‘The Rights of Nature is still under the radar, but its rapid ascension is undeniable’
Interview to mark Earth Day 2022 with lawyer and Rights of Nature campaigner Grant Wilson
Earlier this year Panama took the formidable step of passing a national law specifically recognising the Rights of Nature, making it one of several pioneering countries around the world on this issue. These rights include the right to “exist, continue existing and regenerate life cycles”, to be protected against pollution, to keep water cycles functioning, to be free from contamination, to be restored effectively and in timely fashion, and to be biodiverse irrespective of “utilitarian value to human beings.”
The Earth Law Center (ELC), a US-based NGO, was involved in developing the new law and liaising with Panamanian legislators. Here, to mark Earth Day 2022, 22 April, is my interview with ELC executive director Grant Wilson, a long-standing Rights of Nature campaigner, about how the law came about, its significance and the rapidly burgeoning global Rights of Nature movement:
DH: So many questions! My first: I suspect many people might be wondering why this has happened in Panama, of all places. Is there any particular reason for that?
GW: Panama has incredible biodiversity, and many of its people have a deep relationship with Nature. So the idea of Nature having rights was not far-fetched, particularly considering that Latin America is the heart of the global Rights of Nature movement. Practically speaking, there were some key campaigners and politicians who made this happen, among them Callie Veelenturf, a young marine conservation biologist and National Geographer Explorer who originally introduced the idea to the Parliament after reading “The Rights of Nature” by David Boyd and becoming inspired that the concept could better protect endangered and critically endangered marine species. She was supported by Felipe Baker, a biology student and part of the Ngöbe-Buglé Indigenous community. A variety of advocacy groups provided expertise, including a team of experts from Earth Law Center, all young environmentalists in their 20s and 30s. On the political side, Congressman Juan Diego Vásquez Gutiérrez, Panama's youngest Congressperson at 26 years old, had the gumption to champion the Rights of Nature within Panama's National Assembly. As you see, most of the key players, at least initially, were pretty young - and I think as a new generation of leaders gain power, we’ll see bolder initiatives to protect the environment. Youth knows the system is broken, and they’re empowered to change it.
DH: I’m fascinated by how this idea was initially received by other legislators, apart from Juan Diego. Was there some astonishment or deep skepticism at first? Was it hard to win people over?
GW: I checked in with Congressman Juan Diego about this and he said that while it was very well received by all the young and indigenous legislators, there were many who asked during the debates if it would impact non-sustainable businesses like mining and others, and that there was one group who never understood the need for it at all. He told me: “We tried to minimize our effort so the bill didn’t attract a lot of attention before it was passed, so we did publicity and celebrated it only when it was signed by the President. It was hard to make some people understand. Many still mock me about why nature needs the recognition of its rights.”
DH: Some people might find it hard to imagine how this law will work in practice. Can you give us an example?
GW: Let’s say there is a huge mining project that would devastate a sensitive rainforest ecosystem, including significant impacts to rivers from reduced flows, pollution from metals and threats to a variety of animal populations. A court could choose to cancel the mining permits for violating Nature’s rights to exist, persist and regenerate its vital cycles, whereas traditional laws would often side against Nature since it is treated as mere human property. Or perhaps there is a law incentivising tree plantations and other monocultures, which displace native mangroves. The government might have to revise its statutes to disincentivise monocultures and restore mangroves to health in enforcement of their rights. In fact, both of these are real cases that happened last year in Ecuador, whose highest court has issued a series of landmark decisions in favour of the Rights of Nature. I think Panama can develop similar Earth-centered jurisprudence as it balances the scales of justice more squarely in favour of Nature.
DH: You described Latin America as “the heart of the global Rights of Nature movement.” I assume you’re thinking of Ecuador, Bolivia and now Panama, and I understand things are looking promising in Chile as well. Is that connected to their new, young president, Gabriel Boric Font?
GW: Yes, and I would add Colombia to the list too. Its courts have issued almost 20 Rights of Nature decisions despite lacking any formal recognition of these rights in national law. In Chile, the constitutional process was already underway before the presidential election in late 2021, but President Boric reaffirmed the process and certainly added momentum. Last month, Chile's Constitutional Convention incorporated the Rights of Nature into the working text of the Constitution. Now, the public will have the ultimate say when it votes to approve it or not.
DH: Do you think there is any particular reason why Latin America is so far in front, so to speak?
GW: Its enormous biodiversity is reflected in many of its cultural beliefs, such as the understanding that humans are part of Nature, not separate from it. This is fundamental to the Rights of Nature. Latin America also has a huge amount of harmful extractive industries - such as mining, gas and oil - that some people feel helpless against, and so the Rights of Nature can be seen as a way of protecting communities from ecological devastation where other laws have failed. Finally, I’d say that many people in Latin America have an activist’s spirit. Politicians in particular are willing to support new social and environmental movements in a way that would seem very brave or even unthinkable to some people in, let’s say, the United States. There are many other reasons, but those are a few.
DH: That leads on nicely to what my next question was going to be. Has the Rights of Nature gained much traction in the US?
GW: It has a long history and goes way back to the 1972 US Supreme Court case Sierra Club v. Morton, in which Justice Douglas argued that Nature should be able to sue for its own protection, just as humans have standing to defend their own interests. He made the point that corporations are “persons” for purposes of the law, so why not Nature too? Flash forward to the 2000s when local communities began passing ordinances establishing the Rights of Nature as a way to push back against polluting industries. While many of these laws turned out to be difficult to enforce without state or federal support, it helped spark a movement and now there are dozens of municipalities that recognize the Rights of Nature. Some of the communities I work with, alongside partners like Save the Colorado, are interested in how to give Nature a formal voice in local government, such as through a legal guardianship body that could act as the “human voice of nature.” These municipalities are also putting pressure on state lawmakers to embrace the Rights of Nature, which would unlock the ability of local governments to enforce these rights in a more effective way. In addition, some sovereign Tribal Nations are also leaders within the movement. For example, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yurok Tribe recognized the rights of the Snake River and Klamath River, respectively, based in part on their understanding that rivers are living entities. The idea of “rights” is still a Western concept, so it doesn’t fully encapsulate the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Nature, but it can still advance certain Indigenous understandings.
DH: And what about in the UK, my country?
GW: In the UK there are some wonderful groups advancing the Rights of Nature, such as Nature’s Rights, Lawyers for Nature, the Gaia Foundation and EarthThrive. One recent campaign is to establish legal rights for the River Frome, and I am optimistic it could be successful. Also, a council in Northern Ireland recognized the Rights of Nature last year. The US and UK share a legacy of colonial legal systems, so how cool would it be if they could start to unravel that through the Rights of Nature and other progressive legal movements.
DH: All this seems to constitute a significant challenge, to put it mildly, to the way our economies are run and mainstream business practices, among other things. Is that how you see it? If so, how would you describe the magnitude of that challenge?
GW: The law permits us to destroy Nature and the economic system encourages us to do so. It’s a massive problem, as big as any we face. By and large, economic systems prioritize GDP above all else, including the planet’s future. For example, portfolio.earth found that in 2019 banks invested $2.6 trillion in sectors fuelling the destruction of biodiversity. For the most part, this is completely legal - in fact, it is expected since we treat Nature as a commodity, a subset of the all-encompassing economic system. Luckily, there are possible solutions: new economic paradigms such as ecological economics, eliminating subsidies for industries such as fossil fuels and livestock, adopting new indicators of well-being besides GDP, incentivizing goods and services that are restorative of the planet, and so forth. They are just being implemented too slowly. We also need to start holding governments, financial institutions, and corporations legally accountable for bankrolling the destruction of Nature.
DH: Are you aware of any pushback or counterattack against the Rights of Nature movement, as there has been with climate change and the environmental movement in general?
GW: Yes, there is pushback, and it will increase as the Rights of Nature grows. In the US, some state legislators have enacted bans on local Rights of Nature laws, such as in Florida. Many argue that Nature’s rights are inherent - so governments shouldn’t be able to ban these rights, just as they shouldn’t be able to limit human rights. I think this pushback only serves to energize grassroots supporters: proof of that might be a recent state-level proposal to recognize the Rights of Nature in New York.
DH: What is the latest with trying to get Rights of Nature incorporated into the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which is currently being drafted? I understand that language on Rights of Nature was included in one version of the draft, but was then removed, and you and others have been fighting to have it put back in.
GW: Parties to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity are finalizing a framework to guide that treaty’s implementation for the next 10 years. An earlier draft showed support for countries to “Consider and recognize, where appropriate, the Rights of Nature.” We were thrilled, because even though it is a soft, non-obligatory line, even mentioning Rights of Nature in a treaty signed by nearly every country in the world helps bring massive awareness and support for the movement. But alas, the next draft omitted the line. We’ve been fighting for the Rights of Nature to be reintroduced to the text ever since, while supporting other line edits that would address root causes of the biodiversity crisis. Parties to the treaty certainly won’t achieve their goal of living in harmony with Nature by 2050 without challenging the status quo. The final text will be negotiated in Kunming, China.
DH: My penultimate question! How big a part do you think the Rights of Nature movement has to play in addressing broader, global environmental struggles and climate crises? It’s not as high-profile as moving off fossil fuels, protecting forests, recognising indigenous peoples’ and other local communities’ land rights, re-wilding, agroecology, geo-engineering etc etc.
GW: The Rights of Nature is still a bit under the radar, but its rapid ascension is undeniable: in hardly more than a decade, it has become an emerging reality in nearly 20 countries, with movements bubbling up in dozens more, and it is beginning to earn mainstream attention. One of the exciting things about it is that it accelerates many of the other movements you mentioned. For example, in Colombia, courts have linked the Rights of Nature to the rights of future generations, bio-cultural rights of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, and human environmental rights. They are all interconnected. Courts have also ordered the restoration of ecosystems, such as forests, and cancelled mining concessions based on the Rights of Nature. In the longer term, the Rights of Nature can also serve as a gateway to other paradigms that go beyond “rights” and deconstruct colonial legal systems entirely. Or so I hope.
DH: I still have so many questions - e.g. on definitions of and ideas about nature and rights, Chile, your next steps, how you see yourselves in comparison to other rights movements, and so on - but I think we’ve run out of time and so this should be my last. And it’s a personal one. You’ve been working for the Rights of Nature for years now. How did you personally get into it? Was there a sudden epiphany, or was it more gradual?
GW: In 2008 gray wolves were confirmed to be living in Washington State for the first time since the 1930s, when they had been trapped, hunted and poisoned to death. That same year, I was extremely lucky to be interning with a group called Conservation Northwest that promoted wolf recovery in that region - it was a super exciting time for everyone there. I became inspired by the idea that we could still restore species and ecosystems to health. It wasn’t too late. That stuck in my brain as I went to law school. Then, in 2013, I discovered Earth Law Center, founded by a Dominican Sister and environmental lawyer named Pat Sieman, and quickly learned that the Rights of Nature movement is all about Nature’s restoration as opposed to merely limiting its decline - “environmental damage control” isn’t a very effective strategy. I joined the team, learned a lot from some visionary leaders in the space, then became executive director a few years ago. I’m also constantly inspired by backpacking trips and hot springs soaks, when I do my best thinking.
DH: Grant, thank you so much.