Women’s Voices of Cuba: Catherine Murphy

Women face obstacles and oppression worldwide. And yet, the struggle continues. Resilient and resolute — women across the globe are working to create meaningful change. On International Women’s Day, we launched a series of blogs through to Mother’s Day highlighting Women’s Voices of Cuba – a series exploring courageous women impacting Cuba. The first blog featured Alicia Jrapko. Today, we launch the second …

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Cuba. 1960. Batista has been overthrown, but the tiny island nation is still finding its footing on the global stage. Less than two years after the overthrow of Batista, Cuba announces at the United Nations that it will eliminate illiteracy completely.

It wasn’t going to be easy. In the cities, illiteracy hovered around 11%. Almost half of those living in the countryside could not read. In order to rapidly address the problem, the Castro government commissioned ‘education brigades,’ to bridge the gap between rural and urban education rates.

The backdrop for this massive campaign was one of great hope, but also turmoil. Throughout the post-revolutionary era, terrorism against the Castro government and the Cuban people was prevalent. Bombings, murders, and sabotage were common. For many, the chance to participate in the bold undertaking of this massive literacy campaign was their way to stand up for the values at the heart of the Cuban revolution.

And for many of the young women who participated, it was their chance to break free of strict gender roles and take part in history. In fact, the program stands as one of the most successful literacy campaigns of all time.

By December of 1961, when the program drew to a close, the official literacy rate of Cuba stood at 96% — a dramatic improvement in less than one year’s time. The world was shown that eliminating educational inequality was not only possible, but possible with only the most meager of resources. Immediately following the campaigns, Cubans went on to directly assist in literacy efforts in 15 different countries. “Yo Si Puedo,” a Cuban literacy method, is still used around the world today.

Maestra, a documentary released in 2012, tells the story of the courageous women who defied the world’s expectations by virtually eliminating illiteracy in Cuba. Catherine Murphy, the film’s director, met a number of amazing Cuban women through her work in Cuba in the 1990s. It just so happened that many had been literacy teachers in 1961. From these first encounters, the seed of an idea was born.

“They all talked about it in a magical, electric way. They talked about it as defining moment in their lives. They said it was the most important thing they had done — and they had done amazing, impressive things,” said Murphy.

Catherine began work on a short film. She was motivated by her desire to share a Cuban achievement that ran counter to the mainstream narrative. And she was motivated to tell a story about women. It’s true, men participated in the the program, too. But Murphy chose to focus on the women for a very compelling reason.

“UNESCO estimates there are 800 million illiterate adults around the world, and two thirds of  those people are women. Literacy in its very fundamental way is a women’s issue,” said Murphy.

The touching, personal stories of Maestra transform the abstract numbers and figures of illiteracy to the sweat, pain, and triumph of the actual people who made this campaign possible: Daysi Veitia, who went on to become an architect after the campaign. Gina Rey, who became a leading urban planner after the campaign. And Norma Guillard, now a race/gender justice & LGBT activist in Cuba.

“When they talk about it — it’s so moving. Talk about it like it just happened — like it was yesterday. Remember dates, names, places, this level of detail that is really striking. It was the first time I felt free, first time I felt strong, first time I felt capable. First time I felt like I could stand on my own two feet,” said Murphy.

Maestra has resonated with audiences since its premiere at the Havana Film Festival in 2012. It’s a story that Catherine Murphy works tirelessly to share with as many people as possible. For an independent documentary, getting the film made is only half the battle. Getting people to see it can be just as difficult.

Catherine’s been doing everything she can to make sure Maestra is seen — even if that means she might get a bit of jet lag from time to time.  A screening in Jakarta. A showing in Santiago, Chile. Stanford, California. Toronto. These are stories that must be told.

A story of breaking through gender roles. A story of the imperialism of U.S. policy towards Cuba. And a story about inequality.

“We’re contending against this narrative that says we can’t take care of everyone. I’m not going to pay for your healthcare, your public school. Shows that you can take care of everyone. It’s possible, even for a poor country.”

A story both timely, and timeless.

Take-ActionTAKE ACTION!

train-logo

It’s time we all got on board with a people-powered climate plan.

The People’s Climate Train is pulling out on September 15 from the San Francisco Bay Area and will arrive in New York City on September 18, 2014 to join the People’s Climate March September 20 & 21. Over 200 people have already registered  to take the cross country journey, with new riders joining at stops all along the way.

The final destination on this journey is to join the largest-ever climate march in New York City on September 21 & 22, coinciding with the United Nations Climate Summit taking place there, which will serve as a public platform for world leaders, big business and some participation from civil society. The stated goal of the summit is “to catalyze ambitious action on the ground to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience and mobilize political will for an ambitious global agreement by 2015 that limits the world to a less than 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature.”

Kylie Nealis of the Sierra Club and Suzanne York of the Institute for Population Studies will be in New York.

Kylie Nealis of the Sierra Club and Suzanne York of the Institute for Population Studies will be in New York.

For many, faith in the UN as a global forum for solving the climate crisis has all but been shattered.  Critiques range from calling out the UN as a flaccid institution to the more cynical view that it has been co-opted, branded and sponsored by corporations.  Yet there are other reasons to show up in New York while leaders gather.

As David Turnbull, Campaigns Director for Oil Change International says, “World leaders have come together too many times with nothing more than strong rhetoric and empty promises in tow. Science is simply screaming at us that we must not delay action any longer, so the time is now to show our strength as a movement. I can’t wait to join the hundreds of thousands of real leaders marching on the streets of New York demanding action and to show our elected representatives that their empty promises will no longer be accepted.”

Others are going to highlight particular issues. An entire contingent of affected residents, activists and concerned Americans are going to connect the dots between fracking, other fossil fuel exploitation, and climate disruption.  350.org’s Fracking Campaigner Linda Capato says, “I’m going to PCM because we need to make it clear to decision makers that if we are serious about climate it needs to be a future without fracking.”
PCMlargestmarchGlobal Exchange will be in New York not to beg officials to act, but to stand for communities  are already on the leading edge of climate solutions, from banning fracking in their communities, to boldly placing the rights of residents and ecosystems above the array of harmful corporate projects that collectively emit the bulk of carbon stored in the atmosphere.  The march is going to be big—really big, and there is value in connecting with people from all across the country in this way, sharing stories, networking and finding ways to come together to reinvent our future without dependence on fossil fuels.

Those of us working on the rights-of-nature framework are seeking to reconnect humanity with the rest of species. We seek to change human law that can only “see” nature as a thing — separate and apart from us, property to be owned and destroyed at will. We seek to change the law because our own salvation can only come from a cultural mindset enforced by an earth jurisprudence that we are a part of nature. In New York we will join allies including Osprey Orielle Lake,  Executive Director of WECAN in presenting these ideas at a special panel: Rights of Nature and Systemic Change in Climate Solutions, on September 23.   This event is free and open to the public however, due to its proximity to the global leaders, collected security in this part of the city is tight so registration is required. Once you register (which takes less than 30 seconds), you will receive an invitation that you will need to have in hand along with ID to attend the event. As Osprey says, “Nature will not wait while politicians debate. It is time for ambitious action that addresses the roots of the climate crisis and fosters justice for the Earth and future generations.”

all_aboardFor the variety of reasons people are coming to join the march, the reasons people are getting there via the climate trains (and buses) are the same — to connect with each other and build the nationwide movement for change in the only way that matters —by building people-to-people ties. I will be riding with people like Pennie Opal Plant from Idle No More Bay Area who says, ” I’m excited to meet activists working to ensure life as we know it continues on the belly of Mother Earth.”  Sierra Club’s Kylie Nealis will be leading another train from DC to New York and says, “I’m joining the climate train because I believe its important to not just voice what we’re against but to also collectively advocate for solutions to climate change like clean energy and nature’s rights. The train will be a space for people to come together and connect around those solutions!”

I will be joining the train in the Bay Area, and meeting 170 fellow riders, sharing stories and strategies for change. I will be leading workshops on community rights, rights of nature and fracking, and learning from others as we come together from across the country to share knowledge and collaborate while enjoying a beautiful ride through breathtaking wilderness areas.

The first train is sold out—but don’t worry, they have already started another one to meet the demand—so there is still time to climb aboard. Visit People’s Climate Train to SIGN UP NOW! For anyone who still needs lodging in the Big Apple secure them now if you haven’t already and there is a free option!  The PCM Faith Team has generously offered to match you up with available space in churches or homes. Contact  Jennifer Kim at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Guest post by Linda Sheehan of the Earth Law Center.

In celebration of “International Mother Earth Day” in April, the United Nations General Assembly held an Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature in New York.  The Dialogue arose in part out of language in the final UN Outcome Document from the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio +20”), which acknowledged the growing rights of nature movement and called for alternatives to Gross Domestic Product as measurements of “progress.”  In line with Rio +20, the April UN Dialogue examined how to achieve a “more ethical relationship” with the natural world through alternative economic systems that enhance the well-being of people and planet.  I was fortunate to be able to participate as part of a panel of international speakers, and addressed the significance of the rights of nature, a point echoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks.

Rights-of-Nature--Planting-

Given that the UN will be taking up these issues in a new “High-Level Political Forum” in September, a few points bear highlighting now.  The root of “economics” is from the Greek for managing our home.  By all accounts, we have not been managing our home well.  Scientists estimate that because of our actions, the rate of extinction is now 1,000 times the average across history.  Even the World Bank is now reporting that our current climate change path will create a “transition of the Earth’s ecosystems into a state unknown in human experience.”

There is no Planet B.  We cannot separate what we do to the Earth from what we do to ourselves.  Yet, every element of our current, neoliberal economic system is intertwined with the idea that the natural world is property. We trivialize the fullness of life and diversity of natural world by labeling its elements “resources,” so they better fit within our neoliberal economic model.  Workers, or “human resources,” are similarly treated as a cost to business, not a benefit to society.  Our economic system is feeding itself with our collective well-being, and we must find an alternative.

To use a fashionable UN phrase, is “sustainable development” our end goal?  Or should we be aiming for sustainable (or better yet, “thriving”) communities of humans and ecosystems flourishing together?  Both types of communities are intimately connected, and both must be served by – not serve – the economy.

What kind of economic system serves the goal of thriving communities?  Adam Smith, credited with neoclassical economic theories that evolved into the destructive neoliberal system driving the planet to ruin today, provides important and generally-overlooked insights.  Smith wrote in his Theory of Moral Sentiments that the “chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved” – by those closest to us, and within our larger communities.  Smith believed that “wise and virtuous” person was “at all times willing that his own private interest should be sacrificed to the public interest” – contrary to the motive of individual wealth maximization that drives economics today.  In fact, Smith firmly believed that “[t]he rate of profit … is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.”  This is borne out by our misguided use of GDP as an indicator of well-being, rather than recognizing that GDP grows with the expansion of harmful goods and actions.

The ethical qualities that create happy, prosperous homes and communities – love, cooperation, friendship, duty – both arise from and create strong relationships.  We have discarded these ethics, however, in favor of an economic system premised on separation and greed.  We can do better.

An essential element of this shift in perspective is realizing that relationships can flourish only if we recognize the inherent rights of their participants.  As we came over time to acknowledge the rights of people who were formerly treated as property, we began to have full, thriving relationships with them, which benefitted all.  These lessons extend to the natural world.

When the UN was drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the drafting committee observed that “the supreme value of the human person…did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing.”  So too do the rights and value of the natural world arise from existence.  We are first and foremost Earth citizens, and we must recognize the rights of ecosystems and species to exist and thrive if we are to flourish ourselves.

Acknowledgement of the rights of nature is a movement that is spreading throughout the world.  Ecuador recognized these rights in its Constitution in 2008, stating that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain itself and regenerate.”  Under the Constitution, “[a]ny person” may “demand the observance of the rights of the natural environment before public bodies,” including rights to be “completely restored.”  Bolivia has passed two sets of laws on rights of Mother Earth, and New Zealand recognized the rights of the Whanganui River and its tributaries last summer.Earth Rights Now.

Recognition of the rights of nature is essential to help us build closer relationships with the environment that guide our actions to care for it.  But we also must specifically reject the current neoliberal economic system and replace it with alternatives such as ecological economics, which recognizes that the economy is a subset of an overarching natural world, rather than the reverse.  For example, roughly three dozen communities across the U.S. have passed local laws that both recognize the rights of nature and reject the rights of corporations over the rights of local community members to live in harmony with each other and their environment.  These laws support a community’s right to nurture its home, rather than witness its destruction.   The largest city to adopt such an ordinance is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the first West Coast city to take up this effort is Santa Monica, California, which adopted their “Sustainability Rights Ordinance” in April.

The goal of the UN’s new “high-level political forum” (HLPF) is to keep “sustainable development” high on national agendas. The first HLPF meeting will be September 24th in New York City, as the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly begins, and will address sustainable development goals that can be advanced worldwide.  Earth Law Center and other Major Groups will attend to reinforce the message that such initiatives must serve sustainable communities, rather than solely development or the neoliberal economic model that advances unsustainable development.  We must embrace actions commensurate with the sweep and importance of the challenges before us, and so must advance an economic system that guides us to fully care for each other, our communities, and the Earth as a whole, one that recognizes the rights of the natural world to thrive, and for us to prosper with it.

For more information on the UN International Mother Earth Day Dialogue, see the Harmony with Nature website, the U.N. Summary of the Dialogue, the U.N. Press release and the videos of the presentations.

 

Linda Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Earth Law Center, with over 20 years of environmental law and policy experience. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a Concentration in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an M.P.P. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, where she was named a Berkeley Policy Fellow; and a J.D. from the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law. She is a Research Affiliate with the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Ms. Sheehan is also Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she teaches Earth Law. She is a contributing author to Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence, published by Wakefield Press in 2011; Wild Law in Practice, to be published by Routledge in 2013; and Rule of Law for Nature, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. 

By Shannon Biggs

Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director Shannon Biggs returns from the UN Climate conference in South Africa where she, along with climate justice advocates including former Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, Indigenous leader Tom Goldtooth, South Durban community activist Desmond D’sa and international colleagues from the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature held a series of activities in Durban to advance the Rights of Nature as an alternative framework to the corporate-led agenda of the COP 17 and the global economic system now being called environmental (or climate) apartheid.

Accompanied by a cynical shrug, “Durban-shmurban,” sums up the sentiments of those who have long given up hope that the best and brightest (or the 1% and corrupted) among this league of nations could ever unite to solve the human-induced climate crisis. After all, other than vowing to drive less and become greener consumers, the grand scale and technical scope of reducing atmospheric greenhouse gasses is beyond the rest of us to solve.

For those paying attention, including thousands of NGOs who came to South Africa to play a role in preventing the worst outcomes of the COP 17 (or to protest the process itself), it’s been alliteratively billed as the “Durban Disaster,” following previous UNFCCC conferences: 2010’s “Catastrophe in Cancun” and 2009’s  “No-penhagen” in Denmark.

So why should anyone pay attention to what happened at the UN climate talks? The failure of international leaders to come to agreement in Durban South Africa sounds like business as usual, and it is—but make no mistake: officially choosing inaction now is a guaranteed death sentence for millions of people and ecosystems.  If the lesson of Durban is that climate change is the symptom, and not the problem, this may be our game-changing call to action.

First, the bad news

On the final scheduled day of negotiations in Durban, the UNFCCC stunned even seasoned observers with a plan tantamount to genocide. Country emissions targets were dropped far below what science dictates; loopholes for the worst offenders to avoid their commitments, and most critically, most decisions were put off until 2020.

Rights of Nature activists at press conference (L-R Desmond D’Sa, Tom Goldtooth, Shannon Biggs, Natalia Greene, Cormac Cullinan and Pablo Solon

As environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey explained, “Delaying real action until 2020 is a crime of global proportions. An increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius, permitted under this plan, is a death sentence for Africa, Small Island States, and the poor and vulnerable worldwide. This summit has amplified climate apartheid, whereby the richest 1% of the world have decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice the 99%.

Apartheid is the Afrikaans word for “apartness,” and applied to the climate and ecosystems, it begins to get at what is behind the DNA-level failure of the UN’s COP process to achieve its stated goal of reducing greenhouse emissions.  Climate change is merely a byproduct of treating nature as human property (and therefore apart from us), to be destroyed at will. Our global economic system is property-based and driven by a value system of “endless more.”

As Pablo Solon stated at a press conference hosted by Global Exchange: “We can throw our garbage to the air and nothing happens. But we’re all part of one system, and the atmosphere is part of that system.   We have to respect the natural laws of this system. Because we have broken the vital cycle of carbon, its not only a matter of how big immediate reductions are, but how we change our relationship with nature.”

  • Read results of exclusive, closed meetings in Durban here
  • Global Exchange Human Rights Award winner Pablo Solon discusses outcome on DemocracyNow!

Following news of the outcome, credentialed protesters gathered and filled the halls, stairwells and lobby of the ICC (official space).  When UN Security began to remove the activists, Anne Petermann, executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project, sat down. “If meaningful action on climate change is to happen, it will need to happen from the bottom up,” she said. “The action I took today was to remind us all of the power of taking action into our own hands. With the failure of states to provide human leadership, and the corporate capture of the United Nations process, direct action by the ninety-nine percent is the only avenue we have left.” For more, click here.

Redefining the problem is a game changer.

As long as it was accepted that climate change is the problem, it made a lot of sense to turn to international institutions like the UN as the driver for change.  This has tethered much activism to seeking concessions in a rigged game of false solutions, because the UNFCC is based not on the root causes of environmental exploitation—but ‘market fixes’ to the same corporate-led economic model and ‘endless-more’ value system that have driven us to the cliff’s edge.

Like the slow strangulation of a creeping kudzu vine, our activism has been constrained to a smaller and smaller patch of sunlight, options and regulatory schemes that weren’t even of our design. In this sense, the utter failure of Durban can be quite freeing—if we chose it—because it means we can actually address root causes of climate change, chiefly, our cultural and legal traditions of dominating the Earth for profit.

Occupy is the other game changer.

Occupiers and revolutionaries from Egypt to Wall Street and around the world have woken up millions of the disillusioned, and inspired them to find their own voice, their own power. Once awakened, we will seize this moment and shift the system itself that places corporate interests above our shared values of justice, equality, good jobs, healthy resilient vibrant communities and ecosystems.  In Durban, Anne Petermann and others sat down to remind us that we the 99% do have the power to change the rules. We can chose another way if we believe we can.

The Rights of Nature offers a platform for action to challenge the market-based approach that dominates the UN COP process.  “Why bring RON to climate change conference?” Pablo Solon was asked,  “Because if we are going to address climate change, we must address the issue of a new relationship between humans and nature. Its not just a problem with how many particles of CO2 emissions, it’s a problem of why does this happen?”

Where do we go from here? The Good news

A new framework for global action based on the needs of people and the planet already exists. The People’s Accord and the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth are key outcomes of the 2010 People’s Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, hosted by Bolivia and led by Indigenous communities and civil society. For more on this from the perspective of Durban see CJN! media release.

Those of us working on the rights of nature framework are seeking to reconnect humanity with the rest of species. We seek to change human law that can only “see” nature as a thing — separate and apart from us, property to be owned and destroyed at will. We seek to change the law because our own salvation can only come from a cultural mindset that we are a part of nature. Such a fundamental shift will require new laws that enforce and enable those cultural values.

  •  Watch our Durban rights of nature press conference here
  • Read our Durban Press release for rights of nature here

A People’s call to action, local national and global

While we take from nature the strength of diversity, we can remain diverse while uniting around the rules set forth by Mother Earth. We have in the past found solace strength and cohesion in broad strokes alignment with peasant farmers, landless workers, unions, Indigenous and non-indigenous communities.  That’s not going to be easy, but there is a lot of common ground.  For example, on the issue of rights of nature versus Indigenous rights, there are many different opinions among native traditions.  But there is tremendous Indigenous support for changing the dominant culture, and the fossil fuel economy that UNFCC is based on.

Shannon Biggs with Tom Goldtooth at the Global Day of Action in Durban

As Indigenous leader Tom Goldtooth says, “Our earth is our Mother, creator of everything, including two-legged people. Life as we know it is changing, we can no longer ignore the evidence, and it is our responsibility to be caretakers, guardians of our Mother. New economies need to be governed by the absolute carrying capacity of Mother Earth. More equitable, self-sustaining communities, with rights and respect.”

The United Nations is not going anywhere, but our messaging to the UNFCCC might change (though it is worth saying that next year’s conference has been scheduled in the zero-tolerance-for-protesting capitol of Qatar).

From Pablo Solon: “Well, if there is no pressure from civil society, there won’t be the possibility to have any kind of agreement that is in some makes a difference. If you want to change the system, there has to be a huge movement developed outside of the main structures. We must open the discussion. We have a mandate that the Rights of Nature must be part of the discussion in climate negotiations.”

At the national level, in addition to Ecuador and Bolivia who have passed laws recognizing rights of nature, as many as half a dozen countries are working with the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature and are seriously considering rights of nature laws, and how Constitutional provisions, like Ecuador’s could be transformational and provide new ways to protect ecosystems. Some of those concersations were moved forward in Durban.  They tell us that creating a vibrant global civil society movement of campesinos, workers, unions, Indigenous and non Indigenous communities, women’s movements, peace, climate and social justice activists can support their efforts at changing laws to reflect a new relationship with the Earth.

At the community level, campaigning around climate change and even climate justice is often hard. After all, we cannot feel the burden of atmosphere weighted by carbon storage or truly know where in the world accumulations of CO2 were manufactured.  But we can feel the burden of society’s inventions that leave polluted rivers, cancer clusters, poverty, and tons of carbon emissions in their wake.

From the oil refinery fence line in South Durban, the gathering of international experts offers no solutions on the ground. Desmond D’Sa lives and works in Durban South Africa, the dirtiest city in South Africa, and ironically, host city to the COP 17. There, he is the director of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), an environmental justice network. Over 300 toxic industrial plants — including two oil refineries — operate in and around the city, particularly concentrated in the neighborhoods of south Durban, an area particularly disadvantaged by the legacy of apartheid. Explosions, accidents, spills, and other toxic exposures are part of daily life there, and the reason why Desmond has begun to introduce the idea of rights for nature and residents in South Durban.

As a rights-based organizer in California, I, along with my legal and organizing partners at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assist communities to pass groundbreaking new laws that place the rights of residents and nature above the interests of corporations.

We’ve often heard the takeaway from the COP processes in Copenhagen and Cancun is that the same corporate-led system that created climate change cannot be part of the solution. From Durban, we add that a relationship of apartness with the system governing our wellbeing cannot continue. The lessons from Cochabamba and Occupy Everywhere are that we have an alterntative vision, and we have the power to make it real.  To change the course of humanity, we must be bold enough to believe we are capable, and strategic enough to know how to use the ecological principle of unity of diversity to work in solidarity in myriad ways.

Download the report: Does Nature have rights? Transforming grassroots organizing to protect people and the planet. This report calls for action from the community-level to the U.N., and offers case studies of legal changes already underway in favor the Rights of Nature.

The following video originally aired April 20th on GRITtv. In it, Shannon Biggs & Maude Barlow speak about recognizing the Rights of Nature:
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More GRITtv

Yesterday, nature had a voice at the United Nations in a first of its kind dialogue about what it will take to live in harmony with nature, and what role the United Nations must play.

The all-day interactive dialogue, sponsored by the Plurinational State of Bolivia, was packed with global UN delegates. In his opening remarks, Bolivian Ambassador to the UN (and 2011 Global Exchange Honoree), Pablo Solon said,

“Humanity finds itself at a crossroads: Why should we only respect the laws of human beings and not those of nature? Why do we call the person who kills his neighbor a criminal, but not he who extinguishes a species or contaminates a river? Why do we judge the life of human beings with parameters different from those that guide the life of the system as a whole if all of us, absolutely all of us, rely on the life of the Earth System? Is there no contradiction in recognizing only the rights of the human part of this system while all the rest of the system is reduced to a source of resources and raw materials – in other words, a business opportunity?”

Leading civil society thinkers, activists Martin Khor, Vandana Shiva, Cormac Cullinan and others spoke about the need to promote a holistic approach to sustainable development in harmony with nature. Scientists also shared their national experiences on criteria and indicators for measuring sustainable development in harmony with nature.

This dialogue stands as the first step toward what many believe will culminate in the adoption of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, and as Maude Barlow, water activist and Chairperson for the Council of Canadians says, history will serve as “a companion piece to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as one of the guiding covenants of our time.”

The Council of Canadians, Global Exchange, and the Fundacion Pachamama also released our book The Rights of Nature: The Case for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Copies were made available to all UN missions.

Contact Global Exchange for your own copy of the book: Rights of Nature. Or make a donation of $50 or more to Global Exchange, and received your own signed copy of the book.

As Earth Day approaches, can we envisage for ourselves a future based not on exploiting nature as property but upon recognizing that nature has inherent rights to exist, thrive, and evolve? A growing number of people in the Rights of Nature movement are saying, “yes, we can – and we must! “

Global Exchange is excited for the release of a new book next week, Rights of Nature: Making a Case for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, co-developed by Global Exchange, the Council of Canadians, and Fundacion Pachamama. This revolutionary new book reveals the path of a movement that is driving the cultural and legal shift that is necessary to transform our human relationship with nature away from being property-based and towards a rights-based model of balance. The book gathers the unique wisdom of indigenous cultures, scientists, environmental activists, lawyers, and small farmers to make a case for how and why humans must work to change our current structures of law to recognize that nature has inherent rights.

New Book: Rights of Nature

The question of Rights for Mother Earth will be introduced to the United Nations on April 20th in New York during a session on ‘Harmony with Nature’.  Put forward by Bolivia, it is the first step toward what many believe will culminate in the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth in the months to come. At the U.N., Speakers including Dr. Vandana Shiva, Maude Barlow, Cormac Cullinan, Martin Kohr, Ambassador Pablo Solon, among others, will be making a case for nature’s rights. A companion piece for the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, this emerging Declaration – backed by enforceable laws around the world – seeks to wholly redefine our human relationship with all other species from one of dominance to one of harmony.

Please join us for two very special book launch events around the Rights of Nature coming up this month, in New York and in San Francisco. Both events will also feature the launch of the 2nd edition of Cormac Cullinan’s cutting-edge book, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. Join esteemed environmental activists and co-authors of the book including Maude Barlow, Bill Twist, Pablo Salon, Vandana Shiva, Cormac Cullinan, and Shannon Biggs for a conversation around the emerging Rights of Nature movement at these East and West coast launches:

New York book launch: Nature Has Rights

  • When: Wednesday, April 21st 6:30-8 p.m.
  • Where: CUNY Graduate Center, Proshansky Auditorium, 656 5th Ave (corner of 34th street) New York, NY.

San Francisco book launch: Nature Has Rights

  • When: Wednesday, April 27th 7:00-9:00 p.m.
  • Where: The First Unitarian Universalist Church – located at 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary) San Francisco, CA

Both events are free and open to the public.

For more information or to order a copy of the book:

Contact Kylie Nealis – kylie@globalexchange.org. The book price is $15 including shipping within the US. For international orders email Kylie Nealis – kylie@globalexchange.org for shipping price.