Nature creates a new dialogue around issues of environmental racism, social justice, and environmental rights. Join us as we uphold and advance the Rights of Nature – in western law and culture.

Learn More 

Feature Image: “Water Painting # 1” by brentbat is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights.”

Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund joins Rev. Dr. Robert Shore-Goss of the United Church of Christ for a conversation about the Rights of Nature.

Shore-Goss and his colleagues are in the beginning stages of working to advance support for Rights of Nature, within the United Church of Christ.

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights,” Shore-Goss said.

The webinar explores Rights of Nature’s challenge to colonial logics of superiority and privatization, and features a presentation by O’Dell on Rights of Nature movement building and the ongoing repercussions of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights campaign.

We’re talking about “a shift of power, in who gets to be involved in making decisions and making laws,” said O’Dell.

Rights of Nature provides a new legal framework that redefines our relationship with Nature, recognizing life-sustaining systems that support all life. Rights of Nature values stewardship over ownership, but the legal changes we seek will require deep cultural changes as well.

Nature and people are not disposable. Rights of Nature creates a new dialogue around issues of environmental racism, social justice, and environmental rights. Join us as we uphold and advance the Rights of Nature – in western law and culture.

Learn More 

Feature Image: “Water Painting # 1” by brentbat is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights.”

Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund joins Rev. Dr. Robert Shore-Goss of the United Church of Christ for a conversation about the Rights of Nature.

Shore-Goss and his colleagues are in the beginning stages of working to advance support for Rights of Nature, within the United Church of Christ.

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights,” Shore-Goss said.

The webinar explores Rights of Nature’s challenge to colonial logics of superiority and privatization, and features a presentation by O’Dell on Rights of Nature movement building and the ongoing repercussions of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights campaign.

We’re talking about “a shift of power, in who gets to be involved in making decisions and making laws,” said O’Dell.

Rights of Nature provides a new legal framework that redefines our relationship with Nature, recognizing life-sustaining systems that support all life. Rights of Nature values stewardship over ownership, but the legal changes we seek will require deep cultural changes as well.

Nature and people are not disposable. Rights of Nature creates a new dialogue around issues of environmental racism, social justice, and environmental rights. Join us as we uphold and advance the Rights of Nature – in western law and culture.

Learn More 

Feature Image: “Water Painting # 1” by brentbat is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights.”

Tish O’Dell of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund joins Rev. Dr. Robert Shore-Goss of the United Church of Christ for a conversation about the Rights of Nature.

Shore-Goss and his colleagues are in the beginning stages of working to advance support for Rights of Nature, within the United Church of Christ.

“It’s time for us as a religious community—and we would be the first Christian polity to say this: that Nature has rights,” Shore-Goss said.

The webinar explores Rights of Nature’s challenge to colonial logics of superiority and privatization, and features a presentation by O’Dell on Rights of Nature movement building and the ongoing repercussions of the Lake Erie Bill of Rights campaign.

We’re talking about “a shift of power, in who gets to be involved in making decisions and making laws,” said O’Dell.

Rights of Nature provides a new legal framework that redefines our relationship with Nature, recognizing life-sustaining systems that support all life. Rights of Nature values stewardship over ownership, but the legal changes we seek will require deep cultural changes as well.

Nature and people are not disposable. Rights of Nature creates a new dialogue around issues of environmental racism, social justice, and environmental rights. Join us as we uphold and advance the Rights of Nature – in western law and culture.

Learn More 

Feature Image: “Water Painting # 1” by brentbat is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Press Release: Toledo Residents Experiment With Civilian Rights of Nature Enforcement

by celdf

Lawsuit advances one avenue for participatory Rights of Nature enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

TOLEDO, OH: Three residents of Toledo, Ohio have presented arguments in the Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals to enforce the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), the first law in the U.S. to secure legal rights of a specific ecosystem. The arguments were in defense of a “Pro Se” lawsuit brought by the residents themselves. The lawsuit, filed last year, originates from a clause within LEBOR, which allows residents to file suit to enforce residents’ rights and those of the Lake Erie ecosystem.

In prepared remarks, later presented in court on August 5, 2020 via video conference, Toledo resident Mike Ferner pleaded for a “turn away from the depleted and deadly precedents that have brought life on Earth to the brink.”

“A century from now, if our species survives, people will undoubtedly wonder how we could possibly have defined Lake Erie, a necessity for survival, as mere property to be exploited instead of a living and life-giving body with an inherent right to be healthy,” Ferner’s statement reads.

“Residents not only passed the historic Lake Erie Bill of Rights, they exhausted all available methods within the current legal system to protect the lake. And the state continues to legalize pollution and add new protections for corporate polluters of the lake—failing in its duty to protect the lake. Something new is required to preserve life surrounding and within the imperiled lake,” said CELDF Ohio Community Organizer Tish O’Dell.

“The Rights of Nature movement is entering a new phase: enforcement,” said CELDF attorney Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin. “We salute the plaintiffs’ actions and are heartened to see residents take seriously the need for creative civilian enforcement of the Rights of Nature.”

Following the passage of Ohio Chamber of Commerce-drafted state legislation to undermine the enforcement of rights of ecosystems within the state, a federal judge in February 2020 decided to invalidate LEBOR.

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.

Lawsuit advances one avenue for participatory Rights of Nature enforcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

TOLEDO, OH: Three residents of Toledo, Ohio have presented arguments in the Ohio Sixth District Court of Appeals to enforce the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), the first law in the U.S. to secure legal rights of a specific ecosystem. The arguments were in defense of a “Pro Se” lawsuit brought by the residents themselves. The lawsuit, filed last year, originates from a clause within LEBOR, which allows residents to file suit to enforce residents’ rights and those of the Lake Erie ecosystem.

In prepared remarks, later presented in court on August 5, 2020 via video conference, Toledo resident Mike Ferner pleaded for a “turn away from the depleted and deadly precedents that have brought life on Earth to the brink.”

“A century from now, if our species survives, people will undoubtedly wonder how we could possibly have defined Lake Erie, a necessity for survival, as mere property to be exploited instead of a living and life-giving body with an inherent right to be healthy,” Ferner’s statement reads.

“Residents not only passed the historic Lake Erie Bill of Rights, they exhausted all available methods within the current legal system to protect the lake. And the state continues to legalize pollution and add new protections for corporate polluters of the lake—failing in its duty to protect the lake. Something new is required to preserve life surrounding and within the imperiled lake,” said CELDF Ohio Community Organizer Tish O’Dell.

“The Rights of Nature movement is entering a new phase: enforcement,” said CELDF attorney Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin. “We salute the plaintiffs’ actions and are heartened to see residents take seriously the need for creative civilian enforcement of the Rights of Nature.”

Following the passage of Ohio Chamber of Commerce-drafted state legislation to undermine the enforcement of rights of ecosystems within the state, a federal judge in February 2020 decided to invalidate LEBOR.

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.

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

by Guest Author

Camylle Lanteigne has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy (Honours) from McGill University. She will be starting a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Public Administration at Concordia University in the Fall of 2020, focusing on environmental policy and technology policy.

In this thesis, she explores the conceptual links between anticapitalism and ecocentrism present in the philosophical underpinnings of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s work. We are excited to publish this piece. Camylle has been working and volunteering for many years with local organizations that aim to raise awareness about environmental issues and protect nature. In her free time, she loves to rock climb, hike, and read. She lives in Montreal.

Thesis: The Watermelon Way

Call for Papers: Submit your work to our library

If you’d like to submit your research to be added to CELDF’s resource library, please contact Simon at simon@celdf.org. We will be releasing the library later this year.

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

by celdf

Activists who helped defeat the Atlantic Coast Pipeline have launched the Virginia Community Rights Network to help build a movement for structural change that secures political authority for local communities and ecosystem rights


Contact:
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

Susie Beiersdorfer
National Community Rights Network
Ohio Community Rights Network
Nationalcrn@gmail.com
330-881-1050

BUCKINGHAM COUNTY, VA: The Virginia Community Rights Network (VACRN) has been launched to support “local efforts to recognize and legally secure the Rights of Nature and Communities to a healthy environment through self-government at the city, county, and state level.” It will challenge “the injustice of illegitimate corporate rights that impede local and direct democracy, through educational training, workshops, campaign strategy development, and public outreach.”

The Network has been initiated by residents who worked to protect Buckingham County, Virginia from a proposed large-scale fracked gas compressor station for the now-defeated Atlantic Coast Pipeline. VACRN continues previous organizing in areas such as Buckingham, Nelson, Augusta, Charlottesville, Richmond, Campbell County, and the Town of Halifax, which passed a Community Bill of Rights in 2008 to protect against chemical and radioactive trespass.

“A system of community-based solutions that challenges a structure designed to exploit us is what’s needed here,” says Heidi Berthoud of the VACRN. “This is about our families’ and the planet’s physical life and death. We are fully committed to this struggle against corporations who ignore the inherent Rights of Nature, which, when recognized and upheld, protect us all.”

“Here’s a group of people devoted to putting the interests of people and ecosystems above the interests of privately owned and profit-driven corporate property. Establishment of the VACRN is a significant step in building the nation-wide movement of grassroots-based and community-supported institutionalized opposition to the existing hegemony of profit over people,” says Ben Price, National Organizing Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. “We look forward to expanding our work with them.”

“The VACRN joins sister networks in Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire,” says Susie Beiersdorfer of the National Community Rights Network. “These state-based groups are rooted in local communities and building power to advance state constitutional change and place the rights of people and Nature over the interests of private corporations. The goal is to empower communities to heighten protections for civil, human and ecosystem rights in the places where we live.”

Virginia residents and officials interested in working for systemic change and replacing Dillon’s Rule are encouraged to connect with the VACRN at vacommunityrights.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.

Activists who helped defeat the Atlantic Coast Pipeline have launched the Virginia Community Rights Network to help build a movement for structural change that secures political authority for local communities and ecosystem rights


Contact:
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

Susie Beiersdorfer
National Community Rights Network
Ohio Community Rights Network
Nationalcrn@gmail.com
330-881-1050

BUCKINGHAM COUNTY, VA: The Virginia Community Rights Network (VACRN) has been launched to support “local efforts to recognize and legally secure the Rights of Nature and Communities to a healthy environment through self-government at the city, county, and state level.” It will challenge “the injustice of illegitimate corporate rights that impede local and direct democracy, through educational training, workshops, campaign strategy development, and public outreach.”

The Network has been initiated by residents who worked to protect Buckingham County, Virginia from a proposed large-scale fracked gas compressor station for the now-defeated Atlantic Coast Pipeline. VACRN continues previous organizing in areas such as Buckingham, Nelson, Augusta, Charlottesville, Richmond, Campbell County, and the Town of Halifax, which passed a Community Bill of Rights in 2008 to protect against chemical and radioactive trespass.

“A system of community-based solutions that challenges a structure designed to exploit us is what’s needed here,” says Heidi Berthoud of the VACRN. “This is about our families’ and the planet’s physical life and death. We are fully committed to this struggle against corporations who ignore the inherent Rights of Nature, which, when recognized and upheld, protect us all.”

“Here’s a group of people devoted to putting the interests of people and ecosystems above the interests of privately owned and profit-driven corporate property. Establishment of the VACRN is a significant step in building the nation-wide movement of grassroots-based and community-supported institutionalized opposition to the existing hegemony of profit over people,” says Ben Price, National Organizing Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. “We look forward to expanding our work with them.”

“The VACRN joins sister networks in Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire,” says Susie Beiersdorfer of the National Community Rights Network. “These state-based groups are rooted in local communities and building power to advance state constitutional change and place the rights of people and Nature over the interests of private corporations. The goal is to empower communities to heighten protections for civil, human and ecosystem rights in the places where we live.”

Virginia residents and officials interested in working for systemic change and replacing Dillon’s Rule are encouraged to connect with the VACRN at vacommunityrights.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.

Guest Blog: Time for a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Nature

by Guest Author

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

As we are seeing the UN Decade of Biodiversity coming to a close this year, to say that we haven’t fulfilled its promises would be an understatement. If anything, we are beginning to understand the extent to which the Earths’ living systems are falling apart. One million species might go extinct in the near future, according to a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). That is more than half of the species described by science. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems are projected to undermine progress towards 80 per cent of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, sustainable consumption and production, water, cities, climate, oceans and land.

Well, guess what? We depend on living systems for our wellbeing. This is not news, but ancient knowledge. Indigenous peoples know themselves as parts of nature. As Onondaga spiritual leader Oren Lyons puts it: ”The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment.”

Following from the stark conclusions of its Global Assessment report, IPBES is calling for transformative change. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably — this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” says IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson.

2020 has been deemed a ”super-year” for nature, as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, similar to a Paris Agreement for Nature, is being laid out within the Convention for Biological Diversity (due to the corona crisis the adoption will be post-poned to 2021). CBD is the most important international agreement for nature, and it is also calling for transformation. The frameworks aims to ”support transformational change towards realizing the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.” So, how do you catalyse transformative change? Transformation, from what, to what?

Transformation means system change. To change the system in any meaningful way, we need to look at the assumptions the system is built on. The paradigm. The most powerful assumptions of the western culture has to do with the human-nature relationship. This culture is largely built upon the assumption that humans are separate from nature and has the right, or even duty, to control and dominate it. Christianity and science, the legitimising powers of the western society, have been in agreement on this fundamental tenet. It has shaped our institutions, methods, laws, and society as a whole.

As most cultural assumptions it is invisible. Like fish, who dont know they are swimming in water, we don´t know that we are totally antropocentric. The frameworks aiming at ”transformative change” for conserving biodiversity is still assuming that people are governing nature and need to preserve it for the goods and services it provides. Oren Lyons again: “I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles.” Actually, there can be no seat for the eagles, as according to the western worldview, they have no voice. They four-footed ones, the trees, the fish are viewed as objects, resources, commodities. They are right-less.

The transformation needed in our relationship with the more-than-human world is the one Oren Lyons is talking about. To understand that we are part of life, just like the worms, the oak trees and the corona virus are part of life. That just like there are human needs, so do all living beings have needs and interests. This means a transformation of the human being in the world. But, as Oren Lyons asks: “We wonder, how do you instruct seven billion people as to the relationship to the Earth? Because unless they understand that and relate the way they should be, future is pretty dim for the human species.”

Actually, there is a concept that might support this transformation in relationship. Acknowledging that not just humans, but all living things have rights, which can be upheld by the law, Rights of Nature is quietly being developed on different levels worldwide. The constitution of Ecuador is recognising the Rights of Nature, as is the Environmental Act of Uganda. Local communities in the US are developing Rights of Nature ordinances. In Colombia (host of World Environment Day this year) the Constitutional Court as well as regional courts have assigned several rivers status as legal subjects. The Supreme Court of Colombia in 2018 judged in favour of youth suing the state for not respecting their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water due to climate change caused by deforestation. In order to protect the forest, the Supreme Court recognized the Colombian Amazon as an entity subject of rights. This means that the State has a duty to protect, conserve, maintain, and restore the forest.

2020 is not just a super-year for nature, it also marks the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. In 2018, the Sami Parliament of Sweden decided to support the Declaration. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry.

“This is a very important decision”, says Marie Persson Njajta, one of the proposers. “We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.”

The idea of Rights of Nature often meets with the worry that human needs will be compromised. This is a sign of how entrenched we are in the view of nature as something separate from us. Basic human needs like water, food and shelter are of course always totally dependent on the living world. As the former UN Special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox observed: ”the loss of biodiversity undermines the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including rights to life, health, food and water.” Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to uphold human rights. Without healthy ecosystems, it is not possible to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. When we know that the worlds’ ecosystems are falling apart, it is time to balance the Declaration of Human Rights with a Declaration of Rights of Nature. This would be truly transformative policy, and it could be part of the Convention of Biological Diversity.

Pella Thiel is a Biologist, permaculturist and small-scale farmer. Co-founder of Transition Sweden, chairperson of End Ecocide Sweden, coordinator of Rights of Nature Sweden. This piece has been re-posted with the author’s permission.

View Original Source

A Closer Look: Exploring the Rights of Nature on June 3

by celdf

Environmental degradation is advancing around the world. There is a growing recognition that we must fundamentally change the relationship between humankind and nature. Making this fundamental shift means acknowledging our dependence on nature and respecting our need to live in harmony with the natural world. It means securing the highest legal protection and the highest societal value for nature through the recognition of nature’s rights.

When we talk about the Rights of Nature, it means recognizing that ecosystems and natural communities are not merely property that can be owned. Rather, they are entities that have an independent and inalienable right to exist and flourish.

The system is fixed. We need to break it.

Under the current system of law, nature is considered to be property. Those who “own” ecosystems and the permits to destroy them are permitted to do so despite the known impacts on human and natural communities. Laws recognizing the Rights of Nature transform the status of ecosystems and natural communities to being recognized as rights-bearing entities. As such, they have rights that can be enforced by people, governments, and communities.

Join us for a deeper dive into Rights of Nature to tackle these questions and more:

  • Many communities live downstream from a harmful activity or share borders with multiple communities. How or why should one community assert the existence of rights for an ecosystem that reaches beyond themselves? 
  • How can we dismantle current laws that describe Nature as property? 
  • How do communities enforce the Rights of Nature?
  • Is passing a Rights of Nature law that is in conflict with state or federal laws a form of civil disobedience?
  • Does the right to a healthy climate exist? 
  • What kind of cultural shift is needed to uphold the Rights of Nature? 

Brainstorm with CELDF community organizers who are working with communities that are advancing the Rights of Nature. 

Watch the conversation and live Q&A Below

Environmental degradation is advancing around the world. There is a growing recognition that we must fundamentally change the relationship between humankind and nature. Making this fundamental shift means acknowledging our dependence on nature and respecting our need to live in harmony with the natural world. It means securing the highest legal protection and the highest societal value for nature through the recognition of nature’s rights.

When we talk about the Rights of Nature, it means recognizing that ecosystems and natural communities are not merely property that can be owned. Rather, they are entities that have an independent and inalienable right to exist and flourish.

The system is fixed. We need to break it.

Under the current system of law, nature is considered to be property. Those who “own” ecosystems and the permits to destroy them are permitted to do so despite the known impacts on human and natural communities. Laws recognizing the Rights of Nature transform the status of ecosystems and natural communities to being recognized as rights-bearing entities. As such, they have rights that can be enforced by people, governments, and communities.

Join us for a deeper dive into Rights of Nature to tackle these questions and more:

  • Many communities live downstream from a harmful activity or share borders with multiple communities. How or why should one community assert the existence of rights for an ecosystem that reaches beyond themselves? 
  • How can we dismantle current laws that describe Nature as property? 
  • How do communities enforce the Rights of Nature?
  • Is passing a Rights of Nature law that is in conflict with state or federal laws a form of civil disobedience?
  • Does the right to a healthy climate exist? 
  • What kind of cultural shift is needed to uphold the Rights of Nature? 

Brainstorm with CELDF community organizers who are working with communities that are advancing the Rights of Nature. 

Watch the conversation and live Q&A Below

Breaking: Rights of Nature Law Forces Pennsylvania to Revoke Industry Permit

by celdf

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforces local Grant Township law in revoking permit for dangerous frack waste injection well

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 25, 2020

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

GRANT TOWNSHIP, INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: In an extraordinary reversal, last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a frack waste injection well in Grant Township. DEP officials cited Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter banning injection wells as grounds for their reversal.

Injection wells are toxic sewers for the fracking industry that cause earthquakes, receive radioactive waste, and threaten drinking water and ecosystems. 

Township residents popularly adopted a Home Rule Charter (local constitution) in 2015 that contains a “Community Bill of Rights.” The Charter bans injection wells as a violation of the rights of those living in the township and recognizes rights of nature. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted in drafting the Charter.

In 2017, DEP issued a permit to legalize an injection well in Grant, and simultaneously sued the township. The agency claimed that Grant’s Home Rule Charter – which protects the local environment – interfered with the DEP’s authority to administer state oil and gas policy.

Yet, in a stunning about-face, DEP enforced Grant’s law and rescinded the injection well permit, last week. “Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter bans the injection of oil and gas waste fluids,” the DEP writes. “Therefore, the operation of the Yanity well as an oil and gas waste fluid injection well would violate that applicable law.”

Since 2014, Township residents have faced a variety of intimidation tactics, including lawsuits, from the corporation behind the injection well (Pennsylvania General Energy), the oil and gas industry, and their own state government and agencies. They have not backed down, even in the face of potential municipal bankruptcy. They have continued to assert and protect their community’s rights. 

“We are over the moon that the permit was rescinded,” said Grant Township Supervisor Vice-Chair Stacy Long. “However, we know the permit should never have been issued in the first place. We can’t forget that DEP sued us for three years, claiming our Charter was invalid. Now they cite that same Charter as a valid reason to deny the industry a permit. It’s hypocritical at best. Add this to the pile of reasons Grant Township did not trust the DEP to protect our environment, and why we’ve had to democratically work at the local level to protect our community.” 

“This decision does not validate the actions of the DEP, but rather vindicates the resistance that communities like Grant have engaged in to force governmental agencies into doing the right thing,” says CELDF Pennsylvania Organizer Chad Nicholson. “DEP has been acting in bad faith. I’m glad they revoked the permit. But it took them too long to do what all governments should be doing: enforcing democratically-enacted local laws that protect public health and safety.” 

Grant Township is aware that the industry and/or state agencies, such as DEP, may sue them again. As of today, there is no injection well in Grant Township.

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.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforces local Grant Township law in revoking permit for dangerous frack waste injection well

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 25, 2020

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

GRANT TOWNSHIP, INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA: In an extraordinary reversal, last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a frack waste injection well in Grant Township. DEP officials cited Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter banning injection wells as grounds for their reversal.

Injection wells are toxic sewers for the fracking industry that cause earthquakes, receive radioactive waste, and threaten drinking water and ecosystems. 

Township residents popularly adopted a Home Rule Charter (local constitution) in 2015 that contains a “Community Bill of Rights.” The Charter bans injection wells as a violation of the rights of those living in the township and recognizes rights of nature. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted in drafting the Charter.

In 2017, DEP issued a permit to legalize an injection well in Grant, and simultaneously sued the township. The agency claimed that Grant’s Home Rule Charter – which protects the local environment – interfered with the DEP’s authority to administer state oil and gas policy.

Yet, in a stunning about-face, DEP enforced Grant’s law and rescinded the injection well permit, last week. “Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter bans the injection of oil and gas waste fluids,” the DEP writes. “Therefore, the operation of the Yanity well as an oil and gas waste fluid injection well would violate that applicable law.”

Since 2014, Township residents have faced a variety of intimidation tactics, including lawsuits, from the corporation behind the injection well (Pennsylvania General Energy), the oil and gas industry, and their own state government and agencies. They have not backed down, even in the face of potential municipal bankruptcy. They have continued to assert and protect their community’s rights. 

“We are over the moon that the permit was rescinded,” said Grant Township Supervisor Vice-Chair Stacy Long. “However, we know the permit should never have been issued in the first place. We can’t forget that DEP sued us for three years, claiming our Charter was invalid. Now they cite that same Charter as a valid reason to deny the industry a permit. It’s hypocritical at best. Add this to the pile of reasons Grant Township did not trust the DEP to protect our environment, and why we’ve had to democratically work at the local level to protect our community.” 

“This decision does not validate the actions of the DEP, but rather vindicates the resistance that communities like Grant have engaged in to force governmental agencies into doing the right thing,” says CELDF Pennsylvania Organizer Chad Nicholson. “DEP has been acting in bad faith. I’m glad they revoked the permit. But it took them too long to do what all governments should be doing: enforcing democratically-enacted local laws that protect public health and safety.” 

Grant Township is aware that the industry and/or state agencies, such as DEP, may sue them again. As of today, there is no injection well in Grant Township.

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: Repressive Tactics Used to Attack Rights of Nature

by celdf

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate plaintiff demands $293,750 from City of Toledo for defending the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2020

CONTACT:

Tish O’Dell
Ohio Community Organizer
CELDF.org
tish@celdf.org
440-552-6775

Markie Miller, Organizer
Toledoans for Safe Water
SafeWaterToledo@gmail.com
419-665-3743

TOLEDO,OH: The international corporate law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, has filed a motion demanding $293,750 in corporate attorney fees from the City of Toledo, for its legal defense of the popular Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR).

Not only do corporate interests want to repress a democratically passed law that drives new protections for Lake Erie, they also want to punish the City of Toledo for siding with its own people in defending that law.

“LEBOR was enacted in response to a public water crisis. It established an enforceable human right to water,” says Markie Miller of Toledoans for Safe Water (TSW). “Now, as our government is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiffs are attempting to collect scarce and necessary taxpayer funds to punish us for defending our water. The corporate plaintiff did not suffer any direct harm from LEBOR and it was their decision to hire a law firm that charges over $500 per hour to sue the City after LEBOR was approved by voters. Most people cannot afford such high-priced legal counsel to defend their rights.”

Since CELDF began supporting Ohio communities in protecting themselves from fracking and other harms, Vorys, et.al. has represented other clients across the state to interfere in local democratic initiatives, and to obstruct the growing Rights of Nature and Community Rights movement. The law firm is now demanding money from a cash-strapped rustbelt city that is dealing with a profound public health crisis.

“I predict that the judge will realize that principles of local democracy and the City’s right and obligation to protect all the people will prevail over the plaintiff’s insistence on being rewarded for picking a fight that it had little reason for starting,” says Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) attorney Terry Lodge. CELDF assisted Toledo residents in drafting the measure and overcoming efforts to keep the initiative off the ballot in 2018.

“This is a blatant use of corporate privilege to divide the Toledo community, intimidate other communities, and deter local governments from defending the rights of ecosystems,” says Tish O’Dell, CELDF Organizer. “This demand for taxpayer money should be swiftly rejected by the court. In a democracy, people should be able to introduce new legal ideas to protect themselves, especially when their legislature fails them. The courts should be open to living persons and not just to ‘corporate persons.’”

The law firm’s actions threaten democracy and may intimidate people from asserting their constitutional right to initiate law. “People’s right to alter or reform the government that is failing to safeguard them is protected on paper — in our constitution — but it is clearly not allowed in reality. We need to structurally change our legal system,” said Cindy Matthews of TSW.

We stand with the City of Toledo, and against these intimidation tactics. And we stand with the community groups TSW and Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie. Their members worked tirelessly to pass LEBOR to protect the people of Toledo and Lake Erie.

The popular concept that Nature’s rights supersede the claimed rights of corporations is striking a nerve, evidenced by corporate attempts to stop it. People continue to rally for Lake Erie and Rights of Nature.

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.

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PRESS RELEASE: LAKE ERIE BILL OF RIGHTS AND RIGHTS OF NATURE ARGUED IN US FEDERAL COURT

by celdf

First time rights of a specific ecosystem are heard in federal court as City of Toledo defends the people’s historic law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2020

CONTACT:
Tish O’Dell, Ohio Community Organizer
CELDF.org
tish@celdf.org
440-552-6774

TOLEDO, OH: Last week, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was debated in federal court, where arguments were presented defending the right of Lake Erie to exist, flourish, and evolve, and residents’ right to clean water. The groundbreaking law was adopted by popular vote in Toledo one year ago, and immediately challenged by a purported agribusiness corporation.

The City of Toledo’s robust defense of LEBOR included arguments that no agriculture corporation has a constitutional right to pollute, and that the actions of Toledo residents are an emergency response to a heating planet:

“Industrial dumping and with some of the environmental issues and pollution caused by large scale agriculture…in combination with climate change, has put the citizens on notice that they feel that they are in an emergency situation as it relates to water quality and the need to protect their water, which is certainly a compelling and significant interest.”

“We are making headway,” stated Tish O’Dell, organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). “This is the first time the rights of a specific ecosystem were argued in a U.S. federal court. What we are seeing here is the beginning of a new phase for the movement, where more detailed and concrete questions of what it means to enforce the rights of nature get discussed in the broader culture. This is an idea whose time has come — regardless of the judge’s decision.”

Attorneys representing the corporate plaintiff, which seeks to overturn the democratically passed law, articulated the structural significance of LEBOR. They pointed out that LEBOR strips claimed corporate constitutional rights of business entities that violate the recognized rights, and embodies an empowered local democracy, where municipalities can expand human and ecosystem rights to build on state and federal protections.

Attorneys for the State of Ohio made the claim that the state has “ownership” of the Lake. This “ownership,” the state argued, is violated by the way LEBOR seeks to re-allocate the State’s power by allowing the City of Toledo, and any of its 276,000 residents, to bring an action to protect the Lake Erie ecosystem.

“This is exactly what the people are attempting to do. Why? Because the state has not fulfilled its responsibility to protect the people and waters of Ohio. They have repeatedly issued permits that protect the polluters and legalize harm to the Lake,” stated CELDF’s O’Dell. CELDF assisted residents in drafting the measure.

The court proceedings contained dramatic and entertaining moments. A corporate attorney feigned complete ignorance as to common word meanings within LEBOR:

“They are not common words with common or plain meanings. Natural water is ripe to multiple meanings….Community of organisms is also not defined. I have no idea what it means…Soil is even ripe for multiple interpretations….Section 1A [of LEBOR] purports to create, the rights to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. None of those phrases, terms, are defined anywhere in LEBOR…It’s undefined what it means to the right to exist…What does the right to flourish mean for soil?….Can you plant, or are you supposed to just let wild seed go wherever? Can you harvest the plants? Can you mow? Can you have a golf course?”

The City attorney replied:

“In response, Your Honor, I’d start by saying that this long list of subjected hypotheticals and fear of what may happen or potential liability, as described in the plaintiff’s complaint, does not establish Article III or prudential standing here. It further demonstrates not that the law is vague, but that the plaintiff doesn’t have standing to pursue the action. And life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have been litigated in terms of what those terms mean. It provides to citizens, and it includes things like a healthy and safe environment. In their brief Drewes Farms Partnership concedes…that protecting Lake Erie is a legitimate interest.”

“The plaintiff’s implied argument that ecological and scientific concepts are too complex for the courtroom exemplifies a larger challenge we face: bringing our laws in line with ecosystem health and science,” O’Dell added. “Let’s do this.”

A central point that emerged from the discussion was whether the plaintiff has been “harmed” by LEBOR. CELDF-affiliated attorney Terry Lodge, who consulted with the City of Toledo’s attorney, said, “this federal lawsuit should be dismissed and the people should get more chances to try to enforce LEBOR and try to define what it means.”

Markie Miller of Toledoans for Safe Water, the group behind the law, said, “I think it’s criminal what the state is trying to get away with, including saying that we have trampled the constitutional rights of a company seeking the right to pollute us.”

For a copy of the 55-page hearing transcript, email simon@celdf.org.

Link to a statement of support for LEBOR, signed by 1,000+ organizations and individuals: https://lakeerieaction.wixsite.com/safewatertoledo/support-lebor-1

Read more about the repressive response to LEBOR: https://celdf.org/in-plain-sight/

Link to court docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14573310/drewes-farm-partnership-v-city-of-toledo-ohio/

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.

First time rights of a specific ecosystem are heard in federal court as City of Toledo defends the people’s historic law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2020

CONTACT:
Tish O’Dell, Ohio Community Organizer
CELDF.org
tish@celdf.org
440-552-6774

TOLEDO, OH: Last week, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was debated in federal court, where arguments were presented defending the right of Lake Erie to exist, flourish, and evolve, and residents’ right to clean water. The groundbreaking law was adopted by popular vote in Toledo one year ago, and immediately challenged by a purported agribusiness corporation.

The City of Toledo’s robust defense of LEBOR included arguments that no agriculture corporation has a constitutional right to pollute, and that the actions of Toledo residents are an emergency response to a heating planet:

“Industrial dumping and with some of the environmental issues and pollution caused by large scale agriculture…in combination with climate change, has put the citizens on notice that they feel that they are in an emergency situation as it relates to water quality and the need to protect their water, which is certainly a compelling and significant interest.”

“We are making headway,” stated Tish O’Dell, organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). “This is the first time the rights of a specific ecosystem were argued in a U.S. federal court. What we are seeing here is the beginning of a new phase for the movement, where more detailed and concrete questions of what it means to enforce the rights of nature get discussed in the broader culture. This is an idea whose time has come — regardless of the judge’s decision.”

Attorneys representing the corporate plaintiff, which seeks to overturn the democratically passed law, articulated the structural significance of LEBOR. They pointed out that LEBOR strips claimed corporate constitutional rights of business entities that violate the recognized rights, and embodies an empowered local democracy, where municipalities can expand human and ecosystem rights to build on state and federal protections.

Attorneys for the State of Ohio made the claim that the state has “ownership” of the Lake. This “ownership,” the state argued, is violated by the way LEBOR seeks to re-allocate the State’s power by allowing the City of Toledo, and any of its 276,000 residents, to bring an action to protect the Lake Erie ecosystem.

“This is exactly what the people are attempting to do. Why? Because the state has not fulfilled its responsibility to protect the people and waters of Ohio. They have repeatedly issued permits that protect the polluters and legalize harm to the Lake,” stated CELDF’s O’Dell. CELDF assisted residents in drafting the measure.

The court proceedings contained dramatic and entertaining moments. A corporate attorney feigned complete ignorance as to common word meanings within LEBOR:

“They are not common words with common or plain meanings. Natural water is ripe to multiple meanings….Community of organisms is also not defined. I have no idea what it means…Soil is even ripe for multiple interpretations….Section 1A [of LEBOR] purports to create, the rights to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve. None of those phrases, terms, are defined anywhere in LEBOR…It’s undefined what it means to the right to exist…What does the right to flourish mean for soil?….Can you plant, or are you supposed to just let wild seed go wherever? Can you harvest the plants? Can you mow? Can you have a golf course?”

The City attorney replied:

“In response, Your Honor, I’d start by saying that this long list of subjected hypotheticals and fear of what may happen or potential liability, as described in the plaintiff’s complaint, does not establish Article III or prudential standing here. It further demonstrates not that the law is vague, but that the plaintiff doesn’t have standing to pursue the action. And life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have been litigated in terms of what those terms mean. It provides to citizens, and it includes things like a healthy and safe environment. In their brief Drewes Farms Partnership concedes…that protecting Lake Erie is a legitimate interest.”

“The plaintiff’s implied argument that ecological and scientific concepts are too complex for the courtroom exemplifies a larger challenge we face: bringing our laws in line with ecosystem health and science,” O’Dell added. “Let’s do this.”

A central point that emerged from the discussion was whether the plaintiff has been “harmed” by LEBOR. CELDF-affiliated attorney Terry Lodge, who consulted with the City of Toledo’s attorney, said, “this federal lawsuit should be dismissed and the people should get more chances to try to enforce LEBOR and try to define what it means.”

Markie Miller of Toledoans for Safe Water, the group behind the law, said, “I think it’s criminal what the state is trying to get away with, including saying that we have trampled the constitutional rights of a company seeking the right to pollute us.”

For a copy of the 55-page hearing transcript, email simon@celdf.org.

Link to a statement of support for LEBOR, signed by 1,000+ organizations and individuals: https://lakeerieaction.wixsite.com/safewatertoledo/support-lebor-1

Read more about the repressive response to LEBOR: https://celdf.org/in-plain-sight/

Link to court docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14573310/drewes-farm-partnership-v-city-of-toledo-ohio/

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.

Rights of Nature Podcast: Kai Huschke

by Outside Publication

Check out this interview with CELDF’s Hawaii and Northwest organizer, Kai Huschke, on CELDF’s partnerships with communities across the U.S. who have spearheaded the Rights of Nature movement.

Check out this interview with CELDF’s Hawaii and Northwest organizer, Kai Huschke, on CELDF’s partnerships with communities across the U.S. who have spearheaded the Rights of Nature movement.

Media Release: First Rights of Nature legislation introduced in Australia

by celdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Stacey Schmader
Administrative Director
Info@celdf.org
717-498-0054

AUSTRALIA: The first Rights of Nature legislation has been introduced in Australia, into the Western Australia Parliament. The International Center for the Rights of Nature assisted Member of Parliament Diane Evers and the Australian Earth Laws Alliance in drafting the bill.

Western Australia MP Evers recently introduced the “Rights of Nature and Future Generations Bill 2019” which will have a second reading this week.

The legislation would secure the Rights of Nature to “exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve,” and provide the people and government of Western Australia with the ability to defend and enforce these rights on behalf of Nature. The Bill recognises the rights of First Nations Peoples to speak for and defend their ancestral lands, as well as the Rights of Nature. The Bill also recognises the rights of present and future generations to a healthy environment, and includes a clause relating to the “precautionary principle” by stating that “lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for denying or postponing the implementation, defence, or enforcement” of the Rights of Nature.

A CELDF representative stated, “We congratulate MP Evers on her ground breaking legislation to protect the rights of nature. This is a critically important step to protect nature and shift away from a legal system which today authorizes environmental harm.”

MP Evers explained that, “This is a necessary step in protecting the future of our planet and future generations as the current system is not working. We continue to see environmental destruction and actions that ensure continuing climate impacts.”

Dr Michelle Maloney, of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance, stated, “Around the world, we are seeing an increasing number of Indigenous peoples, communities, and countries introducing Rights of Nature laws. These laws improve upon the current legal system, where nature is merely human property that can be used up until there’s nothing left. Rights of Nature laws redefine what environmental protection means: putting the health of the living world at the center of society, so that present and future generations of people and all other living beings can have a liveable, healthy and biodiverse planet to live on.”

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