02009-01-20 | Environment
Ecuador Extends Rights To Ecosystems : TreeHugger
A few months after Lloyd reported on the Swiss government’s conclusion that plants have rights the Ecuadorian population went one step further and voted to change their constitution to proclaim that nature has “the right to the maintenance and regeneration of its vital cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.”
The New York Times felt that the Ecuadorian concept of plants’ rights was significant enough to include it in their 8th Annual Year in Ideas list.
02008-09-03 | Environment, Nature
Putting nature in Ecuador’s constitution – Los Angeles Times
This month, Ecuador will hold the world’s first constitutional referendum in which voters will decide, among many other reforms, whether to endow nature with certain unalienable rights. Not only would the new constitution give nature the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution,” but if it is approved, communities, elected officials and even individuals would have legal standing to defend the rights of nature.
Inclusivity is the buzzword (((at least I think so))) for the next decade. And we can’t stop at finding ways to include marginalized people, we have to include animals and indeed the whole ecosystem if we are to survive. We cannot let anybody mess with the ecosystem (((and our great grandchildren’s world and well-being))) without notice. I read that last sentence from the linked text above and have to applaud it.
