December 31, 2009

What talks on climate change in Copenhagen failed to
accomplish, a change in the legal status of nature might
achieve.

Legal changes often reflect the evolution of society.
One-hundred years ago, Canadian women were not considered
legal "persons." As non-persons, women had no legal
standing; no remedy in courts of law.

It took the spunky Albertan, Emily Murphy, to challenge the
old Canadian Constitution and by1929 women were no longer
the possessions of men; no longer unprotected in courts.

Since then, personhood has been a useful means of extended
protection to groups of persons and even inanimate objects.
Corporations and municipalities are now legal persons and so
are ships in some jurisdictions.

In Christopher Stone's book titled Should Trees Have
Standing? Law, Morality, and the Environment, the University
of Southern California law professor argues that trees,
oceans, animals, and the environment as a whole should be
bestowed with legal rights.

Stone's claims may seem inconceivable now but so did the
right of women to vote 100 years ago. That's the road to
progress; what was once improbable is now normal. Only the
inertia of the past carries our biases forward.

Canadians are especially backward in this regard. Once upon
a time we had an international reputation for being stewards
of this vast land of forests, lakes, and mountains.

But that reputation has been tarnished in Copenhagen after
Canada was handed the 'Colossal Fossil' of the year award
for the third year in a row.

"Canada has made zero progress here on financing, offering
nothing for the short term or the long term beyond vague
platitudes," said Climate Action Network International.

I never liked the international label that Canadians had of
being "nice" but being characterized as loutish Neanderthals
is even worse. This is not my Canada, I imagine, until I
walk through the garbage-strewn, motorcycle-rutted,
grasslands of Batchelor hills in Kamloops.

Now I have an uneasy feeling that maybe the award is
deserving and that Canada's natural beauty exists as a
testament of its durability, not because of our stewardship.

Canadians need to give themselves a good shake and stop
living in the past. We no longer have the God-given right
to do with nature as we please.

"God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis
1:27-29)."

We need to stop thinking that we are masters of the earth
but part of the natural world. Nature is not an external
force to be tamed but essential to our existence. Legal
recognition of that realization is the next step in our
journey out of the dark ages.

Without personhood, environmental laws are superficial and
easily ignored. Canada's non-profit legal defence group,
Ecojustice, regularly encounters this indifference.

When 500 migratory birds died after landing in toxic tailing
ponds of Alberta's oil sands, the group (formerly known as
the Sierra Legal Defence Fund) had to mount legal action
because provincial and federal governments wouldn't.
Eventually, governments were embarrassed into action.

The developers of the multi-million dollar theme park on the
Kamloops Indian Reserve say they will protect any badgers
found on the property but who would represent the badgers in
court, if push came to shove?

Canada could look to Ecuador for guidance. Last year,
two-thirds of Ecuadorians voted in favour of a new
constitution that enshrines nature's rights as a person.

"Nature or Pachamama [the Andean earth goddess], where life
is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist,
maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure,
functions and its processes in evolution."

"With this vote, the people of Ecuador are leading the way
for countries around the world to fundamentally change how
we protect nature," said a spokesperson from the U.S.
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund who helped draft
the legislation.

Mankind doesn't possess nature any more than it does women
or slaves. If corporations and ships can be legal persons,
so can nature. All rights of the environment flow from legal
standing.

But mankind will have to mature intellectually before we
stop thinking of nature as a hostile entity to be conquered
or a resource to be exploited.

The legal recognition of nature as a person would simply
formalize what is now dawning on us.
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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