Message From Mac Post, State Chair
November 2021
Rights of Nature
In the early 1980s a student that I hosted for the summer suggested a book that I should read – Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects by Christopher D. Stone. It was a small book, 4x7 inches, and 111 pages. I read it in one evening. I did not know what to make of this legal theory that set forth the case for inherent rights of ecosystems and species — rights as fundamental as the concept of human rights.
Stone’s essay first appeared in 1972 in the California Law Review while the case Sierra Club vs. Morton was pending in the United States Supreme Court. Stone wanted to influence the court’s consideration of the standing (meaning having legal rights) issues to prevent the Disney development of a mega-resort in the Mineral King Valley of Sequoia National Forest. The Sierra Club lost this case but subsequent legal maneuvering and publicity against the Mineral King Valley development led to Disney pulling out of the project and Mineral King Valley being added to the Sequoia National Park in 1978. The Mineral King Valley struggle is a cornerstone of modern environmental law.
Stone’s essay did, importantly, get referenced in Justice William Douglas’ dissent of the Sierra Club vs. Morton case. He argued that since an ordinary corporation is a ‘person’ for purposes of the law, the status of ‘person’ should logically extend to “valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology” and thereby be permitted standing.
Even though the Rights of Nature concept was bolstered by the support of a US Supreme Court justice and became a rallying point for the early environmental movement, this idea has been slow to gain traction. Finally, in 2006, the Borough of Tamaqua, a small community in Pennsylvania, passed a law that banned dumping of toxic sewage sludge as a violation of the Rights of Nature. In September 2008, the people of Ecuador voted to recognize the Rights of Nature in its constitution. In 2010, the City Council of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, passed an ordinance recognizing the Rights of Nature as part of a ban on shale gas drilling and fracking. In 2012, the government of New Zealand reached an agreement with local Maori people to recognize legal persona for the Whanganui River. In 2010, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature was formed. Since then, the pace of actions promoting the concept that nature has rights, and laws supporting legal standing, have steadily increased. For an up-to-date timeline see https://www.therightsofnature.org. Christopher Stone’s book is available in a new edition, expanded with recent information.
The notion that animal and plant species, watersheds, and natural ecosystems are equal partners to humans on this earth is only new to those of us who make environmental decisions based solely on monetary values. Indigenous peoples have long recognized that nature has inherent rights and have actively integrated that philosophy into their stewardship.
Time is running out to just preserve nature. Though much conservation has occurred, our natural environment continues to decline under the weight of human consumption. What is needed is a change in view of conservation as nature for itself or nature for people, to a “people and nature” framework (G.M. Mace 2014 Science 345, 1558-1560). This “people and nature” thinking emphasizes the importance of cultural structures and institutions for developing sustainable and resilient interactions between human societies and the natural environment. It includes our hopes and desires about the environment that we wish to live in and leave to our descendants. “People and nature” connects with other societal needs from the environment and results in more flexible policy because it has a broader focus. Understanding our essential relationship with nature, as indigenous people do, can help inform inclusive, actionable steps towards conservation for the future.