Welcome back to Damages. I'm Amy Westervelt. Last episode, we heard about Ecuador's constitutional amendment to include rights of nature in a recent case that pitted the cloud forest of Losedros against a mining company and the government officials that permitted mining in that forest. La Cortero's one, and today we're going to get into a lot more detail about what that ruling means and why it was so important,
not just an Ecuador but around the world. Joining me for that discussion today are Melissa Trautman and Joshua Purbanik, the co founders of Public Herald, an independent investigative journalism organization. Melissa's based in Pennsylvania, Josh is in Ohio, and for years they uncovered lots of dirty secrets about fracking in those states. That work actually led them to rights of nature.
There's been a lot of activity to incorporate rights of nature in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, mostly as a response to industrial pollution of various kinds. Once they started digging into the issue, Melissa and josh were hooked, and they eventually made a documentary called Invisible Hand that came out in twenty twenty and is an excellent way into the topic for anyone who is interested in learning more about it. I caught up with them shortly after the Lausdroes ruling
came out to get their take on it. That conversation's coming up right after this quick break. I want to talk about the Lowis Sedros case and both of your responses to that, and especially the fact that it kind of well of getting paired with this decision to reaffirm indigenous communities right to consultation and involvement in decision making around extraction. So, yeah, what were you anticipating and you know, what did you think of the ruling?
I didn't have any anticipations about what the ruling would be, because it was really unclear from everybody we talked to what was going to happen with this case. The part that made me most excited was that there was so much involvement from the international community and attention to the case, which brought a lot more pressure on the courts and on the discussion in general to see something become of that.
And that's what happened. We saw something that was absolutely radical for the environmental movement overall and was literally a turning point. I think where it'll go down as a extremely historical moment that could change the mindset of the environmental movement, which hasn't been able to be changed up
until then. And by that I mean the rights of Nature has been written off as a fringe movement that wasn't successful and wasn't getting the kind of notoriety that these environmental organizations needed in order for them to get behind it and use their resources on behalf of rights
of nature. But with losegdros and twenty five thousand acres of forest being protected and it being done from a constitutional court being one of the highest rulings of law that you can get, that has significantly changed the perspective from what I can see of environmental organizations and people
in general who are dealing with environmental problems. On top of that, you have reinstated respect and introduction to Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous ways of thinking for these issues, and that has been extremely important because it's allowing folks to take a breath and take a step back from their very siloed approach to this thing and bring in different perspectives to the battles that they're facing and ask these kinds of questions from the indigenous community in order, I think,
to get a better understanding of how they should approach this issue from that mindset, and that has been something we've neglected for so long now in the environmental movement, and to see it come back into play through rights of nature is I think, a way to show how powerful this concept is. That Losadra's cases has been the
precipice for all of that. Now I have my own personal response to it, which is more philosophical cool because I've always seen rights of nature as sort of an inevitable idea that has spawned out of capitalism and out of democracy, and I think that moving forward with the world and civilization, when you're looking at a ruling like Losadro's, you're not necessarily looking at democracy. Democracy itself is a very anthropocentric institution, and it's always served the interest of
humans overall. And I think that a government that changes, a government that begins to serve the interest of nature and puts nature at the center of decision making is something that I've been calling an autocracy, just to give
it a name. And I think that this is some of the first versions of an autocracy that we're seeing, and I'm hoping that other folks are recognizing that transformation, that academics are also recognizing that, and that they'll get behind this idea of evolving democracy from what it's been into something that does have reciprocity with nature, something that does have the definitions of a substance and sustenance with nature, and that that guild that we've lost can be rebuilt.
And I think that that conversation has only become more tangible because of the the Los Agro's case, and you know, look what it's done for. Chile is now talking about, you know, bringing it into their country's constitution as well, which would make I think that would make five countries in the world who have now enshrined rights of nature into their constitution.
And that's what Blivia, Costa Rica, Panama right already, and then.
They have I think it doesn't serve the entire country, but it serves portions of the country for it to defend itself through rights of nature. But I mean, I think the envirable movement's been working on this stuff for what like eighty years, ninety years or something, and nothing has been for me, anywhere near as powerful as what we saw with the Ecuador's case.
It struck me as an example of rights of nature being sort of uniquely well positioned to deal with this problem that's coming up where people are like getting off of fossil fuels but then you know, just replacing them
with lithium and you know whatever else. This is like, if we evaluate these these decisions through rights of nature lens, you'd be less likely to do something versus evaluating it through basically a capitalism lens, where you know, people are just in this desperate rush to replace one energy source with another and not change anything else, or just.
The regulatory lens, right, I mean, if you evaluate through that, I mean we're going to practically nowhere, we're basically making concessions in order for parts of nature to be sacrificed and annihilated so that we can have some profit at the end. You know. But this is like so far from from that, and it is amazing and wonderful that it happened.
Yeah, Melissa, what were you going to say?
Like you said, rights of nature is particularly well suited to lead us through the transition, right, and whether you're talking about a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies, we're just talking about a transition to a more just world. In general, Rights of Nature is a great way to guide us into that new world. And it is a
totally new world. I mean, let's be real, a world where decisions were made based on the fundamental principles of the universe, of the physical universe, interconnectedness, reciprocity, diversity, you know, like the laws of nature. By acknowledging those and keeping those central to all of our decision making processes automatically means to a certain degree that we are just making
more sustainable decisions. And also the rights of nature helps with transitioning to a more equitable and just world, just on a social level, because everything, every all living beings are included in the rights of nature equally. You know, the rights of nature is not giving more rights to certain species and not others, not in principle anyway, although there are interesting conflicts that will come up in the
future between different species. You will have to answer questions like is the salmon more valuable than the algae eating darters that thrive in that same ecosystem. You know, if one I think it was Christopher Stone you mentioned in one of your previous podcasts about this where he brought this up where like one species could thrive in a cold water fishery and another species could thrive when the water warms a little bit, So there is conflict in nature.
But back to Los Sidros.
I think that future generations are going to look back on this point in human history and say that's when the shift happened. I really believe that, and they're going to point to things like the Los Adro's case and rights of nature in general, because these cases and the Rights of Nature movement not just the legal strategy, but also the cultural shift, the paradigm shift in how we think and how we see and how we feel and
what we do. That shift is so fundamental, so fundamentally different from the massive, exponentially industrial and exploitative and oppressive period and human history that got us here in this massive crisis no living beings had to ever grapple with before in the history of the planet, which is how old. I mean. We are shifting from a culture that is separated itself from the non human world, has subjugated nature
to property, women to property, slaves to property. All of that is shifting, and it's being birthed through this cultural shift that the rights of nature movement is a part of and it's not just the rights of nature. There are other sort of tangential things happening alongside of it. But inside of these fundamental shifts are some core principles, right, and one of them is a fundamental shift in how
we perceive the world around us. And also it's about shifting power, because power over the last how many thousands of years or whatever, especially last hundreds of years in the Western world, but not just the Western world, there has been a usurption of power into more and more central organizations, central governments, certain particular types of people, religions, just all power has been kind of usurped by these entities. And that power is now being returned to where it's
supposed to be, which is in everybody right equally. And we're also waking up from this ridiculous illusion that anything under the sun is separate, or anything under the sun or the stars for that matter, exists in isolation.
I really do.
Think that future generations are going to look back on now and say that's when the shift happened. I mean, obviously, change happens over time, and you know, again, nothing exists in isolation. It's not as if the cultural and legal shifts happening now are a build up from everything that has come before.
Right.
But there was one other thing that was major for us when this came out, and that thing was that the ruling was based on the fact that the mining company would harm the biodiversity of the forest, and not particularly an endangered species or something of the like, but that the entire ecosystem itself was considered for the ruling
rather than just something specific. And for me, that has been the one of the major issues for the rights of Nature movement since it began, which is decide this vagueness that existed to the law, and that's what they've been using in Ohio and Florida and other places, saying, you know this this law, we're going to preempt you from bringing any rights of nature case to the court because it's too vague and we can't make a ruling
on it, and blah blah blah. But now you can see the foundation, what the foundation needs to be, and if the foundation is biodiversity going forward, that is exactly exactly what needs to happen. That was what we talked about at the very beginning when we were talking about Bills of Rights for rights of nation, you know, the idea of like freedom of biodiversity. I mean, it's so huge. That was the one thing that for us as far as you know, journalists covering it like that was major.
It was. It was so huge.
And then the fact that like the way that it was, the way the ruling was worded was like pretty prescriptive for how lawmakers and regulators should be interpreting this law in terms of protecting biodiversity too. I was actually like really blown away by that ruling. I just was like, wow, this is.
The same here as soon as I read it.
It's like something really new. Yeah.
Yeah, the language was like and was very very powerful and very extraordinary. It will be cited you know, in books from from here on down. It was just a fantastic version of what kind of response you'd want to see from a judge. I was tremendous.
Yeah.
I think also because like I'm so used to reading rulings from American judges that are you know, disappointing at best. It was like, Wow, this is what like something like this could really do. And that's I think to me, I feel like that's a really important aspect of rights of nature too, is that it kind of shows people this different world that you're talking about, Melissa, in a way that like lets them, I don't know, engage with
how great it could be and not freak out. I mean, I know if people do freak out about like trees having rights or whatever, but I feel like they're starting to be a little bit of a consciousness shift around that.
Yeah, and there absolutely has to be I mean, the old ways are dying, and people who be like, oh, why should a tree have rights like that? That way is dying. And the reality is you can you can cling to that all you want, but it's on its way out and at some point you're probably going to go out with it. We just can't exist that way. Literally, we just cannot dying.
But also, sorry there was a pause.
No go ahead, Josh, Maybe you're maybe I am anticipating you're going to say something like, yeah, it's dying. But it's also in the throes of death the old way will become bigger and bolder, and you know it's it's going to try to assert itself even more in certain ways.
But at the same time, I don't know, twelve years of.
Brain brain melding. But at the same time that the old, oppressive, extractive nature is property. You know, traditional ways are should give way to just technology, technology, technology, all of that is going to fight really hard to maintain a grip, and that's going to be really it already is really painful and has been painful for a lot of people.
But at the same time, the amount of people who are coming into this and the amount of people pushing and fighting and living and sharing a more beautiful and sustainable and rational and sane and communal way of living and being is also growing. And so I think all
of that is to say I am very optimistic. I mean, I also recognize I'm a very privileged person and that influences my perspective obviously, And I am also optimistic because of the just the amount of people and different kinds of people, different kinds of voices, and different people being representative and represented, and the shift of power back into the back into the places that it was stolen from.
I mean, we have a long way to go, but that has been I mean, it's been growing, and if that trend continues, I think we're going to be in a better place tomorrow than we were Yesterday.
That's it for this time. Next week we'll bring you the story of Day in New Zealand, so come back for that.
I think when we when we crossed over the I think the psychological barrier of not viewing through the winter as property, the whole obstacle of ownership disappeared.
Damages is an original Critical Frequency production. Our senior producer and editor is Sarah Ventry. Sound designed by Ray Pang, mixing and mastering by Mark Busch. Our fact checker is wooedan Yan. Our First Amendment Attorney is James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project. We have a whole team of contributing reporters that include Lindell Rowlands, Meg Duff, and Karen Savage. The show was created and written by me Amy Westervelt. Big thank you to the File Foundation for their generous
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