PHILOSOPHY
“Pollution of the atmosphere, deforestation and water contamination all mistreat nature.” OLIVIA LADA MOCZARKSI
The rights of nature can be summarised as the moral or legal entitlement of things beyond human creation to exist as they ought to be. Consider that there are two requirements for something to be capable of having rights: 1. Vulnerability to human exploitation 2. A moral justification for the protections Some argue that rights are solely for creatures that experience pain and emotion, like animals who suffer tangibly and sustain damage. Furthermore, if ‘damage is a human concept’, can the inanimate be damaged? Whilst any suffering undergone by the environment does not have a nerve-centred pain response like animals, damage doesn’t solely apply to animate beings. Damage connotes a negative physical change, like breaking a limb in the animalistic sense, but could equally reference a window shattering. ‘Damage’ extends to anything capable of being changed, like the Atrato
River in Columbia which is contaminated annually with 60 tons of mercury and cyanide, damaging its biodiversity and water quality which animals and tribes rely on. Furthermore, animal rights are justified because their pain is noticeable, as reflected by the UK’s ‘Animal Welfare Act 2006’ which prohibits mutilations like docking dogs’ tails; this exploitation infringes upon their quality of life. This same argument supports nature’s rights as plants, fungi, bacteria, water bodies and the atmosphere can undergo nocuous changes due to maltreatment. Lake Erie, given legal personhood in 2019, exemplifies this point. Outrage about its destruction as fertiliser and pollution contaminated it meant the ‘Lake Erie Ecosystem Bill of Rights’ was passed. This reflected the consensus that natural bodies shouldn’t be exploited as such, particularly when that endangers other organisms. Protection from exploitation justifies animal rights and nature also fulfils these criteria.
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