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Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature
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Newsletters
Nov 5, 2014
Community Bills of Rights advance on Election Day 2014, with a record number of initiatives on the ballot, and a growing number of communities determined to drive those rights forward.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 5, 2014
Athens, OH, residents overwhelmingly adopt a Community Bill of Rights banning fracking wastewater disposal, as a violation of their rights to clean air, water, and the right to local self-government.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsOct 17, 2014
The COCRN calls for support to advance the Colorado Community Rights Amendment for the state wide ballot in 2015. Check out their fundraising video on INDIEGOGO.
Read More | UncategorizedJul 11, 2014
A simple ban on GMOs in Hawai’i County misses addressing our structure of law and governance that allows GMOs at all. To successfully stop them, ordinances are needed that challenge that structure and remove corporate claimed “rights” to plant GMOs against community wishes.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 21, 2014
Denver, Colorado, January 20, 2014 – The Colorado Community Rights Network (COCRN) has submitted to the state for review and comment the language for a Community Rights Constitutional Amendment to be placed on the 2014 ballot.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsSep 16, 2013
On September 12th, community members from eight Oregon counties gathered in Corvallis, Oregon, to launch the Oregon Community Rights Network (ORCRN).
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMay 19, 2013
The New Hampshire Community Rights Network signs the Barnstead Declaration, stating their intention to provide education for a statewide call for legislative and constitutional changes recognizing the right to local self-government and the Rights of Nature.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsMay 8, 2013
Trisha Mandes speaks to the deficiencies of U.S. food activism and proposes an adaptive way forward. Trisha has worked with community-based food projects in Oregon and Pennsylvania and is now pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Health Nutrition and Sustainable Development at the University of Eastern Finland.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 28, 2013
A Pennsylvania Judge Holds That Corporations Are Not “Persons” Under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsNov 6, 2012
Today, the residents of Broadview Heights banned fracking from within the City limits through a Community Bill of Rights Charter Amendment. The amendment established the right to clean air and water, and the right to local self-government, banning fracking as a violation of those rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the Grassroots, Success StoryAug 7, 2012
SPOKANE: In late July, citizens from Washington communities gathered in Spokane to launch the Washington Community Rights Network (WCRN). Network members released The Spokane Declaration, calling upon communities across the state to join together in a movement to elevate the rights of people, their communities, and nature above the claimed rights of corporations….The creation of the Washington Community Rights Network comes out of active community campaigns on both sides of the Cascades.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 7, 2012
Washington Communities Launch Statewide Network to Advocate for Community Rights.
Read More | UncategorizedApr 15, 2012
In front of a standing-room only crowd of residents, by a vote of 3-1, the City Council, Las Vegas, New Mexico enacted the Las Vegas Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsNov 8, 2011
By a vote of 72% in favor, the people of the Borough of State College, home of Penn State University, adopted an amendment to their home rule charter that constitutionalizes a Local Bill of Rights, and protects those rights by prohibiting natural gas extraction and associated activities.
Read More | Community WiresJun 17, 2010
Monroe enacts local law asserting that the right of people to govern in their community is superior to legal claims that corporations are “persons” with constitutional rights.
Read More | UncategorizedApr 27, 2010
The Mount Shasta City Council voted unanimously Monday evening to order a special report on the Mt. Shasta Community Water Rights and Self-Governance Ordinance, which would prevent corporations from cloud seeding and bulk water extraction within Mount Shasta city limits.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 16, 2024
The “Exist, Flourish, Evolve” art show will be held at The Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and will focus on Rights of Nature and the Great Lakes in particular.
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureSep 1, 2022
As Chilean voters are poised to go to the polls this coming Sunday, September 4, to hopefully become the second country in the world to include recognition of the Rights of Nature (RON) in their national constitution, it is obvious just by reading a few headlines in any given week that more countries need to embrace and follow Chile’s lead.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureAug 16, 2022
CELDF will be leading a workshop on dismantling corporate privilege and elevating local-self determination in the context of evolving legal rights of nature. CELDF will also be part of a panel titled “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands: How Do We Operationalize These Rights?” with international colleagues from the Rights of Wetlands working group.
Read More | EventsMay 19, 2022
Our communities deserve more than just the right to Clean Water; our entire ecosystem, our Mother Earth depends on us to end the poisoning. It seems to me we need to recognize the Rights of Nature, and make it illegal to poison Earth and her inhabitants.
Read More | Chemical Trespass, Community Wires, Corporate Agriculture, Issues, Rights of NatureMar 10, 2022
The Lake Erie Bill of Rights and CELDF are influencing Bower’s work on Rights of Nature.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureMar 1, 2022
Jim Hightower mentions CELDF in his publication on the growing Rights of Nature movement and the importance of protecting the health and survivability of ecosystems worldwide.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsNov 2, 2021
Would recognizing Rights of Nature affect you, the community and possibly the planet? Instead of looking at nature as mere property and as resources, what if we shifted the lens and the law to recognizing nature as living and therefore entitled to rights to life, to flourish and thrive?
Read More | Events, Rights of NatureMay 22, 2021
Christopher Stone, the environmental scholar who championed fundamental rights of nature died at 83 on May 14, 2021. Stone was a legal scholar who argued in 1972 that trees, rivers, oceans and Nature itself possess fundamental legal rights, an argument that entered the bedrock of the modern environmental movement.
Read More | News, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureOct 21, 2020
Lisa Burroughs for Ashtabula County Water Watch interviews CELDF’s Tish O’Dell on the Rights of Nature Movement in an October 2020 edition of North Coast Voice Magazine.
Read More | Community Rights, Community Wires, Issues, News from the Grassroots, Rights of NatureAug 27, 2020
From Executive Producer Mark Ruffalo comes the world’s first documentary film on the Rights of Nature Movement. Attend the virtual world premiere followed by a panel discussion around the Rights of Nature Movement.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 25, 2020
PRESS RELEASE: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection enforces local Rights of Nature law. Allows Grant Township to protect vital waterways in revoking permit for dangerous frack waste injection well.
Read More | UncategorizedDec 10, 2019
LEBOR activists exchanged views with The Guardian on Rights of Nature and human rights. Here, they make clear the need to recognize that it is not nature’s rights vs human rights, but those combined against corporate claimed rights.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsSep 19, 2019
CELDF stands with Youth Climate Strike as they demand systemic change, including legal Rights of Nature.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryMay 18, 2018
On May 16, 2018, a CELDF representative presented at the PPT on fracking as a violation of the Rights of Nature and the human right to a healthy environment.
Read More | News from the Grassroots, Success StoryMar 24, 2017
This week the High Court of Uttarakhand, a state in India, recognized the personhood rights of the River Ganga and River Yumana – a step towards recognizing the rights of nature to exist and flourish.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryAug 11, 2015
Highland Township in Elk County, PA, adopted a Community Bill of Rights Ordinance in January 2013, codifying the community’s rights to clean air, water, the rights of nature, and to local self-governance – and banning fracking wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 24, 2012
Sidsel Overgaard of KUNM, New Mexico’s Community Powered Public Radio, interviews CELDF’s Thomas Linzey about elevating community rights and rights of nature above corporate “rights” to protect local communities and ecosystems.
Read More | UncategorizedDec 6, 2010
“Democracy Matters” Podcast for the week of Dec 6: Featuring Part I of our interview with Professor Christopher Stone, author of “Should Trees Have Standing?” on Rights of Nature
Read More | UncategorizedSep 30, 2010
“Democracy Matters” New Podcast for September 30, 2010 – Raw Milk and the FDA, the Tea Party – new party or just the new “right” of the Republican Party, and Bill Twist on Rights of Nature.
Read More | UncategorizedSep 2, 2008
Ecuador citizens are poised to vote on the adoption of the world’s first Constitution recognizing the Rights of Nature.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsNov 6, 2024
The essays in Wouldn’t You Say? ask challenging questions about modern society, our relationship to each other, and to the natural world. Order Your Copy Today!
Read More | News from the Grassroots, PublicationsSep 17, 2024
Feature photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash Opposing harmful industrial projects – like mines, aerial pesticide spraying, factory farms, or toxic waste disposal facilities – is scary and difficult work. Feeling this fear and confronting the difficulty of the work, it is tempting to cling to false, but comforting beliefs that the communities we belong to… Read more »
Read More | BlogsAug 6, 2024
On August 2, 2014, Toledo residents awoke to government alerts to not drink, bathe, use or touch the water coming out of their taps. The water could make adult humans very sick and even worse for babies, children, and anyone with compromised immune systems. Fish, animals, and plants weren’t even considered. What was clear though,… Read more »
Read More | News, Rights of NatureMay 8, 2024
Feature photo by Brian Yurasits FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 7, 2024 Contact: Tish O’Dell tish@celdf.org 440-552-6774 Terry Lodge, Attorney CELDF tjlodge50@yahoo.com 419-205-7084 Athens Local Businesses Support Rights of Nature and the City’s Plastic Bag Ban in Amicus Curiae OHIO, Athens County – CELDF has filed an amicus brief in Athens County, Ohio Common Pleas Court… Read more »
Read More | Press ReleasesApr 29, 2024
Book cover design by Sabrina Bedford, cover photo by Julie Dermansky Thursday, May 16 from 2-3:30 pm at moCa Cleveland in Cleveland, OH CELDF and moCa Cleveland invite you to this Cleveland stop on author and journalist Justin Nobel’s Book Tour of his just-published book Petroleum-238 on the dangers to all of us and nature from the… Read more »
Read More | Events, Extraction & Pollution, Rights of NatureMar 27, 2024
Testimony of a Community Organizer CELDF’s Consulting Director, Tish O’Dell, submitted her testimony, “Am I an Activist?” to the 2024 Spring Activism Peace Chronicle publication. Tish has been involved in community rights and Rights of Nature work starting in her own community of Broadview Heights, Ohio, which led to the adoption of Ohio’s first Home… Read more »
Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Rights of Nature, Water PrivitizationFeb 2, 2024
Developed through an ongoing partnership with CELDF Exist, Flourish, Evolve is a new, multi-site, multimedia campaign that builds awareness and action around the dangers facing Lake Erie and the Great Lakes ecosystem.
Read More | Press Releases, Rights of NatureNov 6, 2023
We need you to help us partner with others in fostering a culture and governing system that is all about community-based governing authority in the name of right relationship with Nature. We invite you to apply today!
Read More | News, ResourcesOct 25, 2023
On October 16, 2023 CELDF hosted Part 1 of Truth, Reckoning & Right Relationship for the Great Lakes, Nature, and each other at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Set on the shoreline of Lake Erie, over 70 invited guests were witness to Part 1: Truth and Reckoning of a two-part… Read more »
Read More | Events, Rights of Nature
