By Emily Davis, Secretary/Treasurer, Southeastern Pennsylvania Group
The 14th amendment to the US Constitution has been used to give rights to people in famous cases like Brown v. Board of Education (equal education,) Roe v. Wade (abortion) and Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage). But, the court has also used it to expand those individual human rights to corporations and even ships. Perhaps one way to protect nature is to give it rights too. I think it is time.
The rights of nature laws recognize that an ecosystem has the right to exist, flourish, regenerate its vital cycles, and naturally evolve without human-caused disruption.
Pennsylvania has been active in the expansion of rights to nature. In 2005, to fight a toxic sludge dump to be built in Tamaqua (Schuylkill County), Thomas Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund drafted an ordinance that makes it unlawful for any corporation or its directors to interfere with the existence and flourishing of natural communities. The mayor cast the tie breaking vote to pass the ordinance. The ordinance is believed to be first giving rights to nature. In 2010, the City Council of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania unanimously passed an ordinance recognizing the Rights of Nature as part of a ban on shale gas drilling and fracking.
The Sierra Club has also been active. In Sierra Club v. Morton, 1972 (US Supreme Court), the Sierra Club objected to a ski resort that Disney Corp planned to construct in Mineral King Valley adjacent to the Sequoia National Forest. The Disney Corporation had won the bid and its plan had been approved by the US Forest Service. The plan included construction of a road which would go through part of the Sequoia National Park with a high voltage power line along it. Sierra Club complained that the development would destroy or otherwise adversely affect the scenery, natural and historic objects and wildlife of the park and would impair the enjoyment of the park for its members and for future generations. The court ruled 4 to 3 against the club saying that it did not have standing in the case. Wm. O. Douglass suggested in his dissent that nature should have rights and a person just enjoying the scenery should have standing to defend those rights. In the end, Disney didn’t go ahead with the project and Mineral King Valley is now part of Sequoia National Park.
Children in Colombia, Peru and then in the United States (Montana) have sued claiming their right to a healthy environment. Children in Pennsylvania could do that too since Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights (Article 1 of the State Constitution) says, “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” Until recently, Montana, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were the only states where these rights existed, but several more have recently joined. This section was added to our constitution in 1971. Until recently, courts used an early precedent (Payne v. Kassab, 1976) to work around these rights, but in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the court set a new precedent.
In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to formally recognize the Rights of Nature, which Ecuadorians refer to as the Rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth). The constitution states: “Nature, or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes. All persons, communities, peoples, and nations can call upon public authorities to enforce the Rights of Nature.” In New Zealand, India and Columbia, rivers have been given rights. Unfortunately, corporations everywhere are using their financial resources to fight and win the right to destroy ecosystems for their own profit. We need to, like the Lorax, speak for the trees and the rivers and the oceans and all of nature.
This blog was included as part of the September 2023 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!