What next?
The actions taken by the Utah, Ohio and Florida legislatures are entirely predictable. We can't expect those who profit from destroying the natural world to stand idly by while rights-of-nature threaten their profits.
Given these realities, protecting the Great Salt Lake-- which, again, has only five years left at current rates of consumption-- requires advocates to acknowledge that neither courts nor legislatures will protect it. Rather than waste time and energy in court, could advocates enforce nature's rights themselves?
I'm inspired by the 100,000 Serbians who protest the British-Australian company Rio Tinto's plan to mine lithium for "green transition" energy and electric vehicle batteries. The journal Nature claims that the mine would pollute water and endanger public health. Rio Tinto's Chief Scientist, Nigel Steward and other researchers who conducted the company's environmental impact assessments have demanded that the journal retract this paper. Meanwhile, after Serbian protesters took to the streets and blocked railways, President Aleksandar Vucic said that mining will not proceed until environmentalists' concerns are satisfied.
Biophilic lawyer and writer Will Falk works to advance the rights of nature with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). See his participation at Truth Reckoning & Right Relationship: Potential & Pitfalls with Rights of Nature, conducted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Follow his work at willfalk.org.
Stories by Katie Singer that feature Will Falk's work:
What choices do we have when a corporation wants to do business?
When Land I Love Holds Lithium: Max Wilbert on Thacker Pass, Nevada
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