time for a nature’s rights movement

Mister! he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I’m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs–
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed–
What’s that THING you’ve made out of my Truffula tuft?
- from The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, 1971

Isn’t it time - no, isn’t it way past the time - to grant the trees (and rivers, streams, oceans and prairies) a legal voice of at least the strength we grant our unnatural inventions such as corporations?

Such is the position taken by Cormac Cullinan in his essay, “If Nature Had Rights“, published in the January | February Orion Magazine.

Instead of the legal system such as we have today, where ecological decisions are made and challenged primarily in consideration of whether correct procedures have been followed, “consider how much greater the prospects of survival would be for most life on Earth if mechanisms existed for imposing collective responsibility and liability on human communities and for restoring damaged relations with the larger natural community.”

Cullinan recalls the ideas of then USC law professor Christopher Stone who, over three decades ago played ’spoze in his classroom: “What would a radically different law-driven consciousness look like? … One in which nature had rights … rivers, lakes, trees … How could such a posture in law affect a community’s view of itself?” Judging from the reaction he got from his class, it seems professor Stone might as well of been Dr. Seuss, writing of some sort of childish make-believe world, disconnected from the real world in which trees, rivers and such “are objects, not subjects, in the eyes of the law are are by definition incapable of holding rights.”

The Orion article goes on to briefly chronicle Stone’s efforts to change the law, including reference to his seminal legal essay, “Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects“, in which he makes compelling linkages between historical expansion and evolution of laws such as “the emancipation of slaves and the extension of civil rights to African Americans, women and children (that were all) once rejected as absurd or dangerous by authorities.”

While influential in a limited (though not unsubstantial) sense in US law, the courts have not recognized that Nature has directly enforceable rights. Thus, Earth remains property - resources to be bought and sold - and actions that damage or degrade her ability to maintain the ecosystems and natural processes upon which life depends are, at best, poorly regulated.

Here Cullinan points out the particular absurdity that while turning a blind eye to Nature, “in the eyes of the law, corporations are people and entitled to civil rights.”

But, at last, the times they may be a-changing. In September, 2006, a Pennsylvania county passed an sewage sludge ordinance recognizing “natural communities and ecosystems within the borough as legal persons for the purposes of enforcing civil rights… This ordinance marks the first time in the history of municipalities in the United States that something like this has happened.” Alongside a few other examples around the globe, Cullinan calls this the emergence of “Earth Democracy”, a term popularized by author, physicist and an organic farmer Vandana Shiva.

I’ve also been making my way through (albeit rather slowly) Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems, a collection of essays, research, analysis and case studies from a broad range of contributors aimed at “producing a rigorous, detailed synthesis of our current understanding of a suite of ecosystem services and a preliminary assessment of their economic value.” While I admit to being slowed down by some of the academic nature and science-heavy style of writing pervasive throughout much of the book, I am greatly appreciative of this effort and am gathering a sense for myself of how to approach and understand the intersections of ecology and economics. Four central points that Nature’s Services espouses:

1. We know enough now to understand in broad brush that ecosystem services are essential for human life today and for the future.
2. For engineering to replace the services that ecosystems provide, even if not completely beyond current capability, is prohibitively expensive.
3. Our scientific and economic understanding of the true dimensions of nature’s services is “appallingly shallow”.
4. The combination of ignorance and import dictate caution. Don’t risk everything on the first chance. (As is the tendency, I would add, when we misappropriate nature’s services as things to be exploited for moment-to-moment human-centric interests.)

Our scientific understanding of Nature has advanced greatly in recent times. Over the past couple years, we’ve seen the political climate warm and ripen to the need for new policies. So too, primary and secondary education is beginning to develop curriculum consistent with a living systems view of the world. Now is the time for our legal systems to catch up and become requisite with the world as we know it.