05/13/2017
Note that the Rights of Nature model places humans within the circle of natural systems. As John Ikerd, professor emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics at the University of Missouri Columbia, said at the PIIRS Global Systemic Risk in Agriculture conference at PU in 2014 (https://youtu.be/wGoTI_zqL4c?t=1851): "We are still as dependent on the productivity of the Earth – the soil, what comes from that Earth, and the farmers, the plants, the animals - as we were when we were hunters and gatherers. Our dependency is just more complex and less direct so we don’t realize it. Everything of use to us comes from the Earth. There’s no place to get anything else. The soil, the air, the water, the energy – it all comes from the Earth. And beyond self-sufficiency, it comes through our interactions with other people; it comes from society. And when we destroy the productivity of the resources of the Earth – their functionality and effectiveness – and lose our ability to get along within society, we’ve destroyed economic sustainability; we’ve destroyed our food system and we’ve destroyed our civilization. The problem? As an economist with 30 years and four different universities and still going, the fundamental problem is that we are concerned primarily about economic value. Economic value is individual, instrumental and impersonal. As a consequence it makes no economic sense to do something solely for the benefit of society as a whole. And it makes no economic sense to invest in anything for the sole benefit of those people of future generations.
The more we focus on economics, the further we move from sustainability. The human cost of this is inequity, poverty, hunger, ill health, lack of nutrition, lack of sustainability, we see it all across society. We can address these challenges. We can reduce risk. We’re doing it in many areas. It will take a fundamentally different world view, organismic rather than materialistic: a holistic rather than of a mechanistic, reductionist approach to science. We have to move toward systems that are diverse, dispersed, and decentralized. These are fundamental principles of nature. We’re a part of nature, we can’t deny the basic principles of nature."
From the piece: Recognising nature as a legal stakeholder with inalienable rights in environmental law proceedings is a powerful counterbalance to corporate dictatorship, writes Mumta Ito. It empowers people and governments to stand up for nature - the underlying basis of our economy and our lives. And it stands in contrast to feeble approaches based on the financialisation and commodification of nature, which may be twisted to justify more destruction....There is a deep flaw in our system of law that treats living beings as objects or property - while treating corporations (which are a form of property) as subjects of the law with legal personality and rights. This fuels an economic paradigm based on endless growth that is coupled with the destruction of nature - which ultimately benefits no-one.
At core of this is valuing nature for its utility to human beings - as resources, property or natural capital - rather than seeing it as the source of life. The Council of the EU have committed to strive towards an absolute decoupling of growth from destruction of nature.
If this is to happen in reality - and not just as an accounting exercise - we need laws that recognise the intrinsic value of nature.
http://www.theecologist.org/essays/2988863/natures_rights_a_new_paradigm_for_environmental_protection.html
