The Rights of Nature: Does Equador set the model for us?
Ecuador is the first and only country to recognize the fundamental rights of nature and protect them in its Constitution. This means that “Mother Earth has the right to exist and to maintain and generate its cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.” “Nature has inherent value and that value must be recognized in and of itself, regardless of its usefulness for humans.”
The establishment of rights of nature in the Ecuadoran Constitution is a victory for the rights of nature movement, “which seeks to upend the worldview that currently treats the natural world as an object to be owned and used for economic benefit, not as a subject with its own rights to flourish.”
The rights of nature movement suggests that even the goal of sustainability too often means treating nature “as economic feedstock to be wisely managed, rather than considering visions such as “thriving communities of relationships,” where “communities” includes nature as a full subject, not simply an object of human control.”
The actions of our former president revealed the weakness of our federal environmental acts and policies to protect nature. In four years, he dismantled major climate policies and rolled back more than 125 environmental rules, calling them “unnecessary and burdensome regulations that hurt business.” The rights of nature require Constitutional protection.
When the rights of nature are protected by the US Constitution, then, “if our actions damage an ecosystem, the restitution needs to go back to the ecosystem. We do not simply write a check to the person who claims to own the ecosystem and then leave it in waste. We actually must try to help restore the damage, just as we would if we had injured another person.”

John McDonald
EcoFaith Network NE MN Team
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Duluth, MN
Northeastern Minnesota Synod