Sound Of Sirens

Juni 2008 war historisch für Spaniens Menschenaffen (auch wenn es rein natürlicherweise dort gar keine gibt). Schimpanse, Orang-Utan und Gorilla bekamen im Prinzip Menschenrechte zugesprochen, dürfen laut Gesetz nicht mehr in Testlaboren und Zirkussen anzutreffen sein. Im Wortlaut heißt es im Gesetz:

The right to life, the freedom from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and protection from torture. (Nature Blog “The Great Beyond”: “Spain to give apes rights”)

Es gilt als Meilenstein und weckte Interesse, da es ausgerechnet ein Land mit andauernder Stierkampftradition schaffte, der Natur als erstes zivilisiertes Land rechtliche Existenz zu gewähren.

Seit Ende September 2008 gilt es jedoch nach Ecuador zu blicken. In einer Konstitution, der je nach Quelle rund 2/3 der Bevölkerung zustimmten, wurde der Natur als Ganzes Lebensrecht zugewiesen.

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. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature before the public bodies. (Nature Blog “The Great Beyond”: “Ecuador grants rights to nature”)

Bleibt abzuwarten, wann die restlichen 192 Länder dieser Welt folgen.

Biodiversity is the diversity of life at various levels of organisation,ranging from genes, species, ecosystems, biomes and landscapes. As far as we can tell, the Earth just before the appearance of modern humans was the most biodiverse it has ever been during the 3.500 million years of life’s tenure on this planet, … We are haemorrhaging species at a rate up to 1.000 times the natural rate of extinction, or, more prosaically, every day we are losing 100 species, mostly in the great tropical forests because of our endless desire for petroleum, timber, soya, palm oil and beef. …

Stephan Harding in ‘Animate Earth’

Today, on the 21st of June 2008 we have an estimate of the world population of the human species of 6.704.922.712 people - growing momentarily at a rate of about 15.000 people every ten minutes. Check: (World Population Clock Projection)

Also: There is no habitat on earth that has not been seriously degraded by humans. More than 50% of wild habitat has been destroyed in 49 out of 61 Old World tropical countries.

I do not intend to play out ‘good’ against ‘bad’. But I would like to emphasize and support a radical shift in our perception of the world, since:

This devastation (and development) is currently being protected and fostered by legal and political establishments that exalt the human community while affording no protection to the non-human modes of being. …

The well-being of each member of the Earth community is dependent on the well-being of the Earth itself. Within this context, the following principles, expressed in terms of rights, should be recognised in national constitutions and in courts of law.