Earth Justice: The Rights of Nature

Have just finished reading Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice by Cormac Cullinan a book that calls for the earth, plants and animals to have rights in law, when a friend reminded me of the great progress being made in South America.

Ecudor and Bolivia have put the right of nature into their constitutions. Ecudor has a significant indigenous population and much of Bolivia could be turned into desert by climate change - there is a strong acknowledgement of the world around us in both countries. Sadly this is not case in the Western world and I can't see that dawn of realisation happening any time soon.

Human supremacy in the current jurisprudence is also a fallacy. Corporations, legal identities that society has invented but failed to give a conscience to, have the weight of legal power across the world.

We have a long way to go to turn the system on its head but the one certainty is that it will turn on its head. The climate is already wreaking havoc, many natural resources have peaked in their supply and are starting to decline. The current world order is built on perpetual growth and even that was a shaky experience - it is very doubtful that the world order will cope with contraction without fundamental change.