The Rights of the Earth
Saturday, June 21st, 2008Biodiversity 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.
