Rights of Nature

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One aim of the SWFL RESET Center is to help inspire cooperative local efforts to win legally recognized rights for nature, specifically the rights of ecosystems to exist, flourish, and evolve naturally.  Among other issues, the chronic pollution of SWFL waterways, the mounting pressures upon viable populations of wildlife, and the loss of critical wetlands and other environmentally critical areas indicate clearly that we need fundamental change in our relationship with the natural world.

Corollary to legally recognized rights of nature is the legally recognized right of citizens to clean water and healthy ecosystems. That we don’t currently have such rights is again evidence of the need to reset the social and legal paradigms regarding our relationship with nature.

Decades of environmental degradation in SWFL (and throughout the state and nation) indicate our current regulatory system is failing us and the natural world.  Sustainability demands we live within nature’s laws and limitations, a wisdom long exercised by indigenous cultures. Granting rights to nature compels us live sustainably, thus ensuring we leave future generations a SWFL as healthy and richly endowed in natural splendors as it should be.

Essential Reading
Noah’s Second Voyage: Rights of Nature as Law
Oliver A. Houck.  Essential reading from co-author of the Clean Water Act.
https://www.occompt.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-08-Noahs-Second-Voyage-The-Rights-of-Nature-as-Law.pdf

A Phoenix from the Ashes: Resurrecting a Constitutional Right of Local, Community Self-Government in the Name of Environmental Sustainability
Thomas Linzey and Daniel Brannen Jr.
https://celdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PHOENIX-FROM-THE-ASHES-CELDF-LAW-REVIEW-2017.pdf

Legal Conditions for Earth Survival
Thomas Berry. 
https://sugarlandrally.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/legal-conditions-for-earth-survival-thomas-berry.pdf.

Recommended Viewing
SWFL RESET Center Rights of Nature webinar with Thomas Linzey and Chuck O’Neal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQnr6sxvUj0&feature=youtu.be

The basics about Rights of Nature from leaders of the movement nationally and in Florida, respectively

Useful Links
Florida Rights of Nature Network: 
https://fronn.org/

For Florida specific Rights of Nature information
Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights: 
https://www.centerforenvironmentalrights.org/

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund:  
https://celdf.org/