I am writing to tell you that I have just become a Trustee of Planet Earth! I feel slightly dizzy with this new and large responsibility. But what does this mean?
Quite simply, I give full recognition of the duty of care that we owe this beautiful planet and call for a Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights. The mastermind behind this proposal is Polly Higgins (Barrister). Her declaration of planetary rights enshrines ecosystems with similar legal safeguards to as the Declaration of Human Rights won after the second world war.
The Declaration of Planetary Right would change the legal relationship between humans, the atmosphere and the biosphere from ownership to stewardship. It would create a global framework for negotiation that creates direct responsibility and protection provisions rather than endless blame game negotiations where responsibility is by-passed and dropped.
The good news is that Bolivia, Ecuador and other Latin American countries are taking this idea seriously. On 22 April 2009 President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia called on the General Assembly of the United Nations to develop a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. And then a recent UN General Assembly resolution approved in December in 2009 calls on all countries and the Secretary General to share their experiences and perspectives on how to create “harmony with nature.”
According to Polly Higgins: " If legal systems recognised the rights of other-than-human beings (e.g. mountains, rivers, forests and animals), courts and tribunals could deal with the fundamental issues of environmental contamination rather than being bogged down in the technical details of permitted pollutants and emissions. For example, a rights-based approach could evaluate whether the rights of humans to clear tropical forests for beef ranching should trump the right of species in those forests to continue to exist. Instead of devising ever more complex schemes to authorise environmental damage and to trade in the right to pollute, we would focus on how best to maintain the quality of the relationship between ourselves and Earth."
You too can be a Trustee of Planet Earth. Just click on the link and sign up: http://www.treeshaverightstoo.com/
Ciara Shannon
PS: How come more people aren't blogging? Come on everyone!


