In Ecuador Nature Has Rights

Posted by Jeffrey St. Clair on August 8th, 2008 | Link

Ecuadorian Assembly Approves Constitutional Rights for Nature
Climate and Capitalism, Jul. 10, 2008

On July 7, the 130-member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly, elected
countrywide to rewrite the country’s Constitution, voted to approve
articles that recognize rights for nature and ecosystems.

“If adopted in the final constitution by the people, Ecuador would
become the first country in the world to codify a new system of
environmental protection based on rights,” says Thomas Linzey,
Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

The following clauses will be included in the constitution that will
be submitted to a countrywide vote, to be held 45 days after Assembly
finishes its work later this month:

Chapter: Rights for Nature

Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has
the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles,
structure, functions and its processes in evolution.

Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand
the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The
application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related
principles established in the Constitution.

Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral
restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical
persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that
depend on the natural systems.

In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including
the ones caused by the exploitation on non-renewable natural
resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for
the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or
mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well
as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all
the elements that form an ecosystem.

Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in
all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the
destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the
natural cycles.

The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that
can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is
prohibited.

Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have
the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that
will allow wellbeing.

The environmental services cannot be appropriated; its production,
provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.

“Public organisms” in Article 1 means the courts and government
agencies, i.e., the people of Ecuador would be able to take action to
enforce nature rights if the government did not do so.