“Nature Rights” Hits the Big Time

Should "nature" be accorded enforceable human-type rights? Not too long ago, the very notion would have been laughed out of town.

But no one is chuckling now. Over the last decade, support for granting legal rights to nature has steadily seeped from the radical fringe into the establishment mainstream.

So what are we talking about?

The usual definition states that nature—which, when you think about it, is everything that exists—has "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles" in evolution. That comes close to a right to life for all of flora and fauna, doesn't it?

Such proposals are already being adopted at both national and local levels. Hence, Peruvian bees have been granted rights. A Canadian town recently granted "the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration"…for trees!