Literature Review

Let your eyes wander to the areas of this map that deepen into red. They are the places in the lower 48 United States most likely to have plants and animals at high risk of global extinction.

Some experts are proposing that nature has rights, like human rights. But to do that, we first have to define what ‘nature’ really is.

In this article, William B. Altabef explores the possibility of introducing environmental personhood into outer space through the recognition of celestial bodies as rights-bearing entities. As the number of economic actors entering space grows, celestial bodies face threats from overcrowding, resource exploitation, contamination, and climate change. Beyond endangering the integrity of planetary surfaces, poorly regulated activity may jeopardize our opportunity to identify life beyond Earth. Altabef argues that despite increasing interest in space, our international treaties are outdated and insufficient as regulatory tools. Through an advisory opinion or a contentious case, the International Court of Justice could implement environmental personhood through judicial decisions to protect the Moon and our neighboring planets for “the common interest of all mankind,” offering a new way to explore humanity’s relationship with nature beyond Earth.

Chilton and Jones pose a critical question in their editorial: should the field of public health continue to respond only to the symptoms of our unsustainable modern condition, or should it instead move to confront the root causes of our declining health? The authors posit that rights of nature—rather than human rights—is a more appropriate framework to address worsening public health because human rights do not include all of what constitutes the “public”; lakes, oceans, rivers, trees, plants, insects, animals, and humans should all be considered public entities because each is key to upholding the health of the others. Finally, Chilton and Jones advocate the condemnation of corporate and state violence as well as other profit-seeking behaviors that contribute to the degradation of ecosystems and human health worldwide.

As rights of nature continues to build momentum as a global environmental movement, reform to laws the world over offer a chance to reset humanity’s relationship with nature. This global conversation on the rights of nature can be best seen as a gateway to relationality, a world in which what matters is not a chaotic swirl of conflicting rights and powers, but a harmonious chorus of mutual obligation and care.

U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein (both D-Calif.) introduced the Pala Band of Mission Indians Land Transfer Act of 2023, which would place approximately 720 acres of ancestral lands in San Diego County that are adjacent to the Pala Band of Mission Indian’s existing reservation into trust for the Tribe. The legislation was previously introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-Calif.-48) and Juan Vargas (D-Calif.-52).

Evidence of Indigenous peoples living in the Louisiana area date back to more than ten thousand years before the first European explorers arrived in the area. Hernando de Soto’s expedition found several villages along the Mississippi River and when European colonization began, historians estimate that nearly 15,000 native people resided in Louisiana (National Park Service). These numbers drastically diminished as colonization brought on warfare, disease, and displacement, but there are still many tribes residing in Louisiana that now face challenges to their sacred sites and culture with concerns including coastal erosion, influences of the oil industry, and the commercialization of the natural landscape of Louisiana.

President Joe Biden committed to protecting Spirit Mountain and the surrounding area in Nevada, a sacred site for the Fort Mojave and other Native American tribal nations.

NALT Conservation Biologist Matt Stutzman visited the 2,400-acre Santa Susana conservation area located in Ventura County, California. In 2017, The Boeing Company permanently conserved the property, which supported research and development essential to America’s space program. The property is now home to mountain lions, bobcats, pollinators, bats, and approximately 135 species of birds.

NALC works to ensure tribal peoples have access to those sites, Przeklasa said, and that, if they're in private hands, they are discovered and transferred back to tribes or the organization to ensure proper stewardship.

As Earthjustice built its legal case to protect the Badger-Two Medicine area, the Blackfeet Nation built a movement, drawn together by collective outrage over the oil industry’s demands to drill a treasured landscape.

From Ethiopia’s highlands to Siberia to the Australian rainforest, there are thousands of sacred forests that have survived thanks to traditional religious and spiritual beliefs. Experts say these places, many now under threat, have ecological importance and must be saved.