MILL VALLEY, Calif., September 18, 2014 – WECAN International and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature announce the “Rights of Nature and Systemic Change in Climate Solutions” event, to be held from 2:15 to 3:00 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2014 at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.
The panel discussion will focus on the ways in which a new paradigm- treating nature as a right-bearing entity- is at the heart of genuine climate solutions, and will highlight results from the world’s first International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature and Mother Earth, held in 2014 in Quito, Ecuador. The event will additionally serve as strategy session on community applications of the principles of Rights of Nature as tools for resiliency and the protection of the Earth.
Panelists will include: Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environment Network; Linda Sheehan, Earth Law Center; Shannon Biggs, Global Exchange; Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca Nation, Indigenous Environment Network; Gloria Ushigua, Association of Sápara Women, Ecuador; and Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN International.
“Our legal systems define how we relate as society,” noted Robin Milam of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. “Recognizing Rights of Nature/ Rights of Mother Earth puts forth a new vision for living in harmony with all life.”
“We have seen decades worth of environmental protection laws that have failed to prevent the increasingly grave threats of climate change, degradation of our planet’s ecosystems, and the growing displacement of humans and other species,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, co-founder and executive director of WECAN International. “To achieve sustainability, even at its most basic level, the time has come for society to restructure the fundamental framework of our governance and economics systems as they relate to the relationship of humans and our Earth.”
More information and registration details for this event can be found by visiting wecaninternational.org/pages/registration-rights-of-nature
About WECAN International
The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN International) is a solutions-based, multi-faceted effort established to engage women worldwide as powerful stakeholders in climate change and sustainability solutions. Recent work includes the 2013 International Women’s Earth and Climate Summit, Women’s Climate Declaration, and WECAN Women’s Climate Action Agenda. International climate advocacy is complemented with on-the-ground programs such as the Women’s for Forests and Fossil Fuel/Mining/Mega Dam Resistance, and Regional Climate Solutions Trainings in the Middle East North Africa region and Democratic Republic of Congo. WECAN International was founded in 2013 as a project of the 501(c)3 Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus (WECC) organization and its partner eraGlobal Alliance.
About the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature
The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature is a network of organizations and individuals committed to the universal adoption and implementation of legal systems that recognize, respect and enforce Rights of Nature and to making Rights of Nature an idea whose time has come. Alliance members are actively promoting recognition of the Rights of Nature ~ Mother Earth through the global Earth Rights Days of Action in October 2014 and convening the International Rights of Nature Tribunal to be held in Lima, Peru concurrent with UN FCCC COP20 December 5-6, 2014. More information at TheRightsofNature.org.
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