VISIONSHARE

VIVA ECUADOR! VIVA!

I posted last week about the proposed Ecuadorian Constitutional language giving inalienable rights to nature. Yesterday -- September 28, 2008 -- the people of Ecuador passed the new constitution.

WE ARE GRATEFUL.

Andrew Revkin has a post today with some interesting links exploring the deeper issues at DotEarth.

One interesting angle is that:

"The language in these provisions was evidently written by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based group providing legal assistance to governments and community groups trying to mesh human affairs and the environment. It is derived from language already adopted by a scattering of communities in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to the defense fund."

There seems to be an emerging trend in scientific and conservation circles to view the rights of people and nature as intimately connected. Please let it become the environmental consciousness for the 21st Century.

[UPDATE: Cyril Mychalejko provides a very good discussion of the deeper issues involved in Ecuador's new constitutional provisions for nature at upsidedownworld.org]