As biologists gain a better picture of the world around us, views on who we are as humans on this planet are shifting. Ecology shows the world is actually not a collection of separate parts, but a set of nested systems that sustain life. Many Indigenous people would point out they have understood this for millennia and it has informed their customary law and practices.
But Western legal systems are only just beginning to bring a biological understanding of the world to the law. ‘Rights of nature’ is a legal idea that has gained interest since the 1970s. Recently, a push to recognise rights of nature has resulted in more than 300 legal initiatives across the world.
Rights of nature laws have implications for how we think about development. Most people agree that ‘sustainable development’ is a worthy goal. But there is plenty of disagreement on what development means and what exactly should be sustained. The way it is usually practiced seems to be about sustaining growth in our consumption of resources, while trying to minimise the negative consequences for the environment, human health, and the like. This approach is based on a worldview that sees humans as separate from the rest of the natural world and views the natural world as stocks of resources to produce economic wealth.
