Please help protect Mother Earth by signing this petition. On 10th December 2018, an assembly of young people from Switzerland, France, Thailand, Brazil, China and other parts of the world conducted the first march for a Declaration of Rights of Nature in honour of the 70th anniversary of the Human Rights Declaration. This was part of a global signature campaign asking the United Nations to adopt a Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth to complement the Human Rights Declaration.
Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth was first formed from the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 22 April – Earth Day 2010. https://www.iucn.org/content/draft-universal-declaration-rights-mother-earth
Since 2006, a number of countries have adopted national or local legislation on the basis of such principles: Ecuador, Bolivia, India, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA. Hence, a legal system based on recognizing that Nature, in all aspects, have inherent rights to health, prosperity and evolution, is gradually becoming the norm.
We, civil society organizations worldwide have voiced the need for humankind to recognize the fundamental rights of the natural world and have called on the Governments and peoples of the world to adopt and implement a "Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth". We have modeled such Declaration on the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" that we adopted in 2010 and urge the United Nations to consider it.
In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 22 April as International Mother Earth Day. In so doing, Member States acknowledged that the Earth and its ecosystems are our common home, and expressed their conviction that it is necessary to promote Harmony with Nature in order to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. The same year, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution Harmony with Nature. http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/
Environmental legislation has ignored the interconnection of water, air, land and wildlife. Present laws have missed the fact that humans can transform the Earth System on a global scale, through air pollution, ocean acidification, deforestation and water contamination, just to cite a few.
Human pressure on the Earth System has reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. To continue to live and operate safely, humanity has to respect the nature of the planet's climatic,geophysical, atmospheric and ecological processes;
Earth law center at the United Nations: info@earthlaw.org
India is an example of a country that recognizes the Rights of Nature. The Constitution of India imposes a duty on all citizens to “protect and improve the natural environment including forests, rivers, and wildlife, and to have compassion for all living creatures” (Art. 51A(g)) and states governments must “protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country” (Art. 48A). Boyd notes that the Indian Supreme Court has received recognition for its forward-thinking approach on environmental justice, specifically, in cases ordering New Delhi to replace diesel buses with cleaner gas vehicles, protecting Taj Mahal from air pollution, safeguarding eco-systems from destructive industrialization and stopping toxic discharges into the Ganga River (Boyd, Rights of Nature at 92).
New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to create and pass laws acknowledging that nature is no longer subject to human ownership (Boyd, Rights of Nature at 155). The new ideology in New Zealand acknowledges the fact that people are part of nature; they are not separate from it or dominant over it (Boyd, Rights of Nature at 156). These laws emphasize nature as a rights holder, as well as, the importance of human responsibilities to uphold these rights. The rights of Te Urewera National Park and the Whanganui River in New Zealand were granted legal recognition in 2014 (Abigail Hutchison, “The Whanganui River as a Legal Person” (2014) 39 Alternative L.J. 179 (HeinOnline) [Hutchison, “Whanganui River”]; Boyd, “Elements” at 226; Elaine C. Hsiao, “Whanganui River Agreement” (2012) 42 Envtl. Pol’y & L. 371 (HeinOnline) [Hsiao, “Agreement”]).g