Bolivia grants "Earth Rights" to Nature

[auroraglacialis]

I will not say that stones have sex, but I would like to point out that it also pays to give inanimate or "non"sentient objects certain "rights", just like a corporation can be a "legal person" and has rights despite it being a fictional entity, existing entirely on paper only. For example "nonsentient" insects play a vital role in ecology and thus life on this planet, including humans. And "inanimate" objects like water, rivers, lakes, air and yes even rocks also play their own vital roles. To treat them as equals ensures that they wiill continue to fulfil their part and in the end that humans also get into trouble.
If that includes people thinking stones have sex, animals are sentient, trees can talk or if that is all just a bunch of DNA-machines to you, by keeping nature, the biosphere and its inanimate elements alive, this also goes to humanity. We are after all a part of the biosphere.

"The future of a whole nation" thus actually cannot be unlinked from conservation.

Of course one thing has to be clear - the old fashined idea of conservation, to take some hundred square miles of land, put up a fence, take away all people and create some human-free "Nature" is nonsense. The way conservation has to work is, as I believe is thought of in this law, to give them equality - creating a balance, people living with nature, not rule over it, consume it but also not retreat completely from it.

[Tsyal Makto]

Yeah, that is a bit strange, to say the least (I don't think any animist people would even believe anything close to that). The point, however, is that there are living things in the wild, that are mothers and fathers, and might even be smarter than we give them credit for (Animals Have Emotional Lives, Too | Environment | AlterNet). I think they, or at least the natural world as a whole (I'm a soft Gaian, if that helps tell where I'm coming from) deserve some rudimentary rights and protections.

Look, humanity needs to rethink it's relationship with the natural world, and see it in a new light, not the western view that it is simply a ball of resources, but is something more, like our ancestors did. We're part of this web of life afterall, our health and survival depends on it being healthy and surviving. This legislation, even if symbolically, sets a precedent for that, even if parts are off-putting. (Which I'm sure will be dealt with in due time).

[applejuice]

But Corporations and so are conformed by people! Of course it is not a living being per se, but a corporation is a group of persons... not a group of stones. It is impossible to equate a Human or an animal to a tree or rock. We all have our place in the biosphere, if we were equal or pretend to equalize to our environment, everything would be insane, because, ethically, a person being equal in rights to exist as a plant would need to ask permission to such plant to use it as food... and whom will represent the natural resources if not another human? This whole idea of being legally equal to plants or rocks or else is just non-sense. In nature, big animals eat small animals and so on, what makes us different is that in nature, animals only take what they need to survive. To try and emulate that behavior in Humans is a step backwards in what civilization concerns. From that point of view, poverty is not a serious problem, but a way of life to be emulated.

[Tsyal Makto]

But much of the world has been overconsuming at the same time. It's all about treading lightly, which is easier if one has a new mindset about the natural world they depend on.

On a side note, what is your opinion of uncontacted tribes? Should they be left alone or civilized? Because many could still be living in the effected areas? Or what us your opinion of the Belo Monte Dam?

[Raiden]

Yay!

One of my favorite aquarium fish are native to Bolivia.

I'm aware of the poverty issue, but that's a whole 'nother ball game...

Just developing in a country isn't really a solution to poverty, either. It solves the issue temporarily, and then when the population explodes again, everyone falls under the poverty line, and you're left with poverty and environmental devastation.

Sometimes I almost think that places like Bolivia just won't work for large populations of capitalistic humans, and the only real solution would be to move everybody to specific human-only settlements that are very dense and compacted, and limit the populations of them to keep poverty and disease away.

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Look, humanity needs to rethink it's relationship with the natural world, and see it in a new light, not the western view that it is simply a ball of resources, but is something more, like our ancestors did.

I agree. I just don't think regarding the natural world as having "equal rights" to humans is the way to go. That's just being silly, as I said about oxygen molecules...

[James of terra]

As above, I agree with you, to protect is good, but to give rights to plants...hhmmm

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

But much of the world has been overconsuming at the same time. It's all about treading lightly, which is easier if one has a new mindset about the natural world they depend on.

On a side note, what is your opinion of uncontacted tribes? Should they be left alone or civilized? Because many could still be living in the effected areas? Or what us your opinion of the Belo Monte Dam?

Fortunately or unfortunately, we don't belong to that much of the world that consumes a lot of natural resources.
Concerning isolated tribes, a part of me wishes them to conserve their way of life, their traditions. After all, it's their life. On the other hand, when I see them, I see a lot of people living in infra-human life conditions. They are plagued with decease, lack of medicines, lack of food, almost an animal state. I think that if they were given the choice of a "civilized" life, most will adopt it and a fraction will reject it. That seems to be the way of progress.

Originally Posted by Raiden

Yay!

One of my favorite aquarium fish are native to Bolivia.

I'm aware of the poverty issue, but that's a whole 'nother ball game...

Just developing in a country isn't really a solution to poverty, either. It solves the issue temporarily, and then when the population explodes again, everyone falls under the poverty line, and you're left with poverty and environmental devastation.

Sometimes I almost think that places like Bolivia just won't work for large populations of capitalistic humans, and the only real solution would be to move everybody to specific human-only settlements that are very dense and compacted, and limit the populations of them to keep poverty and disease away.

We also think like that, given our current authorities, but we were doing big advances in Human Development until 2003, when Sanchez de Lozada was forced to leave the country and a kind of anarchy ruled until Morales took the presidency in 2006. From there, the country went down in all its indicators. I like to think that, given our small population and our enormous resources, all of us bolivians should be living a more than decent life. But populism is not compatible with intelligence and common sense.

[Tsyal Makto]

Originally Posted by applejuice

Fortunately or unfortunately, we don't belong to that much of the world that consumes a lot of natural resources.
Concerning isolated tribes, a part of me wishes them to conserve their way of life, their traditions. After all, it's their life. On the other hand, when I see them, I see a lot of people living in infra-human life conditions. They are plagued with decease, lack of medicines, lack of food, almost an animal state. I think that if they were given the choice of a "civilized" life, most will adopt it and a fraction will reject it. That seems to be the way of progress.

That's actually not really true. If you've read a lot of the discussion we've had here, you'll see that that's sort of a falacy on the part of civilization. Here's an interesting read that's relevant. Might be a bit "fringe" for some, but still presents a pretty good case.

But I digress, let's not derail this thread.