Green Councillor, Stuart Jeffery, has proposed a ground breaking motion which could see the rights of nature enshrined in the council’s constitution. The rights of nature could be mentioned in the constitution alongside mentions of human rights with Maidstone Borough Council being the first in Britain to do this.
Cllr Stuart Jeffery (Green), “If this is agreed by the council, it will be truly ground breaking. Acknowledging that nature has rights fills a huge hole in the way humanity makes decisions, a hole that has brought us to the brink of ecological collapse.
“This motion does not mean that human rights would be overridden by the rights of nature, just that nature has rights too and that these must be taken into account.
“Nature has the right to exist and to thrive, something that has been increasingly ignored over the centuries. It is time to start putting that right.”
Notes:
The motion to debate putting the rights of nature into the constitution of Maidstone Borough Council has been accepted and will be debated on the 7th December. It was written with the support of the Environmental Law Foundation and Lawyers for Nature.
The motion draws on the work of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and their declaration. It also mirrors work done in Northern Ireland by FOE but hopefully goes further.
The motion:
Notice has been given of the following motion to be moved by Councillor Jeffery, seconded by Councillor J Sams:
This Council recognises that nature has rights and that by having regard to such rights, decisions made by the Council can help create regenerative rather than extractivist economies while also making human and other living communities safer, stronger and more resilient.
This Council declares that:
- Nature is a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community, system and habitat of interrelated and interdependent beings that sustains, contains and reproduces, and these beings, of which humans are but one species, have rights. The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of nature.
- Nature and all beings of which she is composed have the right to life and to exist, to be respected, to regenerate their bio-capacity, to maintain their identity and integrity as distinct, self-regulating and interrelated beings, to a place and to play their role in nature, to wellbeing and to live free from torture or cruel treatment.
- Every human being is responsible for respecting and living in harmony with nature. Human beings and all public and private institutions must ensure that the pursuit of human wellbeing contributes to the wellbeing of nature, now and in the future and respect, protect, conserve and where necessary, restore the integrity, of the vital ecological cycles, processes and balances of Nature.
This Council asks the:
- Democracy and General Purposes Committee to work with officers and others to bring forward changes to the Council’s Constitution that enshrine these rights alongside human rights already mentioned in the document, and the
- Executive to commission a report to come to Council on embedding ‘Rights of Nature’ as a keystone concept into Council’s operational practices, planning processes and ensuring that nature is considered in decision making.