Nature Rights

What would you think if a river, lake, forest, or even a rock formation sued you for encroaching on their territory and violating their rights as persons? That is exactly what the nature rights movement wants to happen.

Don’t laugh. This is not as far-fetched as it seems. In fact, nature may sue you in at least 17 countries, including 30 municipalities in the United States.

Be careful, that thorn bush you cut down may take you to court!

Of course, the thorn bush itself can’t sue you. But a radical environmentalist, another human being, can sue you on behalf of nature.

Why Nature Rights?

Those supporting nature rights believe:

An ecosystem is entitled to legal personhood status. And as such, has the right to defend itself in a court of law against harms, including environmental degradation caused by a specific development project or even by climate change. The Rights of Nature law recognizes that an ecosystem has the right to exist, flourish, regenerate its vital cycles, and naturally evolve without human-caused disruption. Furthermore, when an ecosystem is declared a “subject of rights,” it has the right to legal representation by a guardian — much like a charitable trust designates a trustee — who will act on their behalf and in their best interest. This guardian is typically an individual or a group of individuals well versed in the care and management of said ecosystem.”

What are Nature Rights?

For many environmentalists, nature rights take on a quasi-religious aura. For example, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature believes the following.

(1) Mother Earth is a living being.

(2) Mother Earth is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.

(3) Each being is defined by its relationships as an integral part of Mother Earth.

(4) The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.

Additionally, here is another example from the Universal Declaration of River Rights. This document asserts that “all rivers are living entities that possess legal standing in a court of law” and that “all rivers shall possess, at minimum, the following fundamental rights:”

(1) The right to flow.

(2) The right to perform essential functions within its ecosystem.

(3) The right to be free from pollution.

(4) The right to feed and be fed by sustainable aquifers.

(5) The right to native biodiversity; and

(6) The right to restoration.

So, what? Isn’t Nature Rights Just a Wacko Idea?

While you might expect this from radical environmentalists and anti-capitalists who fear the destruction of our ecology, care not for the way their actions harm others.

If you are thinking they are alone, you are wrong.

Indeed, many nations, including at least 30 municipalities in the United States take it seriously.

Consequently, academic recognition of the movement is gaining. Consider this from a recent scholarly article:

Inspired by indigenous views of nature, a movement to grant a form of legal “personhood” to rivers is gaining some ground — a key step, advocates say, in reversing centuries of damage inflicted upon the world’s waterways. 

Clearly, the intellectual mainstream increasingly accepts the idea of nature rights and are not just a fringe meme.

Nature Rights & Animal Rights

Closely related to the nature rights movement is the animal rights movement.

First, a definition of animal rights:

Supporters of animal rights believe that animals have an inherent worth—a value completely separate from their usefulness to humans. We believe that every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal rights is not just a philosophy—it is a social movement that challenges society’s traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.”

Here are some examples.

Spanish parliament approves ‘human rights’ for apes

Great apes should have the right to life and freedom, according to a resolution passed in the Spanish parliament, in what could become landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos.

Orangutan with human rights to begin new life in Florida

An orangutan which spent 20 years in an Argentine zoo is being moved to a US animal sanctuary after being granted the same legal rights as humans.

Lawyers won a landmark appeal for Sandra in 2014, arguing she was being detained in Buenos Aires illegally.

The ruling found her to be Argentina’s first “nonhuman person, with the right to liberty”.

The 33-year-old arrived in Kansas on Friday and will undergo tests before moving to her new home in Florida.

Judge Elena Liberatori – who has a picture of Sandra in her office – told AP news agency she wanted her ruling to send a message: “That animals are sentient beings and that the first right they have is our obligation to respect them.”

Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists.

Dolphins should be treated as non-human “persons”, with their rights to life and liberty respected, scientists meeting in Canada have been told.

Experts in philosophy, conservation and animal behaviour want support for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans.

Where Have Nature Rights the Law?

Over 30 United States cities and municipalities, including Santa Monica and Pittsburgh, have also granted rights to nature.

In 2014, an Argentinian court issued a writ of habeas corpus for an orangutan, declaring the animal to be a “non-human person” that had been “deprived of liberty” and requiring the animal’s release from a zoo to a primate sanctuary.

Four rivers have been granted rights – three by court orders (including the Amazon and Ganges) – while the New Zealand Parliament declared the Whanganui River to be an “integrated, living whole” possessing “rights and interests.” In the United States, the Colorado River was named as a litigant in a lawsuit but later withdrawn. Meanwhile, in two separate cases, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cetaceans and monkeys are entitled to Article III Constitutional standing in court – that is, they are entitled to bring federal suits if they can demonstrate harm – albeit the specific cases were dismissed due to statutory considerations. Even former Secretary- General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon declared his support for the idea.

Pittsburgh’s ordinance states that “[n]atural communities and ecosystems, including but not limited to, wetlands, rivers, streams, aquifers, and other water systems, possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish within the city of Pittsburgh.”

The Latest Advance of Nature Rights in the United States

 

‘Great Lakes Bill of Rights’ Legislation Introduced in New York

Happening now!

The “nature rights” movement continues to advance — as most people still think the proposal too ridiculous to take seriously. That’s a mistake, because the radicals who are pushing this agenda are determined to see it become the law — as it already is in three nations and more than 30 U.S. municipalities.

Now, a bill has been introduced in New York that would create a “Great Lakes Bill of Rights.” From AB 3604 (my emphasis): The Great Lakes, and the watersheds that drain into the Great Lakes and their connecting channels, shall possess the unalienable and fundamental rights to exist, persist, flourish, naturally evolve, regenerate and be restored by culpable parties, free from human violations of these rights and unencumbered by legal privileges vested in property, including corporate property.

The Great Lakes ecosystem shall include all natural water features, communities of organisms, soil as well as terrestrial and aquatic sub ecosystems that are part of the Great Lakes and their watersheds and connecting channels. Indeed, it could also restrict fishing, recreation, sewage treatment, farming, and flood control, among an almost unquantifiable number of human uses that would be affected. For that matter, granting rights to “all natural water features” would disallow electricity-generating dams and the creation of harbors.

Why We Don’t Need Nature Rights

First, human rights, the rights associated with human personhood, are, according to God’s Word, reserved for human beings created in God’s image.

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27 ESV)

Humans are God’s unique creation. Only we have rights. But, with those rights comes responsibility.

Second, God commands us to be good stewards of the earth. This also allows humans to use the natural world to enhance human flourishing while engaging in proper environmental policies and practices.

Third, nature rights are unnecessary to environmental protection. Wesley J. Smith comments:

We can provide robust safeguards for the environment without the subversion of granting rights outside the human realm. Yellowstone National Park, for example, is one of the great wonders of the world. It has been splendidly protected since 1872, when made a national park, and in a manner that has both protected its pristine beauty and allowed people to enjoy its incredible marvels – without declaring Old Faithful geyser a “person” entitled to enforceable rights.

The Harm of Nature Rights

Nature rights deny human exceptionalism.

First, human beings have equal and inherent moral value simply and merely because we are human–a worth that exceeds that of all other life forms–a concept known as the sanctity of life ethic.

Human exceptionalism also appeals to our exclusive capacity for moral agency. Only human beings have duties—to ourselves, each other and our posterity–to be responsible stewards of the environment and to leave a verdant world to those who come after us.

From the same essay, here are some other ways the creation of nature rights is harmful to humanity. Please consult the essay for more details.

They devalue the vibrancy of rights.

Nature rights would cause profound harm to human thriving.

Nature rights would be incapable of nuanced.

 

Wesley J. Smith gives his list of the harm of nature rights. (Please note in the following quotation “Me” is Wesley J. Smith.)

1) “Eliminate the authority of a property owner to destroy, or cause substantial harm to, natural communities and ecosystems.”

Me: Nature rights is Marxist in its intentions. This would essentially destroy the rights of private property.

2) Accord “inherent, inalienable, and fundamental rights of Nature to all Natural Beings” including humans and “all living species of plants, animals, and algae.

Me: Humans are just another virus in the forest.

3) Include a Statement of Law that “All Natural beings, Natural Communities and Ecosystems possess the inalienable right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve”

Me: A right to life for nature would stop human enterprise and resource development in its tracks.

4) Declare that “The Precautionary Principle Is Needed To Protect These Rights”

Me: The PP assumes that if something even has the slightest, hypothetical chance of going wrong, it must not be done. Another way to stop humans from engaging in enterprises and resource development.

5) Find that “It shall be unlawful for any person, government entity, corporation (etc) to intentionally or recklessly violate the rights of Natural Beings, Natural Communities or Ecosystems”

Me: This comes close to a law of ecocide that would criminalize development.

6) Enforce “Damages” measured by the cost of restoring the Natural Community or Ecosystem to its [original] state before the injury. Notice that there need be no pollution.

Me: Requiring any user of nature to restore it to its original condition is intended to chill any uses of nature.

Why Should We Care About the Nature Rights Movement?

First, because it demeans lessens the value of human life. And this kind of thinking plays into the hands of those who advocate for the culture of death. Abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human experimentation. If rivers and rocks have the same rights as humans, human life is not sacred.

Second, it makes nature an idol to be worshipped in the place of God, its Creator.

Third, the nature rights movement’s radical approach to the environment twists God’s mandate to be good stewards of the Earth and thus misdirects and confuses well-meaning people who care about ecology.

Finally, by putting nature on equal legal footing with humanity, it restricts and eliminates the proper use of natural resources needed for human flourishing. God gave us the Earth, told us to be good stewards of all the Earth contains, as use it to benefit his special creation, humankind.

What Can We Do About It?

First, know what is happening. This post is a beginning. Check the articles I’ve linked to and follow them to more information.

Next, pay attention to natural rights related legislation locally, state-wide, and nationally. And let your representatives know where you stand.

Let Me Know What You Think?

Do you agree or disagree with the nature rights movement?

Would you find it helpful to get more information about nature rights in future posts?

Thank you for your thoughts.

God bless you and yours.