Rights for Nature: In PA's Coal Region, A Radical Approach to Conservation Takes Root
In the Schuylkill Region's Tamaqua Borough, located roughly halfway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the heart of Pennsylvania's Coal Region, an idea which has long lingered on the far fringes of the environmental movement has apparently taken root. In September, 2006, the borough became the first U.S. municipality to recognize legal rights for nature.
More than 100 communities in the traditionally conservative region have followed suit, passing ordinances stripping corporations of long-held legal rights, and bestowing them instead on ecosystems and natural communities.
Designed to ban corporations from engaging in the land application of sewage sludge, the ordinance establishes that any resident of Tamaqua "can bring lawsuits to vindicate not only their own civil rights, but also the newly-mandated rights of Nature." Damages recovered in this way must be used to restore the ecosystems and natural communities affected.
The legality of the method is already being tested. In Pennsylvania, the attorney general has initiated five suits against municipalities so far on the grounds that such ordinances are illegal and unconstitutional. For now, however, the approach appears to be providing voters with a way to take collective action to protect the environment, without taking on the mantle of radical activist, or holier-than-thou do-gooder.
While the success of the Tamaqua ordinance and others like it may seem startling, particularly in the heart of small-town Pennsylvania, the idea of granting rights to non-human entities is hardly unprecedented. Under U.S. law, corporations have long been viewed as "persons" with constitutionally recognized rights much the same as natural citizens. In other words, corporations are entitled to civic rights such as free expression and equal protection under the law. In practice, it means that when their actions are challenged by citizens or communities -as was the case in Tamaqua - corporations can claim that these personal rights are being infringed upon.
While laws like the Tamaqua ordinance do strip ecologically undesirable companies of their rights to be treated as people, they don't do away with the "personhood" convention altogether. In fact, laws that grant rights to the natural world come closer to treating all of nature - including humans - not unlike a vast corporation made up of multiple components working together in order to prosper.
From this perspective, seeking legal rights for nature appears pragmatic: just witness how corporations have flourished enjoying the same legal status. Ben Price, Program Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELF), a non-profit law firm in PA which assisted Tamaqua and other PA municipalities, calls the Tamaqua ordinance "an extraordinary -but logical- step" to counter a legal system which treats natural systems first and foremost as 'property.'
At first glance it seems counterintuitive that such a seemingly radical approach to ecological conservation has sprung up in small-town PA - initiated and defended by voters who famously "cling to guns or religion" - but perhaps it shouldn't.
Religious groups in the United States and around the world have steadily adopted pro-environment positions, declaring a moral imperative to protect the environment and urging swift popular and legislative action. From this perspective, passing laws that prioritize nature appear as a logical step for communities that place a high value on commitment to religious ideals.
Much has been made of the 'greening of Evangelicals;' despite opposition from some of their colleagues, since 2006 more than 250 prominent evangelical leaders have signed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, calling on Christians to work together to care for the planet, and on policy makers to chart a bold new course. The Vatican, of course, has included 'causing environmental blight' in an updated version of the Seven Deadly Sins and the first Center for Earth Jurisprudence in a U.S. law school is sponsored jointly by two Catholic Universities.
Faith driven environmental action may be gaining steam. Recent polls show strong backing for environmental protection across religious groups, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and others. Results like these indicate that many religious voters have shifted their primary focus from hot-button cultural issues like abortion to broader concerns such as the environment and the economy, which increasing numbers of Americans recognize as inextricably linked.
In this sense, laws that recognize rights for nature are merely making official a shift in moral sensibilities that has already taken place among religious voters and others.
Codifying that shift in legal terms, however, might in fact have the effect of shifting the focus of the debate away from morality; at least in the shallow sense used by Dick Cheney when he famously disparaged energy conservation as "a sign of personal virtue, but not a sufficient basis for sound, comprehensive energy policy."
In effect, laws that grant legal rights to nature may mitigate the emphasis on individual activism that has buoyed, but also bedeviled the environmental movement. In an era of plodding regulatory expansion, pressing economic concerns, and widespread 'Green Fatigue,' this is no small feat.
Whether in its current form or a new variation, expect the Rights of Nature approach to continue cropping up.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Could you keep us posted on this? I am wondering which municipalities the attorney general has filed suit against.
New approach; old legal argument.
Law professor Christopher Stone, in his 1971 essay "Should Trees Have Standing? argued for the proposition the title suggests. Justice Douglas in his Mineral King 1972 dissent:
"Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality... The ordinary corporation is a "person" for purposes of the adjudicatory processes...
So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes... The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it. Those people who have a meaningful relation to that body of watermust be able to speak for the values which the river represents and which are threatened with destruction.....
That does not mean that the judiciary takes over the managerial functions from the federal agency. It merely means that before these priceless bits of Americana are forever lost or are so transformed as to be reduced to the eventual rubble of our urban environment, the voice of the existing beneficiaries of these environmental wonders should be heard.
Perhaps they will not win. Perhaps the bulldozers of "progress" will plow under all the aesthetic wonders of this beautiful land. That is not the present question. The sole question is, who has standing to be heard?"
Douglas had it about right.
I sincerely hope this effort works and withstands the challenges by the PA AG.
I do think the author overstates greatly in tying this groundswell movement solely to a religious/moral bent:
From this perspective, passing laws that prioritize nature appear as a logical step for communities that place a high value on commitment to religious ideals.
While Tamaqua and the coal region does have a strong religious tradition, it is a largely Catholic tradition, and - Vatican edicts withstanding - a strong religious commitment to environmental causes has not percolated down to the vast majority of small town Catholic churches. Instead, people in this region have just become fed up. Over the past two centuries, coal companies have ravaged this area - both environmentally and economically. The landscape of Tamaqua and surrounding areas is littered with culm banks, polluted streams, abandoned mine shafts and a relatively high unemployment rate. Instead of crediting a religious environmental awakening for this movement, I'd be more inclined to think that people in this area are just fed up and trying to take one last stand against companies that have walked all over them for decades.
See Kate Beale's Profile
PennsyDem, may I assume from your comment that you have some firsthand experience with the situation in Tamaqua that led up to the rights of nature ordinance? If so, I would be very interested in hearing more about your perspective on what catalyzed people in this particular devastated area to stand up and take the particular (and unprecedented) action that they did.
Consider the historic power of coal in PA as validated by the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922) and bring it forward to 2009.
The "Rights Of Nature" remind me of two things: the instruction to Boy Scouts to leave one's campsite as clean as one found it, or cleaner; and of the "Right To Be Let Alone."
http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/0205alone.html
[
While laws like the Tamaqua ordinance do strip (ecologically undesirable) companies of their rights to be treated as people, they don't do away with the "personhood" convention altogether.
]
All in good time.
[
In fact, laws that grant rights to the natural world come closer to treating all of nature - including humans - not unlike a vast corporation made up of multiple components working together in order to prosper.
]
If you mean that these laws treat all of nature like a *community* or a *cooperative* of some sort, great, but a "corporation" is a legalistic fiction, from Latin meaning, in essence, to falsely treat as human. To "incorporate" is to imbue something inhuman with one or more attributes of humanity. In our times that attribute is usually legal privilege without legal responsibility, or vastly diminished legal responsibility. It's a distinction with a vital difference.
The clear parallel to general pursuit of the general welfare is certainly appreciated, irregardless.
Interesting concept. I'm not sure it's necessary, but maybe it was in those circumstances.
In Texas, what works is tying everything into water supply, since water is our biggest issue. All of our water supply is from rain falling on watershed, which goes into our rivers and aquifers. Therefor, anything that protects the cleanliness of the watershed (native vegetation is the most efficient for this) is looked on favorably in the legislature.
Also, explaining how these environmental issues affect the economy is effective. One of the most forward looking Texas laws was passed a couple of years ago, SB2, the environmental flows law. This authorizes the scientific studies needed to ensure that when allocating water rights to cities, agriculture and industry, that water will be also be allocated to flow to our estuaries to sustain the wildlife that our lucrative sport fishing and tourism industries depend on.
Wow, we REALLY need this in CA, which pretends to be so "progressive" and "green" but which is actively promoting the permanent ecosystem destruction of MILLIONS of acres of carbon-absorbing, pristine habitats - in the interest of (ahem) "renewable" power. hey!! we already HAVE millions of acres available to generate (truly) renewable power - it's called the BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
when people start caring about our aquifers, carbon sinks, critical desert, plains and mountain ecosystems, and the fragile web of wildlife that holds our planet together, the lightbulb moment will be embarassingly obvious - WE NEED TO MANAGE ENERGY CONSUMPTION AT POINT OF USE, NOT HUNDREDS OF MILES DOWN TOXIC, GHG-SPEWING POWERLINES!!!
I will bring this up with my elected reps, and hopefully we can spare a few hundred thousand acres from the Greenwashers and their cronies in Big Energy, and start REALLY doing something to help the environment, like getting solar panels on every roof that can use them.
Thanks for this informative post -- this could be a useful evolution in environmental activism. Not sure about the idea of nature as a "vast corporation," however -- we need to move beyond this level of thinking to solve the problems we face. Perhaps viewing nature as a "vast church" would be more apt, and might even continue to bring along some of those "green evangelicals"!
"In this sense, laws that recognize rights for nature are merely making official a shift in moral sensibilities that has already taken place among religious voters and others.
Codifying that shift in legal terms, however, might in fact have the effect of shifting the focus of the debate away from morality;"
These two together remind of the Quaker call to both 'do good and do well". When doing what is 'good' becomes so part of a culture that it is the law -then , well, we've got positive change. And, when those good actions are seen to be one and the same as ones which have practical benefit, that's a huge step towards continual enactment of them. Thanks for the clear pointing to all this!
It would be nice to accompany these "rights of nature" laws with actions toward rescinding the charters of corporations that abuse their rights, or at least banning corporations from states in which they've abused the public trust. People need to, and are starting to, take back their rights from corporations.
They can start with putting filtration systems like aquariums in our rivers and changing them regularly to give UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS jobs and so OUR FISH supplies are restored. Try doing it in the oceans and removing some of the salt to reduce the temperature in the oceans where the dead zones are. Think Aquatic People. We have had major damage done to our fish population through over fishing and trauling the bottom of the seas. We have lost 97% of our fish worldwide.
It's time to turn the seas to healthy incubators for birth of more fish, if we are to survive as well. Omega 3 oil is vital to our bodies and cell destruction.
Our Oceans must become one big Aquarium Chemical Science project. We have the minds to do it and repair the damage.
Let's do it!
Darn skippy the Dhristian Right has seen the enviornmental light. Nobody wants to breed children to choke on the air of life. They better recognize, that their greed and ignorance of backing these polluters who donated to their non-profit organizations, don't have their families best interest, at heart. They don't have a heart, just a profit margin and meetings.
Coal is never going to be clean and the people know how it poisons the lives of those who live near it, work with it and who profit from it.
Coal is carbon, the element that causes global warming and that we have to get rid of in the atmosphere. The only way to sequester carbon is to leave it in the form of coal in its original state deep in the ground. Why has Obama been pitching "clean coal" as a credible new source of energy in a least two speeches I have heard? I fervently hope that the coal lobby has not contributed to his campaign. A scientifically oriented person like Obama should take a second look at this fallacious concept.
Nothing against Obama, but there is no science in his background. A president can't know everything, but there is no reason to think that Obama will be any more scientifically knowledgeable than any other president.
Wrap some cotton around that coal and put it in glass containers below surface in the shallow streams, pump the water through the cotton to catch the debrie and mucky germs in the water. This may take years but it works depending on the number of filtration devices installed in the rivers and streams. Use the debrie, for compost piles to use in farming, by rinsing the cotton from the filters, if it isn't toxic, reuse the cotton. Sounds like a worthy project eh? Algae is the best predictor of whether or not it is working. Our fish will be healthier also.
The desalinization of the Gulf and New Orleans fishing areas, are in the most desperate need of repair. It can't sustain fish life, and is a long standing job for at least a million people. Courses in oceaonography would be a good start in producing more workers in the fields of Anti=Polution Solutions and Green Technology.
We can do this.
YES WE CAN!!
What I love about this story is it's rural roots. I was born, raised and live in Philadelphia; but I worked in the museum community for several years and I was always struck by how many of my colleagues with roots in rural towns had received terrific educations and came to our community with a sophisticated sensibility.
If this idea were emerging from a major metropolitan center, you are right, it would be immediately disparaged as the work of "holier-than-thou do-gooders". But with the initiative coming from Tamaqua and their neighbors, that tag just won't stick.
I really wish them well and hope this moves forward. Balancing the "person hood" granted to corporations, with the rights of the natural world they can at times act to destroy, makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for the post
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
