Mother Earth Has Rights Too!
Apr 26th, 2013 by oliviaszostek
Bolivia, in December of 2010, passed a ten article law the first of its kind titled “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth.” The law speaks to seven major aspects of the environment that human communities and the earth itself are entitled to, including the right to diversity, clean air, and clean water. The interesting part of this law, I found, was the right to equilibrium. “It is the right to maintenance or restoration of the inter-relation, interdependence, ability to complement and functionality of the components of Mother Earth, in a balanced manner for the continuation of its cycles and the renewal of its vital processes.”
Overall, this law is working towards discouraging damaging and unsustainable practices. As seen in an article that you can read here, the law has been viewed as an attempt to increase food security, and discourage the privatization and monopolization of water and major food sources.
I can only imagine what a world would be like if Mother Earth was considered as having legal rights, and was considered in every decision that we make. Would we still be able to calculate GDP the same way? After all, we measure GDP purely off of our monetary system, and some may say that Mother Earth has no monetary value. It can not give us returns on our investments by just preserving a nature land space.
My question now is, must we reform our economic and political views before we can change our legal system in relation to the earth?
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_Rights_of_Mother_Earth
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/gallery/photo/bolivia-enacts-new-law-for-mother-earth-141899