Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.
Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".
"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."
The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.
But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.
Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. "Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."
Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.
Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales's ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.
However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country's foreign currency.
In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.
The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."
Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.
Coping with climate change
Bolivia is struggling to cope with rising temperatures, melting glaciers and more extreme weather events including more frequent floods, droughts, frosts and mudslides.
Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in 1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100 years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.
Most glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20 years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as La Paz and El Alto.
Evo Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president, has become an outspoken critic in the UN of industrialised countries which are not prepared to hold temperatures to a 1C rise.
Comments
10 April 2011 6:44PM
"THE RIGHT NOT TO HAVE CELLUAR STRUCTURE ALTERED"?
SO MUCH FOR EVOLUTION.
10 April 2011 6:51PM
well at least It will be nice for a non European country to go bankrupt for a change.
10 April 2011 6:58PM
OH . GOOD!
NO MORE NASTY VOLCANOS POLLUTING THE ATMOSPHERE -
WITH MILLIONS OF TONS OF SULFURIC ACID AND H2S.
NOT TO MENTION, CARBON DIOXIDE!
10 April 2011 7:03PM
Good on them.
10 April 2011 7:07PM
Rajpe
Don't shout, it makes you sound unbalanced. The fact that the state (on behalf of the people) regulates the levels pollution perpetrated by big business is a good thing. All governments do it, as is their right and obligation. Calm down.
10 April 2011 7:08PM
Bold, imaginative and shaming.
If only the people in the rich countries could think beyond the next consumer item.
Mr vidals' video is beautiful and touching, cynics would do well to watch and humble themselves at the problems we may be causing.
10 April 2011 7:18PM
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10 April 2011 7:19PM
Who wants t move to Bolivia with me? Beautiful country, beautiful people, beautiful philosophy :)
10 April 2011 7:30PM
Call me a left-wing paranoid anti-capitalist rabid Marxist lunatic but personally my phone is small enough, my laptop does everything I need it to, my car drives fast enough and my ipod still plays music. Isn't it high time we placed mindless consumption, commodity fetishism and ruthless exploitation of natural resources on hold for just a while and focused on sustaining our planet, human rights, sitting around in a garden somewhere or maybe even some landscape painting?
10 April 2011 7:31PM
Bolivia would be better trying to create wealth for its people by encouraging entrepreneurship that creates jobs and taxes to improve its appalling education and health systems than passing fantasy laws about Mother Nature.
Life is so miserable that many Bolivians escape to São Paulo in Brazil where they work as slave labor in sweat shops generally run by Koreans making jeans and shirts and living illegally.
Despite this, most of them are happy to do so!
10 April 2011 7:31PM
A lovely sounding religion. Take note, Christianity and Islam
10 April 2011 7:39PM
Good on Morales for representing the democratic wishes of the people of Bolivia and good on Bolivia for having a leader who is not merely a stooge of global capitalism.
10 April 2011 7:44PM
This is what I'd call a really civilised country. A civilised electorate who voted in a people's president, who don't read The Sun or the Daily Mail.
10 April 2011 7:47PM
At last some leadership. Why can't Mr. and Mrs. Clegg-Cameron-Airbrush offer us something to be positive abou t>>>
Love
10 April 2011 7:59PM
Climate change is going to hit Bolivia hard, and its already started to bite; best of luck to them, they are going to need it! Balancing economic development with environmental protection is difficult to say the least.
PS Better not to feed trolls like Rajpe...
10 April 2011 8:06PM
This is amazing news, and very welcome. At long last a nation on this Earth has enshrined laws that accept the environment as something important, something we rely on to provide everything that we have.
Wonderful.
10 April 2011 8:20PM
What clowns. Equal rights the earth deity known as the Pachamama! You couldn't have made it up...
10 April 2011 8:24PM
What a good idea.
10 April 2011 8:27PM
Well done Bolivia.
10 April 2011 8:41PM
We should follow this wise and brave example
10 April 2011 8:48PM
Just awesome - far-sighted, sensible and necessary. Let's help it spread and make it work.
10 April 2011 8:49PM
casnewydd
Yeah, industry in the doldrums, low life expectancy and 60% of its population below the poverty line - sounds like green heaven.
At least we now have a place we can recommend the greens to go when they start moaning about Western industrialised society.
10 April 2011 8:57PM
@rajpe
If you can put your sarcasm aside, you won't be blinded by the fact that Bolivians know that death and destruction are a sequence of this existence. In embracing this philosophy as an antidote to rapacious capitalism, they are establishing respect for all living things, which is something you could learn to do too.
10 April 2011 8:59PM
You are describing the current situation, aren't you? That's what they are trying to deal with.
10 April 2011 8:59PM
@TurningTide
"Yeah, industry in the doldrums, low life expectancy and 60% of its population below the poverty line"
And how do you think the country got like that in the first place before the people took over the reins of government?
10 April 2011 9:07PM
So mining represents a "third of the country's foreign currency" and I'm assuming this industry must now extract metals and minerals without hurting "Machamama".
It would be a huge statement on the part of Bolivia if they now reject the moniker of 'developing nation' and decide to remain an 'underdeveloped nation'. This was the problem at Copenhagen and Cancun, 'developed nations' trying to tell 'developing nations' to stop trying to be 'developed nations'. All the while not wanting to reduce the impacts of our own consumer-driven, wasteful lifestyles.
If Morales can succeed with faith based legislation to change his follower's desires for cars, washing machines and television sets while regulating population to fit the available resources during catastrophic climate change all power to him.
Otherwise it's just another political stunt albeit with a spiritual twist.
10 April 2011 9:11PM
This is an excellent example. It is time that medieval anthrpocentricism was recontextualised, and the Bolivians are the leaders herein
10 April 2011 9:31PM
Well, I don't like to suggest I influenced this in any way, but from small seeds...
http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/27250
GLOBAL TENANCY AGREEMENT
BETWEEN:
(1) All non-human inhabitants of planet Earth, hereafter known as “Life”; and
(2) The human signatory of this agreement, or his or her agreed representative (as agreed by the individual rather than any “legal” imposition), hereafter known as “The Tenant”.
1. This tenancy agreement forms a binding contract between the two parties. Failure of The Tenant to fulfil their agreed obligations will result in the termination of the agreement and removal of him or her from the global ecosystem.
2. Tenancy means inclusion within the global ecosystem, subject to all appropriate energy flows both to and from The Tenant, including the use of organic and formerly organic substances and the production of waste matter whether directly or indirectly, from and to all global biomes, until the end of the natural term of species occupation, or the termination of the species by other means outside of the control of the global ecosystem.
TENANT’S OBLIGATIONS: 3. The Tenant agrees to only take from the global ecosystem that which is necessary for survival; this may include those things necessary in order to ensure a reasonable level of physical and mental well-being, whilst not breaching any other clause. 4. The Tenant shall not carry out any activities, through accident or design, which cause the net loss of any natural habitat for more than a period of one year, excepting that such habitat may require a greater period of time to naturally regenerate. 5. The Tenant shall not cause the net increase of any Toxic materials into the biosphere, bathosphere, atmosphere or lithosphere. “Toxic” means any substance (gas, liquid, plasma or solid), which causes an impairment in the ability of a natural process to function normally. 6. The Tenant agrees to abide by the laws of nature, not acting in any way such as to remodel or alter the genetic or chemical makeup of any organism except where existing natural processes are utilised to such ends. 7. The Tenant shall treat all life as equal, and in doing so respect the function of all life forms within the global ecosystem. In accepting the presence of Clauses 3 and 4, The Tenant shall treat the death of and/or damage to all life forms with an appropriate level of respect and reverence.
As for this being a "joke", it's the same "contract" humans had with the rest of life prior to civilisation.
10 April 2011 9:35PM
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10 April 2011 9:35PM
It is heartening to see a country pass law to protect mother earth and have respect for life.Compassion in government is a rare thing indeed when we need to take our role of caretakers of this little blue planet into our hearts.
10 April 2011 9:48PM
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10 April 2011 9:50PM
@ mods - can't we ban people for shouting?
I mean, I don't mean the odd yell, but when everything they say is in shout?
10 April 2011 9:52PM
ANOTHER THING THE MODS MIGHT BAN
ARE RAJPE'S POEMS, WHICH DON'T SCAN
10 April 2011 9:52PM
snix
Presumably Bolivia are now going to stop trading the products of environmentally damaging industries such as mining, gas and oil, and stop accepting money from foreign countries which don't have the same sort of respect for mother earth and life. Because otherwise their new laws would just be futile gestures, and somewhat hypocritical ones at that, would they not?
10 April 2011 10:07PM
@TurningTide - Are you suggesting there is no point in anybody ever trying to do anything good unless they are able to ensure that they will never do anything bad?
I'm sure you hate bicycles, but humour me for a second by imagining that cycling somewhere rather than driving there is a force for good (even if only because it leaves more fuel for you). I cycle to work every day. Would you say that becomes a futile gesture if I still use my car occasionally to go to the supermarket?
10 April 2011 10:07PM
@Dazzlebert
Yeah. "Showing" is better meter, than "highlighting."
But sometimes meter is trumped by clarity.
Here, all one does is to highlight, since the medium doesn't allow showing.
As far as shouting, for me a few well chosen words are more pleasing than reams of rant. Which is all the new Bolivian laws seem to be.
But what do I know. Maybe Bolivians would prefer the Stone Age.
10 April 2011 10:13PM
@Dazzlebert I couldn't agree wit you more.
10 April 2011 10:28PM
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10 April 2011 10:39PM
I can see the Greenies, as well as your correspondent, are loving it.
But one of the poorest countries in the world, landlocked and largely desert to boot, have just signed a suicide note. I presume Alvaro Garcia will now rely on the contributions from the Greenies to feed his people.
I work with Chileans, Ecuadorians and Peruvians and they've never heard of this Andean spiritual Mother Earth or Gaia stuff. Sounds like a way that Garcia wants to cling on to power by inventing his own psuedo-philosophy like Gaddaffi or Ceausescu.
Well, with luck, plenty of Greenies will emigrate there to support him.
10 April 2011 10:47PM
@Africanreader Have a word with yourself. Your post is ridiculous at best,a lie at worst.
10 April 2011 10:52PM
Haha! What a bunch of clowns. You just can't make this stuff up. And then they wonder why they live in poverty.
10 April 2011 10:55PM
Say good bye to science then!
These people are no different than any other religious zealots. This ones ascribe divine characteristics and rights to nature, others to God.
10 April 2011 10:57PM
@africanreader - I spent a long time in Bolivia from 2005-8 working. Most Bolivians are very aware of Pachamama and the spiritual history of the country. This is actually an ancient philosophy which is visually present in the architecture in the main cathedral in La Paz and in other religious iconography all over the country. Garcia is not inventing this belief system anymore than Bush invented Christianity to get him the fundamentalist vote in the US.
To everyone crying 'hypocrisy' in a knee jerk cowardly response, you can't change everything over night, so even an incremental constitutional change is better than the currently unsustainable status quo.
10 April 2011 11:05PM
Such a far-sighted idea - let's not not destroy our own home (Earth) or abuse the hand that feeds us (Nature).
Meanwhile the desperate attempt by the multi-login corporate/banking/investment troll on CiF to discredit the initiative simply crystalizes the beauty of protecting, rather than consuming, the Earth.
Nobel Peace Prize for Evo Morales!
10 April 2011 11:26PM
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10 April 2011 11:31PM
@africanreader
Are all the Latinos you work with of Spanish decent? I.e. light skinned, and quite evidently sporn of Spanish conquistadors? As that is the only way I can imagine they have never heard of Pachamama.
I have travelled and worked extensively throughout South America, particularly the Andean nations, and Pachamama is held sacred to those of aboriginal descent, of whom, make up the majority.
What is the point of having riches, when there will be no earth on which to enjoy them?
10 April 2011 11:36PM
I really like the idea that the ecological negatives are factored in depending on their significance. It would be really forward-thinking if the balance sheets of economic activity of all kinds were calculated including an estimated environmental cost. That way economic systems could be designed that were actually sustainable. In this way, even an activity that purely added value to the environment would contribute to growth, as indeed it should as this amounts to creating wealth of an important kind.
10 April 2011 11:48PM
@Turningtide Do you respect mother earth and life this is a move on the right direction for south america lets hope the spark of awareness effects all nations.
If the UN wasn't the closed shop for the warmongering nations that it blatently is we could perhaps sort out the spiritual malaise .
11 April 2011 12:02AM
geez all the naysayers get a grip, is it hayfever kicking in, go breathe some fresh traffic fumes
Pachamama! go go go !
11 April 2011 12:26AM
The hubris of man.
l can see why Butch and Sundance 'went on the run in Bolivia'.
ln the hope of escaping a moderning world.