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Toward a New Freshwater Narrative Based on Commons Principles

If the world is to save its freshwater resources, it is clearly necessary to create a counter narrative to the dominant narrative currently governing water management thinking in powerful circles.

While these and countless other initiatives are taking place within a framework of the Commons, they are not yet seen by either all the groups themselves, or society at large, in a Commons context. While most are using language that Commons pioneers cited in this paper would identify as fully compatible with the notion of the Commons, the concept is still new for many in our world. A reframing of this work from a Commons perspective could help the work of the whole movement and act as a unifying force.

If the world is to save its freshwater resources, it is clearly necessary to create a counter narrative to the dominant narrative currently governing water management thinking in powerful circles. Increasingly in the halls of government, business and international financial and trade institutions, water is seen as a commodity to be put on the open market and sold and traded to the highest bidder. A corporate water cartel is emerging to control every aspect of water, from when it is taken out of an ecosystem or aquifer, through its human use, to its circulation through the hydrologic cycle. It is argued that a market-based allocation system for water, complete with a pricing regime, will sort out the global water crisis and ensure conservation. In this worldview, water is an economic good, not a social or public good, and its users are customers, not citizens with rights to a common resource. Furthermore, international trade rules are incrementally creating a rules-based international constitutional framework confirming water as a tradable commodity.

It is time for a new language of the Commons, one that claims water for people and nature for all time. A new water narrative could be based on the following 10 principles.

1) Declare water to be a Commons

Who owns water? That is the key question. A new water narrative must assert that no one owns water; rather it belongs to the earth and all species alike. As Vandana Shiva explains, because it is a flow resource necessary for life and ecosystem health, and because there is no substitute for it, water must be regarded as a public Commons and a public good and preserved as such for all time in law and practice. The creation of a world-wide water cartel is wrong, ethically, environmentally and socially and ensures that the decisions regarding the allocation of water are made based on commercial, not environmental or social, concerns. Private ownership of water cannot address itself to the issues of conservation, justice or democracy – the underpinnings of a solution to the world’s water crisis. Only citizens and their governments, acting on their behalf, can operate on these principles. Water companies thrive on pollution and scarcity and on the growing desperation for water in many parts of the world. Water must be understood to be part of the global Commons, but clearly subject to local, democratic and public management.

No one has the right to appropriate water for personal profit while others are being denied access because of an inability to pay for it. Water should not be privatized, traded for profit, stored for future sale, or exported for commercial purposes. Governments must declare their domestic water Commons a public good and take responsibility for delivering clean, safe water as a public service to all their citizens. All decisions regarding the water Commons must be made transparently and with democratic oversight. This is not to say there is no place for the private sector in alleviating the global water crisis, as long as corporations are not running the water services directly. For instance, there is and will be a place for the private sector in providing water re-use technology and the building of water infrastructure. But all private sector activity must come under strict public oversight and government accountability, and would have to operate within a mandate where the goals are conservation and water justice. The high-tech water companies, in particular, need public oversight to ensure the wastewater returning to the water supply has met high quality assurance standards.

As David Bollier explains, accepting the idea of a Commons helps us identify values that lie beyond the marketplace. Embracing the Commons helps us to restore to the center stage a whole range of social and ecological phenomena that market economics regard as “externalities.” A language of the Commons will restore more democratic control over water and establish the supremacy of citizenship over ownership in its care and stewardship.

2) Adopt an Earth Democracy narrative

Governments must declare their domestic water Commons a public good and take responsibility for delivering clean, safe water as a public service to all their citizens.

Modern society has lost its reverence for water’s sacred place in the cycle of life, as well as its centrality in the realm of the spirit. This loss of reverence for water has allowed humans to abuse the water Commons. Over time, we have come to believe that humanity, not nature, is at the center of the universe; whatever we run out of can be imported, replaced with something else, or fixed with sophisticated technology. We have forgotten that we are also a species of animal that that needs water for life. Only by redefining our relationship to water and recognizing its essential and sacred place in nature can we begin to rectify the wrongs we have done. Only by considering the full impact of our decisions on the ecosystem can we ever hope to replenish depleted water systems and protect those that are still unharmed.

Albert Einstein said that no crisis can be solved with the same thinking that created it. It is likely impossible to assert a new water Commons narrative within the current global economic model. A system driven by the imperatives of market expansion, export competition, unlimited growth and corporate power will not easily accommodate to a definition of water as a common good. To truly adopt the notion of water as a Commons requires a challenge to the tenets of economic globalization and the adoption of a new set of assumptions, values and models for trade, commerce, development and production. All systems now in place must be judged against their impact on the world’s water resources. Growth in and of itself isNovember 6, 2008r supplies, and unregulated capitalism places far too much power in the hands of CEOs whose sole mandate is to generate profits. This system must be abandoned in favor of one based on the notions of cooperation, sustainability, equity, democratic control and subsidiarity (if something can be grown, produced or managed locally, it should be favored over a regional, national or international solution). In this model, the private sector would be held to high standards and public scrutiny.

Vandana Shiva calls it “Earth Democracy” and defines it as a system that puts people and nature above commerce and profit, emerging out of a desire to sustain life for future generations. The enclosure of the water Commons deprives communities of their right to life and the earth to the blood that sustains it. Earth Democracy is deep democracy, a set of practices that sustain life and preserve the ecosystem. In this system, humans cannot attain their personal fulfilment if the earth is not cared for as well. As the International Forum on Globalization states, accountability is central to Earth Democracy. When decisions are made by those who will bear the consequences, they are likely to give a high priority to the sustained long-term health of their soil, forests, air and water because their own well-being and that of their children is at stake. Earth Democracy requires governance systems that give a vote to those who will bear the costs when decisions are made. It means limiting the rights of absentee landowners and foreign corporations and ensuring that those who hold decision-making power are liable for the harms their acts bring to others. Where Earth Democracy is practiced, it is generally done best by local communities in the most transparent way possible.

3) Protect water through conservation and law

A language of the Commons will restore more democratic control over water and establish the supremacy of citizenship over ownership in its care and stewardship.

The most important demonstration of a new water narrative would be a commitment to protect and conserve the water Commons for all time. Water Commons sustainability means protecting source water at every level, reclaiming polluted water and conserving water for the future. As American water pioneer Sandra Postel explains, we must learn to use very drop of water twice. Each generation must ensure that the abundance and quality of water is not diminished as a result of its activities. This will mean radically changing our habits, especially those of us who live in the global North. If we do not change our ways, any reluctance to share our water – even for sound environmental reasons – will rightly be called into question. The key is to stop polluting surface waters in order to allow local communities to return to the use of their rivers, lakes and streams for the majority of their water needs, lifting the burden off groundwater supplies. Primary sewage treatment must be an international aid priority for the global South and infrastructure repair of leaking urban water systems everywhere must be implemented. The rule of law must be brought to bear on polluting industries at home and abroad. (Legislation would include penalties for domestic corporations that pollute on foreign soil. Such penalties could form part of a fund to pay for infrastructure repair.) Rigorous laws must be passed to control water pollution from industrial agriculture, municipal discharge and industrial contaminants. Flood irrigation, which wastes massive amounts of water, must be replaced by drip irrigation and more sustainable water use. The rush to adopt water-guzzling industrial biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels must be halted. Water abuse in oil and methane gas production must stop, requiring conservation of energy supplies and the adoption of alternative renewable energy sources. Water conservation practices must be adopted everywhere. Examples in the industrialized world include water-saving washing machines, low-flow shower faucets, and low-flush or composting toilets.

Water conservation must extend to groundwater as well. Quite simply, humans cannot continue to mine groundwater supplies faster than they can be replenished by nature. Extractions cannot exceed recharge just as a bank account cannot be drawn down without new deposits. Governments everywhere must undertake intensive research into their groundwater supplies and regulate groundwater takings before their underground water supplies are gone. One important way to protect groundwater Commons is to protect the integrity of surface water and the drinking water available to the public. When public water sources are safe, the bottled water industry will be put out of business; this in turn will relieve the current insatiable demand on groundwater supplies.

4) Treat watersheds as a Commons

Perhaps there is no greater right than the right of a drop of water to come back to the watersheds and water systems that nourish all life and maintain the integrity of the water Commons.

The mass transfer of water from wilderness and ecosystems, combined with the loss of water-retentive landscape, has displaced much habitat for the water Commons. Perhaps there is no greater right than the right of a drop of water to come back to the watersheds and water systems that nourish all life and maintain the integrity of the water Commons. Without this habitat, water cannot fulfill its ecosystem function and is lost as a nature Commons. Unless we protect water and its right to flow freely in nature, water will never be seen as a Commons, but rather a commodity to be moved around to serve industrialized humanity and our modern “needs.” Nature put water where it belongs. Tampering with nature by moving large-scale water supplies from an ecosystem by pipeline or through virtual water exports has the potential to destroy whole watersheds and all that depend on watershed health, including Indigenous Peoples. By practicing bioregionalism – living within and adapting to the ecological constraints of a watershed – we honor the narrative of water as a Commons not only for humans, but also for nature and other species. One powerful example is the clear-cutting of mountains for timber or to build ski resorts and adult sports playgrounds. Mountains are the “water towers” of our world. They hold and retain water, snow and ice that often provide the only water sources in a region. When their capacity to store water is reduced by the strip-mining of their trees and shrubs, people and nature alike suffer severe consequences.

To protect watersheds and water sustainability, every human activity will have to be measured against its impact on the water Commons and water’s natural habitat. Governments and their citizens will have to set priorities for water use, ensuring that the needs of people and nature come before the needs of industry. Large tracts of watershed lands will have to be set aside and protected. Water destructive economic policies such as virtual water trade will have to be curbed. An international network has come together to restore Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley by halting the virtual water trade of the European flower industry, which is now destroying the lake. Large dams that prevent mighty rivers from flowing to the sea will be abandoned. Since 1993, there have been 273 dams “decommissioned” in the U.S., 54 in 2007 alone. Because of the harm we have already done to watersheds, however, it is necessary to actually set up a project to restore watershed health. Watershed protection means governance of water along watershed lines, rather than on than along the lines of traditional political boundaries, through which the water Commons flows. The province of Ontario is home to a much-respected watershed protection program that transcends geopolitical boundaries through its thirty-six Conservation Authorities – agencies made up of citizens, landowners, and elected representatives of the watershed who ensure the safekeeping and restoration, when necessary, of Ontario’s lakes, rivers and streams, and provide opportunities for the public to enjoy, learn from and respect nature and the natural environment.

Everywhere in the world, people and their governments must create the conditions that allow rainwater to remain in local watersheds. This means restoring the natural spaces and water retentive landscapes where rainwater can fall and water can return. It also means harvesting the natural flow of the water cycle in a myriad of ways, in cisterns, for agriculture, on roof gardens, in greenspaces surrounding our cities, and in revitalized parks, wetlands and forests.

5) Assert community control over local water sources

If reclamation projects or water delivery systems are not guided by the common sense and lived experience of the local community, they will not be sustained.

Another defining feature of water as a Commons is that its sustainable and equitable allocation depends on cooperation among community members. As a common good, water is managed with the community’s solidarity and full democratic participation. This is very different from a corporate model of water distribution, which is based on individual ability to pay, not need. Local stewardship, not private business, expensive technology or even government, is the best guardian of the water Commons. Local citizens and communities are the front-line “keepers” of the rivers, lakes, and groundwater supplies upon which they depend for life. If reclamation projects or water delivery systems are not guided by the common sense and lived experience of the local community, they will not be sustained. The management models of Indigenous populations and rural communities must be enhanced, as they have proved to be the real preserver of the water Commons. States must not only recognize these local rights, but also protect them in law, and provide the authority to local communities to exercise their stewardship effectively. University of British Columbia professor Karen Bakker says that there are three arguments for community control over water. First, many states and most water corporations have failed to deliver water successfully to their citizens. Second, water has special cultural and spiritual dimensions that are usually local. And finally, water is a local flow resource, always needed by local communities.

All over the world, local, sustainable systems of managing the water Commons evolved and were passed from one generation to the next. The “investment” involved was the hard labor of the people, who knew that a sound water ecosystem meant life. Ignorance of local conditions and a lack of respect for local knowledge has been behind the failure of many mega-engineering and water systems imposed on communities from the outside. In communities around the world, traditional, local water protection and allocation practices are being revisited. In some areas, local people have assumed complete responsibility for water distribution facilities, and established funds to which water-users must contribute. Examples abound of community management of the water Commons. In India, Shiva reminds us, the system is called kudimaramath, or self-repair. Peasants pay in grain into a public account that funds the maintenance of Commons works, such as water systems. In New Mexico, water is equitably and sustainably distributed through acequias, which are both irrigation systems and democratic social institutions, distributing limited water supplies based on human need, ecosystem health and community values.

6) Maintain water sovereignty for both communities and nation

A basic principle of the water Commons is that water is a sovereign good and cannot be taken from another country or community by force or by using economic dominance.

Adopting (or re-adopting) the notion of a water Commons does not mean a free-for–all, or that anyone can help themselves to the water in others’ territories. A basic principle of the water Commons (that is compatible with both watershed protection and local control) is that water is a sovereign good and cannot be taken from another country or community by force or by using economic dominance. Many countries are running out of water and the race is on to secure new water supplies. Before the new government of Evo Morales put a stop to it, the former government of Bolivia was planning to sell water to the foreign-based mining companies in Chile, a move strongly opposed by the majority of Bolivians. Israelis, who are supposed to share water resources with Palestinians, have access to five times as much water. Libya used its regional super-power status to build the biggest pipeline in the world to date to remove water from an aquifer under the Sahara Desert, water that should equally belong to Chad, Sudan and Egypt. A plan to build a water pipeline from southern Nevada in the United States to Las Vegas has people in Nevada up in arms.

Water has become a key strategic issue of foreign policy and national security in the major centers of power – the United States, Europe and China in particular. Finding and securing new sources of water has become paramount. China is planning to pipe 17 billion cubic meters of water a year from the Tibetan Himalayas into China’s heartland, water that feeds all of the great rivers of Asia. Russians are very concerned about China’s plan to build a huge irrigation canal and siphon off huge amounts of water from the shared Irtysh River. In the United States, a consortium of groups has formed Global Water Futures to advise the White House and the Pentagon both on the issue of water as a national security concern, as well as how to build superior water technologies so that U.S. companies can dominate the sector. Key member groups of Global Water Futures include the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a right-wing think tank closely associated with the current administration, several giant water technology companies, Coca-Cola, and Sandia National Laboratories, a research lab closely connected to the Pentagon currently run by Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer. Several nearby countries with water resources, including Canada, Brazil and Paraguay, are nervous about this sudden increase in interest in their water by the U. S. government. Water is a sovereign Commons that must be entrusted to the local people to steward into the future, not taken in the quest for super-power status.

7) Adopt a model of water justice, not charity

As the primary collectors of water throughout the world, women must be recognized as major stakeholders in the decision-making process.

The water Commons narrative is based on a belief in justice, not charity. While it is admirable that many people and groups from the global North assist the poor of the global South by building wells to link them up to groundwater sources, this is only a stop-gap measure. Billions of people live in countries that cannot provide clean water to their citizens not only because they are water poor, but because they are burdened by their debts to the North through loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As a result, poor countries are forced to exploit both their people and their water resources. At least 62 countries currently need deep debt relief if the daily deaths of thousands of children are to end. Further, foreign aid in many wealthy countries is well below the recommended 0.7 percent of GDP. If the World Bank, the United Nations and northern countries were serious about providing clean water for all, they would cancel or deeply cut the global South debt, substantively increase foreign aid, fund public, instead of private services, tell their big bottling companies to stop draining poor countries dry, and invest in water reclamation programs to protect source water. They would also tell the water companies that they no longer have any say in which countries and communities receive water funding.

Citizens of First World countries need to recognize and challenge the hypocrisy of their governments, many of which would never permit foreign corporations to run and profit from their water supplies, but that continue to support the global financial and trade institutions that commodify water in the Third World. A good example is that Norway (thanks to its wonderful citizen’s movement) recently told the World Bank that it will no longer fund any water development projects in the global South that involve privatization. Many in the water justice movement work with fair trade groups to create a whole new set of rules for global trade based on sustainability, cooperation, environmental stewardship and fair labor standards. They also promote a tax on financial speculation; even a modest tax could pay for every public water utility in the global South.

Special mention must be made of two groups feeling the brunt of water inequity: women and Indigenous people. Women carry out 80 percent of water-related work throughout the world and therefore carry the greatest burden of water inequity. Ensuring water for all is a critical component of gender equality and women’s empowerment, along with environmental security and poverty eradication. The more policy-making about water is moved from local communities to a global level (the World Bank for instance), the less power women have to determine who gets it and under what circumstances. As the primary collectors of water throughout the world, women must be recognized as major stakeholders in the decision-making process. Indigenous people are particularly vulnerable to water theft and appropriation, and their proprietary rights to their land and water must be protected by governments. In a call to action on World Water Day 2007 called Honour the Water, Respect the Water, Be Thankful for the Water, Protect the Water, the Indigenous Environmental Network points out that many of the resources being plundered by governments and corporations of the global North lie on ancestral lands. The ensuing exploitation, privatization and contamination upset the balance of cultural resources and sacred sites and destroy the notion of water as a Commons for people and nature.

8) Restore public delivery and fair pricing

A new water narrative must establish once and for all that water is a public Commons to be delivered as a public service by governments at a fair and accessible price.

A new water narrative must establish once and for all that water is a public Commons to be delivered as a public service by governments at a fair and accessible price. This means that the international financial agencies responsible for providing aid to poor countries for water development must shift their focus from public/private/partnerships, (PPPs), which promote the big, private water utilities, to public/public/partnerships (PUPs), which transfer funding and expertise from successful public systems in the global North to provide local management and workers in the global South with the necessary funds and skills to deliver water on a not-for-profit basis to all their citizens. PUPs are a mechanism for providing capacity building for these countries, either through Water Operator Partnerships, whereby established public systems transfer expertise and skills to those in need, or through projects whereby public institutions such as public sector unions or public pension fund boards, use their resources to support public water services in developing countries. The objective is to provide local management and workers with the necessary skills to deliver water and provide wastewater services to the public.

Examples of successful PUPs include partnerships between Stockholm and Helsinki water authorities and the former Soviet Union countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and between Amsterdam Water and cities in Indonesia and Egypt. Public Services International asserts that if each effectively functioning public water utility in the world were to “adopt” just three cities in need, public-public-partnerships could operate on a global basis, and provide water to all those in need at a fraction of the cost now encountered supporting the private companies. This would also become a concrete example of how cooperation over water could be a uniting force for humanity. Financing public water in poor countries will need a combination of progressive central government taxation, micro-financing and cooperatives to run the systems on a day-to-day basis.

The issue of water pricing is fraught with conflict. On one hand, it is clear that many societies and the wealthier class in all societies waste water because it is free or very cheap and often subsidized by government. On the other hand, water metering has been used in the global South to deny water to millions of poor people. The price of water is increasing – sometimes dramatically – all over the world. Over the past five years, municipal water rates have increased by an average of 27 percent in the United States, 32 percent in the United Kingdom, 45 percent in Australia, and 50 percent in South Africa. Yet even these prices do not reflect the real costs of cleaning and delivering water. The problem is, if the real cost of water is passed on to consumers, how will the poor afford water? Some municipalities are charging rates closer to the real cost of water services and then subsidizing the poor; Bogotá Colombia subsidizes the poor 78 percent of their water costs and the middle class 24 percent. The preferred way however, as these subsidies will always be subject to political challenge, is to use a block rate pricing system where a low level of consumption – that required to satisfy basic needs – is very cheap, while prices increase with higher levels of consumption; the more you use, the more you pay. This system has several advantages: it acts as a conservation measure for higher water consumption while protecting the poor from price gouging by private vendors by providing them with a secure water supply.

Many countries and communities – from Osaka, Japan, to Athens, Georgia – are moving to a block fee to encourage water conservation. To ensure water justice, however, there are three conditions to be met if a fee for water is to be levied. First, the fee must not be for the water itself, because water is a Commons, but rather for the service needed and the infrastructure required to provide that water to households, industries and communities. Second, the unit price for basic water needs must be sufficiently cheap that no one is doing without. No family or community must ever have its water cut off because of inability to pay. Third, the fees must be paid to a government or not-for-profit government agency so that the money goes back into the system to upgrade infrastructure, protect source water and improve service, and never to a for-profit corporation and its investors.

9) Enshrine the right to water in nation-state constitutions and a UN Covenant

It is finally time for the world to agree that water is not “need,” but a “right,” codified at every level of government, from local municipal by-laws and nation-state constitutions, to a binding United Nations Covenant.

All of the “Commons pioneers” cited in this paper have agreed on the need for a way to protect the Commons in law and with new policy structures. The new water narrative described here must be codified in law. It is finally time for the world to agree that water is not “need,” but a “right,” codified at every level of government, from local municipal by-laws and nation-state constitutions, to a binding United Nations Covenant. The global water crisis cries out for good governance, and good governance needs a legal basis that rests on universally applicable human rights. A UN Covenant would set the framework for water as a social and cultural asset, not an economic commodity. It would establish the indispensable legal groundwork for a just system of distribution of the water Commons. It would serve as a common, coherent body of rules for all nations, rich and poor, and clarify that it is the role of the state to provide clean affordable water to all of its citizens. Such a Covenant would also safeguard already accepted human rights and environmental principles in other UN treaties and conventions. A UN Covenant would bind nations to an agreement not only to refrain from any action or policy that interferes with the right to water, but also would obligate them to prevent third parties, such as corporations, from interfering in that right. It would give ordinary citizens a powerful tool with which to argue their right to clean affordable water and put the spotlight on governments refusing to fulfil their obligations. There has been some progress at the United Nations toward a full Covenant, most notably with the passage of the 2002 General Comment Number 15 by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. But the Comment is an “interpretation” by a committee of the UN, not a full binding UN Covenant.

There are those in the water Commons community who question the value of working on the right to water, particularly at the level of the UN. One concern is that the UN, like the powerful governments that control it, has adopted a Western-style, individualist approach to rights that is contrary to the notion of collective rights embodied in the Commons. A second is that it is too human-centered and not rooted in an ecosystem framework. While both of these concerns are valid (and apparent in the reflections of some countries’ UN delegations), a right to water Covenant does not have to reflect this worldview, but could be written to promote a more holistic one. Well constructed, it could enshrine the sovereignty of local communities over their natural heritage and therefore the management of their water Commons, including watersheds and aquifers. As Friends of the Earth Paraguay explains, “The very mention of the supposed conflict, water for human use versus water for nature, reflects a lack of consciousness of the essential fact that the very existence of water depends on the sustainable management and conservation of ecosystems.” A third concern is that the right to water is not practical on a day-to-day basis for communities, particularly in the global South, struggling for water survival. But the citizen movements in many communities and countries in the South have already adopted, or are working to adopt constitutional amendments to guarantee water as a right, with specific and immediately noticeable ramifications. The definition of the right to water need not belong to the same people who created economic globalization, but could be integral to the struggle of local people everywhere fighting for their water Commons.

10) Use and expand the public trust doctrine to protect water

The definition of the right to water need not belong to the same people who created economic globalization, but could be integral to the struggle of local people everywhere fighting for their water Commons.

Finally, the notion of a water Commons could be profoundly advanced if we had a body of law that recognized the inherent rights of the environment, other species and water itself outside of their usefulness to humans. The move to create “wild law” comes to some extent out of the Public Trust Doctrine, first codified in 529 A.D. as Codex Justinianus, after the emperor of that period who said, “By the laws of nature, these things are common to all mankind: the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea.” This “common law” was repeated many ways and in many jurisdictions, including the Magna Carta, and has been a powerful legislative tool in the United States to provide for public access to seashores, lakeshores and fisheries. It is being used currently in an attempt to protect the California Delta from commercial exploitation and overuse. However, the Public Trust Doctrine is limited to fighting for equal access by the public to certain Commons, but does not extend to the concept that the Commons themselves have the inherent right to protection. In the eyes of most Western law today, most of the community of life on earth remains mere property, natural “resources” to be exploited. Where there is challenge to this exploitation, it is usually to protect a natural Commons so that it can still be of use to humans.

If we are members of the earth’s community, then our rights must be balanced against those of plants, animals, rivers and ecosystems. In a world governed by wild law, the destructive, human-centered exploitation of the natural world would be unlawful.

South African environmental lawyer Cormac Cullinan first coined the term “wild law” and has written a book of the same title. A wild law is a law to regulate human behaviour in order to protect the integrity of the earth and all species on it. It requires a change in the human relationship with the natural world from one of exploitation to a democracy with other beings. If we are members of the earth’s community, then our rights must be balanced against those of plants, animals, rivers and ecosystems. In a world governed by wild law, the destructive, human-centered exploitation of the natural world would be unlawful. In wild law, a suit could be brought in the name of an aspect of nature, such as a lake and a polluter punished for harming a river. Humans would be prohibited from deliberately destroying the functioning of ecosystems, or driving other species to extinction. Cullinan points out the irony that in some countries, corporations are legal entities in the eyes of the law and have rights not extended to whole species. As Aldo Leopold said, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Wild law was the inspiration behind a 2006 ordinance in Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania that recognized natural ecosystems and natural communities within the borough as “legal persons” for the purposes of stopping the dumping of sewage sludge on wild land. (Wild Law would not entertain the idea of corporations as “legal persons.”)

Says Cullinan, “The day will come when the failure of our laws to recognize the right of a river to flow, to prohibit acts that destabilize the Earth’s climate, or to impose a duty to respect the intrinsic value and right to exist of all life will be as reprehensible as allowing people to be bought and sold. We will only flourish by changing these systems and claiming our identity, as well as assuming our responsibilities, as members of the Earth community.”

 

 

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updated November 6, 2008