Nature and Conservation

The science establishment is continuing its drift into mysticism regarding environmental issues. Our latest example comes from Nature — the most prestigious science journal in the world — extolling an Australian environmental scientist who lists a river as her co-author on science papers. Elite science is besotted with the “knowing” of indigenous people — no matter that it is often an expression of mystical religious belief. Sure enough, the subject of the story is an indigenous scientist named Anne Poelina: Conservationist Anne Poelina has a deep connection to the fresh water that runs through the dry red-rock landscape of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Poelina identifies as a Nyikina Warrwa woman, and her people are the Traditional Custodians of Read More ›

A few months ago, I posted about a Republican-sponsored bill in Wisconsin that would preempt local communities from enacting “nature rights” ordinances. I wrote at the time: If the bill passes, I suspect that the Democrat governor will veto it. Nature rights was adopted into the platform of Florida’s Democratic Party, and I predict it will eventually become a plank of the national party as it is becoming a zealous progressive cause as a means of combatting climate change and hobbling capitalism. But at least a veto would be clarifying. Later, Wisconsin Democrat legislators heightened my expectation by filing a resolution in support of granting nature “inherent rights, including the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored.” The Republican Read More ›

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.”

The rights of nature movement has been more successful than the animal rights movement. Geological features such as rivers, but few animals, have been granted rights. But now in a merger of sorts of these worldviews, stingless bees have been granted rights in two local ordinances in Peru. From the Smithsonian magazine story: Under the new laws, stingless bees now have the fundamental right to exist and flourish in a healthy environment, without pollution, habitat loss, climate change, human activity or other threats getting in the way of their survival. Humans can also file lawsuits on the insects’ behalf. So, in essence, bees have been granted a right to life. PETA must be dancing a jig. Also, notice the global warming Read More ›

The push to grant rights to, well, everything continues apace. Now, a long piece in the progressive publication Current Affairs argues that “Wild Animals Deserve Rights, Too.” Animal-rights activist Michael Burrows writes: Wild animals deserve our attention and respect, for the same reasons that we should care about any creature: they are sentient, with recognizable social behaviors and emotions, and just like humans their lives have intrinsic value. But wild animals are also unique, simply by virtue of existing outside of the sphere of human stewardship. They live their lives mostly out of our sight, and we have no hands-on role in their breeding or care. Still, our current system of land management treats wild animals as simply another variable in our nation’s supply-and-demand graph, to be kept Read More ›

A Green member of the House of Lords plans to introduce “nature rights” legislation. Not only would — basically everything — have rights, but these supposed liberties could be enforced against “individuals.” The authoritarian possibilities are unquantifiable.

First, “nature’s” definition is so broad it includes just about everything in existence. From Draft 8 of the Nature Rights Act of 2025:

“Nature” means the interconnected community of living organisms, ecosystems, geological processes, and natural cycles, including all species, habitats, landscapes, waters, soils, the atmosphere, and the evolutionary and regenerative dynamics of life on Earth.

Anything in the world missing from that definition? Not that I can see. Thus, everything on earth — including the air — would be deemed a “legal person.” And notice that “nature” is personalized with a capital N:

Recognition of Nature as a Legal Person:
a. Nature is recognised as a legal person and subject of law.
b. The rights of Nature established by this Act shall vest in Nature as a single legal entity.
c. These rights shall be enforceable collectively on behalf of Nature to prevent fragmentation of legal claims.

As I have noted here before, NYU Law School’s radical MOTH (More Than Human Life) program embraces neo-earth mysticism as part of its efforts to promote “nature rights.” Here’s the latest example. MOTH participants are seeking to force the Ecuadorian Copyright Office to grant a copyright to a forest as the supposed co-composer of music called Song of the Cedars. From “Giving Back to Nature,” published on the MOTH website: The aim of the song and its accompanying legal petition is to recognize—legally and culturally—the inextricable agency and participation of the natural world in the making of art. The song could not have been made without Los Cedros, legally and philosophically justifying the effort to acknowledge the forest’s “moral authorship” Read More ›

A few months ago, I posted about a Republican proposal in Wisconsin to have the state legally preempt local ordinances that grant “rights” to nature. I predicted that, if the bill passed, the Democratic governor would veto it because the nature rights movement is quickly entering the progressive mainstream. Well, no veto yet, since the bill hasn’t passed. But some Democratic legislators have reacted against the legislation by proposing a joint resolution in favor of granting “inherent rights to nature.” Par for the course, they bow to the supposedly superior environmental wisdom of indigenous people. From the proposed joint resolution: Whereas, Indigenous communities…have lived in respectful relationships with the land that is now Wisconsin for thousands of years, and their Read More ›

If everything has rights — trees, geological features, animals, waves (yes, waves!) — then the core principle protecting human liberty becomes as worthless as currency during a wild inflation. Now, illustrating the Luddite sensibilities that permeate environmentalism generally and the nature rights movement specifically, a science journal has published advocacy by three astrobiology “ethicists” urging that planets, moons, and even space microbes be granted rights. The authors are earnestly serious about their subject. They expend thousands of words discussing the history of the rights of nature movement and existing treaties that apply to space exploration. They then argue that planets be deemed juridical entities, a proposal that environmental radicals have previously urged apply to the moon, i.e., “the right to Read More ›

The “nature rights” movement is pushing environmentalism into the unscientific realm. Specifically, the movement promotes a neo-pagan mysticism — such as invoking Pachamama the Incan earth goddess — as a major basis for its advocacy. Such unscientific approaches have reached the highest levels of the ivory tower and have been invoked in medical and science journals. Most recently, the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium on “nature rights” undergirded by “indigenous knowledge” as part of the 2025 Harvard Climate Action Week. From “Indigenous Leadership on Protecting Water as a Fundamental Right“: Throughout the event, a recurring theme was the need to reframe the human relationship with water—not as a resource for human consumption but as a living relative with which Read More ›