America’s legal system proclaims that even lifeless man-made, paper entities called “corporations” are endowed with the human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But if a fabricated, inanimate, corporate thing can have enforceable rights to legal protections and life privileges – why not natural beings like… well, nature? Not just favored animals, but all complex, living, breathing, sentient, cooperative, reproductive beings. Trees, for one obvious example. Or rivers, prairies, marshes, and other organic bodies that have a life of their own and a reason to exist beyond our exploitation of them.

That’s why the townspeople of Vaudreuil in Quebec, Canada, have unanimously approved a “Declaration of the Rights of Trees,” proclaiming that these beneficial and beautiful neighbors have an inherent right to exist, thrive, and enjoy the protections of law. This is the latest advance of the “Rights of Nature” movement. It maintains that forests, waterways, and other interconnected living beings of nature are not mere “property” of human profiteers to be poisoned, clearcut, excavated, and otherwise destroyed. Rather, they must be regarded as full-citizens of our world, with essential, legally-enforceable rights of their own – especially the most basic right: The right to exist.

Corporate opponents to the Rights of Nature movement cry that the very idea is unnatural – a tree can’t even speak, so there is no way it can exercise a legal right.

Excuse me, but corporations can’t speak either, for they are mere paper constructs. So, lawyers are hired to speak for them. The same system of representation can and should apply to nature. For information and action, go to CenterForEnvironmentalRights.org and Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (garn.org).

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe