• Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    A town does not have the power to recognize new rights. Pretty fucking awful that they think a tree deserves the right to life, natural growth, integrity and regeneration, but cows, pigs, and chickens don’t. A tree doesn’t deserve a right to life, we deserve a right to trees.

      • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        23 hours ago

        Can you please describe your observations and perceptions that lead you to feel I’m being self-righteous? I think the call might be coming from inside the house, if you catch my drift.

        • binux@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          23 hours ago

          I find sayings like this and the other similar accusation of projection in this sort of context really funny because they’re basically the evolved form of the schoolyard retort: “no, you!”

          Strange how we’ve somehow come to assume that they actually hold any weight despite being functionally the exact same. I mean, even then it was dumb.

  • VoodooMischief@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    2 days ago

    Long overdue and much needed across the country to stop the destruction of our ecosystem. Ecuador, Bolivia, India, and Panama did something similar a few years back by giving nature wide sweeping legal rights. It sets a a good legal framework to push back on corporate exploitation. That said, it’s still a long way away from actively being able to stop the force of our economic objectives and definitely needs a society that’s ready to uphold them in order to succeed.

    This is a good article around Bolivia’s laws that offered some apt observations on how this won’t be enough (even though I fully support it): https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/bolivias-mother-earth-laws-is-the-ecocentric-legislation-misleading/

    “The Mother Earth laws sadly have become statutory devices to legalize the exploitation of natural resources in Bolivia, instead of protecting Mother Earth. By promoting extractive activities in order to achieve the Living Well objective, on one side, and the defense of Mother Earth, on the other, these laws end up being highly contradictory, making environmental protection a secondary objective, which is contingent to the government’s prevailing economic interests. In reality these laws did not translate into any improvement in environmental policies in Bolivia and they only served to bolster the deceptive image of the Bolivian government as an international pioneer in environmental protection.

    It is not enough to pass laws with abstract Indigenous visions and apparent non-capitalistic concepts if they are not coupled with concrete practices, real actions and enforceability mechanisms. These laws will never be effective if there are no new public policies to change the current non-sustainable production pattern, shifting away from extractive practices that go against Mother Earth’s survival. As long as there is this fundamental dissonance between these laws’ provisions, other legal provisions and specially the Bolivian government’s practices, there is little hope for any improvements in future environmental and animal protection efforts based on there Mother Earth Laws.”

    • DMCMNFIBFFF@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      So no more destroying trees for lumber and fuel, or replacing them with food, and even less so, ornamental plants?