By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
A call for governments and everyone to protect nature has been re-emphasized. The call was made by the International Rights of Nature Tribunal at a side event at the ongoing COP30 in Belem, Brazil.
The Tribunal, in a powerful declaration titled “A New Pledge for Mother Nature,” charged governments and everyday people to acknowledge that nature has rights just as humans do and that ecosystems deserve to exist, thrive, and bounce back.
The Tribunal noted that the loss of species is occurring at an alarming rate and that it is time to stop exploiting nature and start protecting it. The Tribunal urged nations to write laws that protect rivers, forests, and oceans, end ecocide, recognize, and support Indigenous communities, who have always been the best caretakers of the land.
According to the declaration, “We are all part of the Earth, an indivisible and living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny but with different existential conditions and rights. The multiple crises we are experiencing are rooted in the economic, political, legal, and social systems established by the industrial and growth-oriented cultures that dominate the world today, including capitalism, along with patriarchy, sexism, racism, and anthropocentrism.”
It was noted that the Brazilian government’s choice to host COP30 serves as a symbol of the importance of the Amazon. They denounced the current and future impacts of the expansion of the extractivist frontier, deforestation, fossil fuels, and large-scale mining.
It was urged that the Amazon, with its ecosystems, animal and plant species, rich biodiversity, natural medicines, and vital and reproductive cycles, should be considered a subject of rights, together with the Indigenous Peoples and other communities that inhabit it.
The co-president and judge of the tribunal, Nnimmo Bassey, while delivering the verdict, noted that the defense of nature’s rights is the right way to carry out real climate action and that there is no climate justice without the rights of nature.
The tribunal stressed the need to phase out fossil fuels and quickly move to renewable energy as a way to protect both communities and ecosystems from false solutions that merely benefit financial speculators and compound climate injustices. The Tribunal also urged the United Nations to adopt the pledge as a blueprint for international environmental law.
Judges at the Tribunal included Ana Alfinito of Brazil, Nnimmo Bassey (Nigeria), Enrique Viale (Argentina), Shannon Biggs (USA), Casey Camp Horinek (Ponca Nation, USA), Tom Goldtooth (USA), Princes Esmeralda (Belgium), Cormac Cullinan (South Africa), Patricia Gualings (Ecuador), Francesco Martone (Italy), Tzeporah Berman (USA), Ashish Katharine (India), Osprey Orielle Lake (USA), Pooven Moodley (South Africa), and Felicio Pontes (Brazil).”
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