It is often said that a society is blessed when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit. Planting trees is a good start, but I would say a society is blessed when no one cuts down any tree that grew there before they were born. Our world does not just need more trees, it needs more old trees: 500-year-old oaks, 1,000-year-old pines, 3,000-year-old sequoias.
In countries like The Netherlands, where ‘long term’ means 30, at most 60, years into the future, there is only one way for an oak to remain standing for 500 years: it needs legal standing.
Jessica den Outer’s RIGHTS OF NATURE, published in Dutch as Rechten voor de Natuur, is one of the most hopeful and inspiring books I have read about climate and time. Rights of nature refers to a legal concept that asserts inherent rights to ecosystems and species, analogous to fundamental human rights. Den Outer discusses rights of nature initiatives around the world and makes a legal, ethical and practical case for her life mission: ingraining the rights of nature in the Dutch constitution. Rights of nature is “the legal basis on which we can change our worldview and safeguard justice for the rest of nature.”(25)[i]
About Amelisweerd, an ancient piece of forest that is under threat from a new highway and has been called ‘scrap nature’ by politicians, she writes:
“All this time people are talking about Amelisweerd, but the nature reserve itself does not have a voice. Rights of Nature are crucial to safeguard the rights of trees themselves. Legal guardians should be able to represent the trees and their interests. These guardians should not just speak from their own (legal) perspective, but as representatives of the land. The centuries old trees of Amelisweerd, who are much older than the politicians deciding about them, have the right to exist. When we acknowledge this right and take it into account in our decisions, everything can change.”(116)[ii]
Rights of nature are part of the therapy for climate madness that our world needs. The implicit or explicit acknowledgement of (non-human) nature’s right to exist has been part of indigenous cultures, and Den Outer discusses many of these in her book. In my interview with her, I asked her about this, and it made clear to me that the rights of nature – the legal movement is there for ‘us’ in the global north:
“What I think is most inspiring about the rights of nature is that they are mostly derived from indigenous philosophies. And it’s indigenous people that have led this movement. […] The law is pragmatic, and it is human-made. But I think the rights of nature is a tool to embed this way of thinking into our western way of living.”
The official start of the rights of nature movement in the 1970s and 1980s could not have been more perfect. Millenia-old sequoia trees were about to be cut down to make place for a highway leading to a new Disney ski resort. The environmentalists defending the trees found that the judge would only accept arguments that showed this would affect humans – campers, for instance. The trees themselves did not have legal standing. The contrast between centuries-old trees and politicians focused on their next election, between slow-growing trees and speed-skiing Disney patrons represents a temporal clash that is at the heart of the rights of nature.
And what happens on a small level happens with the world at large: we are moving too fast, the climate is changing too rapidly, and we are focused on the next turn ahead instead of on the pace at which the ecosystems that sustain our existence move.
I like Den Outer’s realistic, down-to-earth approach. She does not describe the rights of nature as a panacea or a quick fix. She discusses different case studies of rights of nature in the world, what worked about them as well as lessons that can be learned. For instance, on the one hand, she acknowledges that ingraining rights of nature in the Ecuadorian constitution has been a paradigm shift. On the other hand,
“A paradigm shift always involves the loss of power and influence of old, powerful parties. If nature is given a stronger legal status, then the relationship between humans and the rest of nature changes. Nature is given a new status in law, which means that humans suddenly have to take nature into account. This may mean that humans have to give up something – and that naturally provokes resistance. What we can learn from the example of Ecuador is that simply recognizing the Rights of Nature in the Constitution is not enough. In Ecuador, laws, regulations and policies that support the Rights of Nature and provide practical guidelines for their application are lacking.”[iii]
Den Outer seems to interweave two mutually reinforcing arguments for the rights of nature. On the one hand, a spiritual, philosophical and scientific acknowledgement that “we’re not speaking about granting, but about acknowledging Rights of Nature,”(24)[iv] It’s not about giving nature a voice: “Fortunately, all those [scientific] discoveries help us better understand the natural world. Nature already has a voice, it’s up to us to learn to listen.”(120)[v] In other words, rights of nature is a legal movement that represents something in law that has in fact always already been the case – we just did not listen.
Next to this principled argument, Den Outer emphasizes practical approaches. For instance, a study shows that Dutch people have an ecocentric rather than anthropocentric image of nature. And “Rights of Nature are no quick fix that changes everything, but once ingrained in the Constitution, can function as a framework to which concrete policies can be attached.”(118)[vi] Time and again, she emphasizes the role of civil movements, people like you and me, in fighting for acknowledging rights of nature in all aspects of society, but also in standing up for nature – even as a legal guardian or representative – once the rights of nature have been accepted.
I like this combined approach, because it acknowledges the performativity of justice: rights of nature is the right thing to do, and establishing rights of nature in experimental, imperfect ways, will give rise to not just jurisprudence that helps us improve legal practices, but also scaffold a new world image (that is, in fact, an old world image). History shows that acknowledging the rights of women, children, enslaved people, animals and other earthlings does not guarantee them being treated justly. But acknowledging those rights can help people get used to it, and accept the new paradigm. Just as many people still seem to have a hard time accepting that men are equal to women and that the color of your skin does not say anything about how you should be treated, realistically we can accept that many people find the idea that trees, lakes, and other parts of nature have the inherent right to exist and thrive preposterously. Just as many slave owners and child employers were not happy, we can expect the (shareholders of the) Shells and ExxonMobils of this world to protest having to respect the rights of nature. Ironically, these companies themselves are recognized as legal personalities whereas the ecosystems they are destroying are not. Although the implementation may take time, Den Outer reminds us that “nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
I would love for the elders of my generation and the one before me to plant trees under whose shade we will never sit. More than that, I would love for our children, our grandchildren, our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren to enjoy the shade of those elderly trees. Perhaps we do not even need to plant so many trees in the long term – trees are perfectly capable of planting themselves when left alone.[vii] The rights of nature movement is the way to accomplish this, especially when led by young people like Jessica den Outer, who tie their life mission to making this happen.
RIGHTS OF NATURE is available in Dutch as Rechten voor de Natuur at Lemniscaat. I hope it will be translated for an international audience soon. Jessica den Outer and Laura Burgers did write an English book of case studies: Compendium Rights of Nature. Follow Den Outer’s website and rights of nature foundation. You can listen to my interview with Den Outer here.
This series of book reflections and reviews is conducted by Mario Veen, an interdisciplinary philosopher and writer who is fascinated by global weirding. Mario is the host of the podcast Life From Plato’s Cave and the author of ‘Hoe Plato je uit je grot sleurt’. Over the next twelve months, a new book review is published each month on Future Based.
Edited by Victoria Libucha.
[i] “de juridische basis waarop we ons wereldbeeld kunnen veranderen en rechtvaardigheid voor de rest van de natuur kunnen waarborgen.”
[ii] “Al die tijd gaat het óver Amelisweerd, maar heeft het natuurgebied zélf geen stem. Rechten voor de Natuur zijn doorslaggevend om de belangen van de bomen zelf te behartigen. Voogden moeten de bomen en hun belangen kunnen vertegenwoordigen. Niet alleen sprekend vanuit hun eigen (juridisch) oogpunt, maar als vertegenwoordigers van het landschap zelf. De eeuwenoude bomen in Amelisweerd, die veel ouder zijn dan de politici die hierover beslissen, hebben het recht om te bestaan. Als we dat recht erkennen en meenemen in onze beslissingen, dan kan alles veranderen.”
[iii] “Een paradigmaverschuiving gaat altijd gepaard met het verlies van macht en invloed van oude, machtige partijen. Als de natuur sterkere juridische status krijgt, dan verandert dat de relatie tussen de mens en de rest van de natuur. De natuur krijgt een nieuwe status in het recht, wat betekent dat de mens opeens rekening moet gaan houden met de natuur. Dat kan betekenen dat de mens daarvoor iets moet inleveren – en dat roept vanzelfsprekend weerstand op. Wat we leren van het voorbeeld van Ecuador, is dat alleen een erkenning van de Rechten van de Natuur in de Grondwet niet voldoende is. In Ecuador ontbreken wetten, regels en beleidsmaatregelen die de Rechten voor de Natuur ondersteunen en praktische richtlijnen geven voor de toepassing ervan.”
[iv] “Daarom wordt er niet gesproken over het toekennen, maar over het erkennen van de Rechten van de Natuur.”
[v] “Gelukkig beginnen we door al die [wetenschappelijke] ontdekkingen de natuurlijke wereld steeds beter te begrijpen. De natuur hééft al een stem, het gaat erom dat we leren luisteren.”
[vi] “Rechten van de Natuur zijn geen quick fix waardoor alles direct verandert, maar kunnen in de Grondwet fungeren als een kapstok waaraan concreet beleid kan worden opgehangen.”
[vii] Poorter L, Craven D, Jakovac CC, et al. Multidimensional tropical forest recovery. Science (New York, NY). 2021; 374(6573): 1370–6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh3629