University Pushes “Tree Rights”

The University of Sussex has published a "toolkit" to enable political and legal action to grant "rights" to trees. This is consistent with the radical environmentalist activism seen in many universities, such as Harvard Law, which is now teaching "nature rights" principles and strategies to students.

"Tree rights" is a subset of the overarching "nature rights" movement, which also includes "river rights," "ocean rights," and even "rights for the moon." I don't have space to discuss the entire 186-page advocacy treatise — developed over three years, evidencing the energy and commitment of nature rights activists to their cause — but here's a fair nutshell overview.

As we have seen before, "tree rights" advocacy principles are steeped in mysticism and neo-paganism. From "The Rights of Trees, Woodlands, and Forests Toolkit":

Alongside economic and functional values, many belief systems recognise trees, woodlands and forests as living, sacred, intelligent beings. In Pagan, Celtic and many Indigenous worldviews, trees are ancestors, teachers and kin. Such worldviews align with the Rights of Nature movement, which recognises nature not as property, but as a rights-bearing community of life.

In other words, tree rights advocacy is based substantially on irrationality. Trees are alive, to be sure. But they are not "intelligent." Good grief, they aren't even sentient. Sacred is a religious concept, as is the myth or belief (take your pick) that they are our "ancestors."