Ecuador’s New Law of Nature
Dear HumanDHS network friends
Please find below an introduction and link to an article on a new initiative in Ecuador.
Kind regards
Brian Ward
The Guardian: Ecuador’s New Law of Nature
A new law of nature
Ecuador next week votes on giving legal rights to rivers, forests and air.
Is this the end of damaging development? The world is watching
Clare Kendall
The Guardian <http://www.guardian
.co.uk/theguardian>, Wednesday September 24 2008
The South American republic of Ecuador will next week consider what many
countries in the world would say is unthinkable. People will be asked to
vote on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Ecuador’s tropical
forests, islands, rivers and air similar legal rights to those normally
granted to humans. If they vote yes - and polls show that 56% are for and
only 23% are against - then an already approved bill of rights for nature
will be introduced, and new laws will change the legal status of nature from
being simply property to being a right-bearing entity.
The proposed bill states: “Natural communities and ecosystems possess the
unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights
shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all
Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those
rights.”
Thomas Linzey, a US lawyer who has helped to develop the new legal framework
for nature, says: “The dominant form of environmental protection in
industrialised countries is based on the regulatory system. Governments
permit and legalise the discharge of certain amounts of toxics into the
environment. As a form of environmental protection, it’s not working.
“In the same way, compensation is measured in terms of that injury to a
person or people. Under the new system, it will be measured according to
damage to the ecosystem. The new system is, in essence, an attempt to codify
sustainable development. The new laws would grant people the right to sue on
behalf of an ecosystem, even if not actually injured themselves.”
Environmental campaigner Zoe Tryon, of the Pachamama Alliance, which has
worked closely with Ecuador’s assembly, claims that the proposed new laws
will make Ecuador’s constitution “the most progressive in the world”, and
argues that such laws will prevent this situation from arising again. “It’s
too late for the Chevron case, but it will be an effective deterrent for
similar operations,” she says.
The laws would have particular relevance in the Yasuni national park, one of
the world’s most biodiverse areas and home to at least two “uncontacted”
Amazonian tribes. It is also “home” to a possible 1.2bn barrels of untapped
crude oil, which companies want to extract.
“The hope is that the new laws will give us unprecedented legal muscle to
protect areas like this where there are competing interests,” says Linda
Siegele, a lawyer for the UK-based Foundation for International
Environmental Law and Development.
Linzey admits that Ecuador may be taking a step into the legal unknown. “No
one knows what will happen [if the referendum goes in favour of new rights
for nature] because there are no examples of how this works in the real
world,” he says. “A lot of people will be watching what happens.”
To read the full story click on http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/24/equador.conservation/