Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.
The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structures modified or genetically altered.
Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega--infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”
“It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all,” Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said.
The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of Constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the “Pachamama” at the center of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.
However, the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.
Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials.
“Existing laws are not strong enough,” said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5 million strong Confederacion Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law.
Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said the nation’s traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change.
Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because Bolivian President Evo Morales’s ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.
However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns US$500 million a year from mining companies, which provides nearly one-third of the country’s foreign currency.
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