Rights for nature

Much attention in this web documentary about collective property goes to people and organisations and how they construct their use of housing, free space, energy generation or food production. Through these constructions, possession is being neutralized and the focus shifts towards use. That is a good idea, but we should not forget that there is more life on earth than us humans, and all that life is connected within one fantastic system. Together, we are nature.

We live in a world in which other, non-human lifeforms have nothing to say. We people placed ourselves above nature and decided that we are ruling over everything and everybody on earth. A ridiculous thought, which has led to many of the alarming situations in which we find ourselves nowadays.

Communications with animals and plants is still impossible, but that should not stop us from trying our utmost best understanding what nature and all non-human life needs. Only if we take nature serious, a future for all life on this planet is possible. Whether we realize this remains to be seen, but it would be a start. A promising trajectory that -from my perspective- can’t develop quick enough.

The zooperatie
In the web documentary we shine a light on many different, inspiring cooperations. Housing cooperations, food cooperations, neighbourhood cooperations, energy cooperations, et cetera. Almost everything is manageable in cooperation -which I cherish- but despite all the good intentions, missions and visions, we too often seem to forget that plants, animals, insects, bacteria’s and fungi are more than raw materials and products. Time has come to think serious on how we can provide enough space for the other, non-human life, within our existing (or new) organisation structures. That may not always be practical and cheap, but on the long run it will certainly benefit us.    
A team of ecologists, philosophers, artists, entrepreneurs and lawyers from the New Institute in Rotterdam have come up with an organisation form titled ‘Zoöperatie’. An organisation structure for the collaboration between human and non-human life which serves the interests of all zoë, the Greek word for life. The Zoöp-model makes the voices and interests of non-human life part of the decision making process, by reserving a place within the organisation for a representative of the non-human life world.

The Zoöp-model makes the voices and interests of non-human life part of the decision making process

This Zooperation structure consists of three parts: the institute, the foundation, and the Zoops themselves. Each playing their own roles and keeping their own responsiblities. 
The Institute supports the Zoops and the foundation by bringing in knowledge and experience. The growth of the network and managing the certification of aspiring Zoops are its main concerns. The foundation represents non-human life. In practice, this means that they act as independent experts, taking the place of non-human life within the board of that organisation aiming to become a Zooperation. Depending on the type of organisation, this could be an ecologist, a lawyer or some other expert.
The model is relatively easily to implement and would it be up to me, it will be mandatorily introduced in all companies and organisations over the world, starting yesterday. Although the idea is very logical, it raises the question whether we humans can perform the duties of nature. Also: can one voice within a board of many have a real impact? Of course, one is better than nothing, but it does not guarantee it will make a company pursue a course beneficial for nature and non-human life. Just like any other form of governance there are snags. The Zooperation is a step in the right direction, an initiative with the heart in the right place. Not a radical change, but a soft way to alter the system and the rights from within.

International examples
The idea of the Zooperation has not come from nowhere, it is inspired by three examples from across the border: the Te Urewera forest, Whanganui River and Mount Taranaki in Aotearoa, New Zeeland. In 2014, the Te Urewera Act was signed, changing the status of the forest from a National Park to a single identity, carrying the same rights as a person in Aotearoa. The Wanganui River and Mount Taranaki followed, making these three places the first on the planet to become a legal entity of their own.
Still, in 2006, Tamaqua Borough in Pennsylvania (USA) has been the first community to claim their rights of nature, acknowledging and lawfully banning the dump of poisonous sewage sludge on the grounds of violating these rights.
Two years later, Ecuador became the first country to recognize the rights of nature in their National Constitution. More international examples are to be found in the Rights of Nature movement, starting in 1972 when the Southern Californian Law Review published the article ‘Should Trees have standing, in which author Christopher Stone discussed legal rights for natural objects. Surf to the CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) website to have a look at an extensive timeline of the international Rights of Nature movement. Here, we will limit ourselves to a couple of Dutch initiatives.  

Ambassade of the North Sea
The Ambassade of the North Sea is a multi-year case of the platform Parlement van de dingen. It has been established in The Hague, in 2018, holding the principle that the North Sea and all the life it encompasses should be a lawful entity on its own. A route until 2030 has been marked, along which the sea will be listened to, spoken to and negotiated with. Forming a team of artists, scientists, storytellers and policy makers, the Ambassade works on the representation of the North Sea and the expansion of its presence within politics and society.
During the first phase, the Ambassade has tried to listen to the sea, through projects such as Stem voor de Paling, Onderwatergeluid, Toekomst van de Delta and Windparken op zee. The projects were presented on festivals, in several musea and project spaces, including a presentation on the 2022 Biennale in Sydney. At the end of that year, the Ambassade of the North Sea pressed charges against the Dutch State in a simulated lawsuit. This Moot Court did not revolve around the outcome, but the argumentation. The challenge of this experiment lied in finding a way to give the North Sea and the non-human sea life were a voice. No verdict was in place.
In 2021 The Ambassade of the North Sea commissioned Laura Burgers and Jessica den Outer to create Compendium rights of nature – case studies from six continents. In this publication, attention is given to different international court cases in which natural phenomena such as forests, rivers, mountains and even Mother Earth were recognized as legal entities. It reports a legal revolution, in which nature is no longer seen as an object of possession, but rather as a subject holding intrinsic values which could be represented by the law.  

Stichting Bos is of itself
Another fine local example is Stichting Bos dat van Zichzelf is. The project is set up by young people, holding the aim to give forests back to themselves and uncouple them from human purposes. Self-governing nature, they call it. To make this happen, they want to bail out forests and fight for the grant of their personal rights, as it happened to the Urewera Forest in Aotearoa. In The Netherlands, it is not possible to place a piece of land or nature outside the legal ownership of a person. Therefore, it may be an idea to acquire a forest in collective possession, as BuyWorld has done already. Another alternative could be the purchase of a piece of land and the creation of a construction with Grond van Bestaan, so that the land can never be sold again. 
Stichting Bos dat van Zichzelf is, is busy thinking out a legal construction based on the Akte van Redemptie (1576). As a test, they have -together with Stichting SBI- given a forest of around 5 acres, sitting on estate Zonheuvel in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, back to itself, for a period of ten years. It is an experiment to see what happens when a forest is not being protected and managed, but left to itself. To let it stand on its own feet, legally and ecologically speaking, not subordinate to the economic interest of mankind.   

The trees are telling their story
Following the examples of Stichting Bos dat van Zichzelf is and the Ambassade of the North Sea, I would like to bring under the attention the work of artist Elmo Vermijs. Elmo -in collaboration with others- worked on a project called Het Amstelpark – de bomen vertellen hun verhaal. Here, the trees of the Amstelpark were given a central role. By means of art, law and science it was investigated how the trees could get a legal status and how that could contribute to a better protection of trees in general. The project consisted of a Livinglab, the installation Parlement van de bomen and a speculative lawsuit in the park. The Livinglab was an exhibition in which visitors were taught about the history of a tree by observing its rings, how the trees experienced heat waves, et cetera. Next to that, they could see how research on tree rings is being done and find out about the vitality of the trees in the park. The research was used in the lawsuit in which tree biologist Dr. Ute-Sass-Klaassen was being heard as an expert.  
The Parlement van de bomen is an installation, meant to engage in a dialogue with our non-human environment, to involve that environment in our thinking and acting. This thought was being studied together with environmental lawyers Jessica den Outer, Jan van de Venis and others, who organized lectures and teaching programmes. All of this eventually resulted in the fictive court case Rechtszaak in het park – de bomen spreken zich uit, on Sunday the 16th of October, 2022. During the court, trees were artistically represented as legal entities, holding local polluters accountable for their behaviour. Also, the ecosystems of both the park and our democracy were topics of discussion.  
From this fictive lawsuit, we could conclude that the park as well as our democracy are in full swing and that, despite a few great initiatives, we are running behind, internationally. It is about time we, here in The Netherlands, are going to position ourselves in a climate adaptive way, concerning the law. 

Meuse in the law
The Meuse is a 950 kilometres long river, rising in France, flowing through Belgium towards The Netherlands before finally discharging into the North Sea.
My father lives in Berg aan de Maas in South-Limburg, so I have a good sense of the charm of the river and its surroundings. I have seen the Meuse level rise and fall significantly. The Meuse is an impressive force of nature, known to beech against the banks with all its might, and ruthlessly dragging everything in its path. Unfortunately, I have also witnessed how dirty its waters can be and how much waste is lying around on the sides. I was happy to read that, following the Whanganui river in Aotearoa, people in The Netherlands are now fighting for the rights of the Meuse.
The organisation Maas Cleanup consists of tens of companies and organisations and is determined to put the legal rights of the Meuse on the political agenda. A clean Meuse is not only important for all the non-human lifeforms it holds, but also the nearby residents depending on the river for their drinking water and a clean environment. At the moment, the Meuse is still completely unprotected, making governments and companies getting away with pollutive and destructive actions way too easily. Maas Cleanup started a petition and did, on the 29th of march, 2002, hand over the almost 10.000 gathered signatures to the House of Representatives. Alas, the House parked the petition and we are now one and a half year of precious time further. The interests of the Meuse are on hold, while the dump of waste -visible and invisible- continues as if there is not a single issue at stake.

Part of a bigger whole
Giving legal rights to nature is a logical thought, but perhaps still too much from the perspective of man. Who is to decide which rights nature acquires, and how will these rights be represented? How do we know what nature needs, and how do we give nature a voice without being able to communicate with her?
There is ample of research on the mutual communication between whales, apes and other animals and it would be fantastic to widen our understanding of these majestic creatures even further, but let we not think that would have us where we want to be. Regardless of our inventiveness, our intelligence and our ever more powerful computers, we will never fully understand nature and we should not even want to do so.
Communication with animals seems a fairy tale, but it could have disrupting and unforeseen effects. Being part of nature does not mean we must get to the bottom of everything. If we do so often fail to understand ourselves, how would we be supposed to grasp the complexity of nature and her millions of different lifeforms?
The distance we created between ourselves and nature is unnatural and unwanted. It is downright idiotic when people do no longer know what a real forest is; that children do not know where our food comes from; that we recklessly keep on chopping trees, digging soils, contaminating rivers, abusing animals; that we give each other dying flowers for celebrations. We really don’t all have to become horse whisperers and tree huggers now; we just have to realize we are part of a bigger whole, and that we will not be healthy as long as the bigger whole is not healthy.

Upbringing
I can clearly remember vegetarians, veganists, and animal rights activists being around already in the 80’s and 90’s. When I was a child, I kept a rabbit for a pet, played in the forest a lot and helped my granddad in the vegetable garden but that was as far as my relationship with nature went. When I heard about somebody being a vegetarian for reasons of compassion towards animals, I respected that, but truly understand I did not: eating meat on a daily basis was perfectly normal at home. I do not blame anybody, but I do now realize that our relation with nature springs from our upbringing and education. What are you being taught, what stories are being told, what or whom is getting the attention? When you bring up children in the assumption that pollution is fine, animals can be mutilated and unbounded consumption is the greatest achievement of all, it is unlikely they grow up among people with respect for nature. It is, thus, essential to tell children the right stories and to raising them in harmony with nature. Priority numéro uno for the long term.  

Everyone activist for life, for life
Despite the hopeful examples from both within and across our borders, it is still everything but normal for people to respect nature and have her protected by our law. From my point of view, this is the single most important task of our times; one that we should take on both on individual and collective level. We got to stop pointing to the other and look at ourselves. Let we take on the collective responsibility and become activist for life. For life.

Let we take on the collective responsibility and become activist for life. For life.

Radical changes and revolutions usually start from the bottom and it won’t be different this time around, because our representatives up in their towers are too busy with themselves and lack the guts to deal with the wealthy polluters, exploiters and extortionists. We could try to educate our politicians, but we could also decide to boycott every company that contributes to pollution. Without any violence we can seize power and force the right decisions. For ourselves, for future generations, nature and all non-human life on earth. We really have that power.

If we wish for a beautiful and healthy future for ourselves and the first generations to come, we will have to leave the thought that we are the owners of soil, forest air and seas and as such stand above all other lifeforms. We are inseparably connected with and depended on nature. If nature dies, so do we.
Giving rights to nature is an effort to protect nature. I am sure that a lot of people find it strange to equate the ape, the bee, the pig, the river or the forest with us humans by providing them with the same rights. From our current perspective, that is indeed a odd thought, but it is clear that something has to change in our relation with nature and the respect for non-human life on earth.  
To the sceptics I would like to say that they have more to lose than they realize. Nobody -not even a multimillionaire- escapes the consequences of dying ecosystems. Money is worth nothing if we do not restore the balance with nature. What do we want to tell our children and grandchildren? That we messed up and gave up or that we put everything and everyone together to repair the done damage? I choose the last option and I hope everybody does before it is too late.