Trees Have Rights Too: Yes or No? Discuss

Recognising rights for nature is vital for human survival

Human rights are meaningless in an uninhabitable world. Our continued membership of the Earth Community (i.e. survival) will ultimately depend on whether we recognise and protect the rights of all members of that Community. Our well-being is inseperable from, and wholly dependent on the well-being of the Earth Community.We humans claim we have human rights because we exist and we use legal systems to balance those rights against one another to promote the common good of the community. Most societies have forgotten that they are also part of a wider community of other-than-human life (Earth community) and don't recognise that the other members of the community have rights. This means Nature is treated as property and is exploited like slaves (humans defined as property) were. Human exploitation and destruction of the Earth community now threatens human survival and well-being. Recognising the reality that every member of the Earth Community has the right to exist, a place to exist and to play its role in the Community will enable us to use legal systems to balance human rights against these other rights for the common good of the whole Earth Community.

Cormac Cullinan @ Dec 11, 2008 05:40:17 AM