Vote to test corporate water rights

By Ann S. Kim, Staff Writer; published May 11 by the Portland (ME) Press-Herald

A key battle in Maine's ongoing war over water will be decided in Wells on Saturday.

Voters at a town meeting will decide whether theirs will become the latest community to ban water extraction by companies like Poland Spring.

Rather than trying to regulate water extraction, the ordinance takes a "rights-based" approach by asserting that ecosystems have rights to exist, flourish and evolve naturally in town. Wells and any of its residents would have standing to seek damages in court against any company that interfered with those rights.

Under the ordinance, corporations would have no constitutional rights within the town. The Supreme Court has found that corporations have some constitutional rights – such as a right to free speech and against government taking of property without due process – but not others, such as the right against self-incrimination.

Two other Maine towns – Shapleigh and Newfield – used such an approach to adopt similar measures this year. The neighboring towns acted after Poland Spring, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America, started the process to drill test wells in search of a potential new water source.

In Wells, the controversy stems from a proposed 30-year contract between Poland Spring and the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water District. Under that proposal – tabled indefinitely last summer because of a public outcry – the company would have been able to draw a maximum of 432,000 gallons a day from the Branch Brook aquifer. By comparison, the district's average daily water usage is about 2.8 million gallons, and peak use is about 7 million gallons a day.

The town attorney for Wells has advised selectmen that she believes the proposed rights-based ordinance violates federal and state constitutional principles, as well as state law and the town charter. Selectmen declined by a vote of 3-2 to put the ordinance on a town ballot, but supporters of the measure gathered enough petition signatures to force a town meeting.

The town's Ordinance Review Committee, meanwhile, is working on regulations for water extraction. A draft may be presented to selectmen May 27, said Bill Gosbee, the group's chairman.

The Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund promotes the rights-based approach of the water ordinances and others dealing with issues ranging from sludge spreading to corporate agriculture to mining.

Regulatory schemes have failed to protect ecosystems and have instead helped "the corporate boys build a better permit," said Gail Darrell, the fund's community organizer in New England. A different view of nature – as something that must be able to preserve itself, rather than being plundered for profit – was needed, she said.

"If we treat nature as though it has rights, we can protect it," Darrell said. "So if a corporation understands, if it destroys nature, they have to fix it. They need to be responsible for the destruction."

Darrell questions why a corporation's goals should trump those of people when people are the source of governing power and corporations are only "creations of the state." She considers court decisions giving corporations constitutional rights "illegitimate."

"'Corporation' is not in our Constitution," she said.

While corporations are artificial legal entities, courts decide whether to treat them like people when it comes to constitutional rights, said H. Cabanne Howard, a University of Maine School of Law professor. No state or municipality has the authority to negate the rights that courts say corporations have, he said.

"You can't just pass a statute saying those decisions don't matter," he said.

Dave Owen, another Maine Law professor, said a local ordinance can't trump state law, which includes a regulatory scheme that allows the extraction of water by companies like Poland Spring, with certain limitations.

Owen, who specializes in environmental law, worked as a lawyer in California with environmental groups that tried to limit water extraction and with counties that defended groundwater management ordinances against constitutional challenges.

"The better approach, if this group is frustrated with that state scheme, would be to try to change it at the state level. Passing an inconsistent local ordinance would be only a symbolic act," Owen wrote in an e-mail message.

Leah Rachin, the attorney for Wells, says the ordinance would likely be found illegal in a challenge.

If the ordinance passes at the town meeting, she said, it could be challenged by a party that has standing, one that could point to a particular injury.

Selectmen would have the option to ask a court for a determination of the ordinance's legality, Rachin said.

Poland Spring would have no legal standing in Shapleigh or Newfield, where the company has no property or business operations, said Mark Dubois, the company's natural resource manager. More work has been done in Wells, he said, but it is too early to look into whether the company would have legal standing there.

In Pennsylvania, Belfast Township in Fulton County repealed its ban on corporate farming after the state attorney general's office took action.

The office targeted the ordinance, based on others by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, because it tried to restrict activities allowed in the state constitution, said Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the office. Under a state law, the attorney general has the authority to challenge local ordinances that violate farming-related state laws.

Skip Clark of Wells, a supporter of the rights-based ordinance, worries that the water district could enter into a deal before residents fully understand the issue. In the meantime, he said, the rights-based ordinance offers protection.

"The courts decide it's not constitutional – that's no problem," he said. "It gains time for this entire issue to be thrashed out."

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Newfield, Maine, joins neighbor Shapleigh in banning large scale water extraction

Video from Portland's WCSH-6 news is available here.

NEWFIELD (NEWS CENTER) -- The town of Newfield is now the second in Maine to ban large-scale water extraction.

Saturday's vote was 228 in favor of the new ordinance and 146 against. The vote is a reaction to interest from Poland Spring Water and its parent company, Nestle, in pumping water from an aquifer shared by Newfield and Shapleigh.

Shapleigh voted for the same ban on water extraction two weeks ago. However, there is some concern that that ordinance could be overturned in court. As a result, townspeople voted on a different ordinance at town meeting Saturday that would lay out what a water company would have to do to be able to extract water from the aquifer.

That ordinance, which environmentalists felt was too weak, passed by a single vote.

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Maine Town Takes a Stand: Closes Tap on Water Privatization

Residents say no to Nestlé's plan to pump local water, and to their Board of Selectmen's attempt to regulate water takings

By Edward D. Murphy. Published March 1 by the Maine Sunday Telegram; reposted on CommonDreams.org

Shapleigh residents have banned companies from drawing or selling its water.

During a special town meeting Saturday morning, residents voted 114 to 66 to adopt the ban drafted by Protecting Our Water and Wildlife Resources, which had opposed Poland Spring's efforts to test, draw, bottle and market the town's water.

The ban had been opposed by the town's Board of Selectmen, which had favored instead a set of regulations on drawing water in the town that will be on the warrant for the regular town meeting on March 14.

"The problem in Shapleigh is that all three selectpeople want Nestlé (Poland Spring's parent company) in here," said Shelly Gobeille, one of the leaders of POWWR. "This vote says they can't come in."

In September, residents adopted a six-month moratorium on water testing, which was seen as a precursor to Poland Spring's plans to set up a pumping operation. The town's planning board used the time to work on rules and regulations for drawing the town's water, but POWWR wanted to ban all major water extraction operations.

When the Board of Selectmen refused to put POWWR's proposed ban on extraction on the town meeting warrant - arguing that two legal opinions said it was unconstitutional - proponents circulated a petition that led to the special town meeting.

Gobeille said POWWR is now concerned that the selectmen could seek to derail the ban, but Bill Hayes, one of the three selectmen, said he's inclined to let the ban go into force without the selectmen getting involved. However, he said, others could challenge its legality.

"The townspeople voted to enact it," Hayes said. "If they want to incur the legal expenses of defending it if it's challenged, that's up to them."

Hayes said that if Poland Spring wants to draw the town's water, it would be better to regulate the company's operations and make sure the town benefits financially. He said talks with the water bottler never got to the point where a dollar figure was discussed, but the amount the town would earn "would have been significant. This would have been an opportunity to defer" some property taxes.

Mark Dubois, natural resource manager for Poland Spring, said he was disappointed by the vote at the special town meeting.

"It's kind of disconcerting as a company with 400 jobs right now in York County," he said. "It's our home, too, and we're very discouraged we can't have a basic discussion about what we do and do well."

Dubois said the company draws water from nine sites in the state now and has sufficient supplies of water for its current needs. He said the company would have been looking to draw water from Shapleigh in 2011 or 2012, but noted that it takes a long time to gain the state and local permits that are needed.

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Ted Nace: The demise of California's Measure T is bad news for the environment

Humboldt County's groundbreaking restrictions on out-of-county corporate campaign contributions to local elections, has been declared "null and void" through an agreement with the County Board of Supervisors and Pacific Legal Foundation, a pro-business legal group. We've posted a press release on the defeat, by Measure T sponsors Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, on our e-news blog here. Ted Nace wrote the following, which was posted to Grist on November 13.

"Market failure" is one cause of environmental problems, but "democracy failure" is even worse.

Russia and China aren't the only examples. It also happens closer to home, as illustrated by last week's decision by California's Humboldt County to abandon Measure T, a local law banning non-local corporate money from local elections.

For years Humboldt County, like many rural counties in lumber or mining areas, was dominated by a single corporation -- Pacific Lumber, a subsidiary of Texas-based Maxxam, Inc.

For local voters, the last straw came when Maxxam spent several hundred thousand dollars on a recall initiative against District Attorney Paul Gallegos after Gallegos prosecuted Maxxam for fraudulent timber harvest filings. In 2006, after Gallegos survived the recall, the grassroots campaign that had organized to support him pushed through Measure T on a 55-to-45 percent vote.

The drafters of Measure T were aware of the U.S. Supreme Court's Bellotti decision (1979), which established the precedent that corporations could enjoy First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. In Bellotti, the Court invalidated a Massachusetts statute similar to Measure T that prohibited corporate spending on referendums. But the author of the Bellotti decision, Justice Lewis Powell, suggested that in situations where the "relative voice of corporations has been overwhelming" or where corporate influence has threatened "the confidence of the people in the democratic process and the integrity of government," limits on corporate political money would be acceptable.

Both exceptions seemed to fit the situation in Humboldt. For example, in 2004, research conducted by Humboldt State University indicated that four out of five local voters felt that heavy corporate contributions made political corruption more likely.

Not only was Measure T popular with local voters, it was seen as a template for anti-corporate activists across the country. That makes all the more stunning last week's capitulation by the Humboldt County board of supervisors in response to pressure by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a right-wing think tank. In a settlement signed on November 7 [PDF], the supervisors not only declared the ordinance null and void, but also promised to pay the Pacific Legal Foundation $44,000 within 60 days.

Why did Humboldt County cave on a matter that had passed by such a large majority and that had been crafted to meet the requirements of Supreme Court precedent? The probable answer is that the county simply couldn't afford the fight. In September, Federal District Court Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, had granted PLF's request for an injunction [PDF] against Measure T, agreeing that the measure was "underinclusive" (because it targeted only non-local corporations) and that it should have made an exception for ballot initiatives (ignoring Powell's statements in Bellotti). Faced with the likelihood of spending large legal fees on a case where the judge appeared to have made up her mind, the County decided to bow out of the fight.

What's sad about the demise of Measure T is that the principle that corporations don't belong in politics was actually a mainstream feature of American law for the first 200 years of the country's history. As late as 1970, for example, the state of Wisconsin had a statute that stated, "No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office" (Wis. Laws, Lection 4479a (Sec. I, ch 492, 1905).

It is only since the late 1970s that Supreme Court decisions have established new corporate First Amendment rights, extending the Fourteenth Amendment rights won by corporate attorneys in the 1880s. This sort of corporate hegemony is bad for public morale, bad for democracy, and ultimately bad for the environment.

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Wall Street Journal: How to Quench the World's Thirst

The Wall Street Journal interviews Maude Barlow, the U.N.'s new water adviser
by Alexandra Alter

Water has become a booming $500 billion industry, by some estimates. Economists and investors call it "the new oil" and "blue gold."

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who has bought water rights for a chunk of the Ogallala aquifer in Texas and owns more water than any individual in the United States, has said the natural resource should be treated like any other commodity -- bought and sold for a profit.

In the U.S., companies such as Nestlé, which owns Poland Spring, extract hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater a year. The companies often pay little to nothing for the water that they bottle and sell.

But where some see profits, others see peril. The world is running out of fresh H20, which accounts for just 3% of the earth's water. Recent moves by multinational corporations to privatize water sources could spell disaster for poor countries and residents with no means to pay.

In Bolivia, price spikes following water privatization led to riots in 2000; eventually, Bolivia expelled Bechtel, the engineering company that the government had contracted to take over management of the municipal water supply in the city of Cochabamba. Similar clashes over privatization and price hikes have broken out in Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa and Mali.

Geopolitical experts warn that water scarcity poses not just a public health risk, but a threat to global security. Currently, some 1.1 billion people, one-sixth of the world population, lack safe drinking water. Global water consumption is growing at unsustainable rates, doubling every 20 years, according to a March 2008 report by Goldman Sachs. A study by International Alert, a London-based conflict-resolution group, listed 46 countries with a combined population of 2.7 billion that have a "high risk" for violent conflict over water in the next two decades.

Maude Barlow, a Canadian water activist who has opposed privatization for more than 20 years, was recently appointed as the United Nation's first senior adviser on water issues. Her position, which is unpaid, was created by the Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the United Nations General Assembly. Here are highlights from her conversation with the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ: You've been an outspoken critic of the U.N.'s and the World Bank's water policies, saying that both have aided the "corporate takeover of the world's water." Were you surprised to be offered an advisory role at the U.N.?

Maude Barlow: I don't think I would have been offered a role there by anyone but someone like Father Miguel. He cares deeply about the poor. He's a liberation theology priest from Nicaragua.

I've been critical and will continue to be critical of the overly close relationship of the U.N. to big water corporations. At a time when the need was growing so much, they said, 'Well, the private companies will pay for it,' and they didn't. No one has the right to appropriate water for profit while other people are dying.

What will you try to change about the U.N.'s water policies?

I would like to see it shift from reliance on water companies and privatization, what I call the hard path, to the soft path -- watershed protection, rain harvesting and watershed restoration. You can't have the human right to water if there's no water. Studies show that as we remove water from aquifers, we dry up the land. The rain won't come if there's no vegetation.

Some economists argue that privatization will reduce water consumption and waste, the way oil prices have spurred efforts toward more efficient energy use. Wouldn't putting a price on water actually help to reduce waste?

To me, the issue isn't whether you price or not, it's the conditions. There are three important conditions to putting a price on water. The first is that no one should be denied access because they can't pay. The second is that water is maintained by the public sector, so it's like a tax, not a fee. The third is, you're paying for the service, you don't own the water. It's very important that we say water is not a commodity.

Do you see any role for the private sector?

In the building of infrastructure and pipes. There's an important place for the private sector in water cleanup technology. There's no place for the private sector in water delivery. It should be delivered by the public sector on a not-for-profit basis.

The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty include the objective of cutting the number of people without access to clean water in half by 2015. You have said that at the rate they're going, it will take much longer. What steps will you recommend to speed things up?

The twin pillars of a water secure future for the world are on the one hand, conservation and protection, and on the other hand, the human right to water.

One of my criticisms of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals about water has been the disconnect between those who are working on the environmental side and those who are working on the human-rights side. I don't think there's been nearly enough attention paid to protecting source water. Seventy-five to 80% of surface water in India, China or Russia is too polluted to bathe in, drink or fish in.

The U.N. bought into the World Bank's solution, which is, bring in water companies and let them provide these huge projects, and if you're wealthy you can pay for water. They don't see it as their responsibility to provide water for the poor. I've been in communities with prepaid water meters. There's water, but they can't afford to turn the tap on, so they go to the river, where there are cholera warning signs.

In your latest book, "Blue Covenant," you write about virtual water -- the water that is used to produce commodities like cars and computer chips -- as a big source of water consumption.

I think we're going to hear a lot more about that in the next few years. The U.S. is exporting a third of its water in the form of virtual water exports through commodities. Britain and Japan import most of their virtual water.

Europe grows its roses in Africa around Lake Naivasha in Kenya. The lake is so damaged now that these companies are looking for new lakes in Uganda. It's not just looking at our water footprint in our own country and community and household. It's where your water footprint is coming from.

Has the financial crisis slowed the pace of global investments in water indexes?

What worries me is the opposite. It's the one area where people are still going to invest. It's not going to fluctuate the way other commodities do, because we're a species running out of clean water.

The other thing I'm worried about from the credit crisis is that cash-strapped municipalities and states may sell off water treatment plants to the private sector.

You've criticized the Bush administration for "gutting the Clean Water Act." and have noted that funding for water research in the U.S. has been stagnant for 30 years. Do you expect to see changes under an Obama administration?

I'm sure hoping. I think this is a much more environmentally conscious president coming in, as the issues around food, water and energy are becoming more prominent. I do think that we may have an opportunity with a more open administration and a more aware public to really start to move these issues forward. But if it doesn't happen, the U.S. is going to be one big Atlanta .

Which countries would you hold up as models in terms of sustainable water management?

None. Europe is way ahead in terms of how it cares for its water. However, Europe imports the bulk of its water footprint, so the way it protects its own water is to use and abuse other countries' water.

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Lawsuits expected to follow bottled water study

by Scott Sabatini, published on Legal Newsline on Thursday, October 16. You can read the Environmental Working Group's report, which is referenced in the article below, here.

Laboratory tests of popular brands of bottled water will result in at least one California lawsuit against retail giant Wal-Mart, according to the non-profit organization that conducted the study.

The study, released on Tuesday, found 10 U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals, according to an executive summary issued by the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C.

The study asserts that Wal-Mart's label brand, Sam's Choice, fails to meet California's legal limits for bottled water contaminants.

The environmental group filed a notice of intent to sue Wal-Mart on Tuesday, alleging that the mega-chain failed to warn the public of illegal concentrations of trihalomethanes, which are cancer-causing chemicals.

Abraham Arredondo, a spokesman for the attorney general's office confirmed with Legal Newsline that they had received the letter from the Environmental Working Group and were taking it under advisement. He could not comment on the attorney general's interest in the case at this point, he said.

The study found that all brands met federal health standards, even though they fell short of the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry. California's standards exceed federal standards for water purity.

The Environmental Working Group sent a letter to California Attorney General Jerry Brown notifying him of the study and its implications for California. Brown has been a vocal critic of the bottled water industry.

This summer the threat of a lawsuit from the attorney general's office blocked a plan by Nestle, the nation's largest manufacturer of bottled water, for construction of a plant that would draw millions of gallons of water from the pristine McCloud River in Northern California. Nestle has since agreed to rework its construction and plan, lower levels of production and make further environmental concessions.

In an earlier interview Brown told Legal Newsline that Americans need to rethink their allegiance to bottled water.

"We take our pristine waters and cart them off to Maine or someplace," Brown said. "It's like carrying coal to New Castle, or ice to Alaska. It represents a level of waste that, at least, ought to be acknowledged. Hopefully, consumers will find more efficient ways to hydrate."

Officials from the Environmental Working Group said the bottled water industry has convinced consumers its product is superior, contrary to these study results.

"It's buyer beware with bottle water," said Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at EWG. "The bottled water industry promotes its products as pure and healthy, but our tests show that pollutants in some popular brands match the levels found in some of the nation's most polluted big city tap water systems. Consumers can't trust that what's in the bottle is anything more than processed, pricey tap water."

More than 25 percent of all bottled water comes from the same sources as tap water, municipal water supplies. Sam's Choice of Wal-Mart comes from Las Vegas' municipal supply.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts.

"The industry is spending millions, millions, on these advertising campaigning to get people think that bottled water is better than tap water." Executive Director Richard Wiles said.

Though the study did not focus on the cost and environmental impact of the bottled water industry, the group's recommendations focus on a change of mindset for consumers.

The average cost per gallon of bottled water, "$3.79 per gallon, is 1,900 times the cost of public tap water. A carbon filter at the tap or in a pitcher costs a manageable $0.31 per gallon," the EWG report states. "Consumers should drink filtered tap water instead of bottled water."

The environmental impact is also a concern, according to the report. Water bottle production in the U.S. uses 1.5 million barrels of oil per every year, according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors' resolution passed in 2007, enough energy to fuel 100,000 cars for a year. Roughly one in four bottles of the 36 billion sold each year is properly recycled, according to a 2007 study.

The study's recommendations call for "full disclosure of all test results for all contaminants," in bottled water, and made readily available to the public.

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The Earth Charter: A Declaration of Interdependence

As you read this article by Robert Dodge, and the BBC article below on the economic value of ecosystems, please also check out the Alliance's Tapestry of the Commons Project. This interactive workshop can be adapted to all ages and degrees of familiarity with environmental and social justice issues. It's a great way to start the "commons conversation" where you live. Download our 2-minute audio thoughts on the commons, too.)

This article was posted at Commondreams.org on Friday, October 10

Communities around the world will come together this Saturday to celebrate this year's Earth Charter International Summit. Global climate change is the theme of this year's Earth Charter International Summit, in keeping with the United Nations designation of 2008 as the International Year of Planet Earth.

The Earth Charter - a declaration of interdependence - articulates the shared responsibility we have to one another and to the planet itself. It is an expression of hope and a call to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history.

Created by the largest global collaborative process ever associated with an international declaration, the Earth Charter was drafted over a 10-year period by thousands from 77 countries.

It was launched at The Hague Peace Palace in 2000. It was subsequently endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals worldwide. Ventura County, California is the first U.S. county to have endorsed the charter.

• The principle areas of the Earth Charter include:
• Respect and care for the community of life
• Ecological integrity
• Social and economic justice
• Democracy, nonviolence and peace
  

Summits from Tampa, Florida to Ventura, California to Ghana, Africa and Barcelona, Spain will join others in presenting and honoring individuals whose efforts best exemplify these principles and their connection.

This years partial list of speakers and honorees include:

Alexander Likhotal, President & CEO of Green Cross International and Advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, and Earth Charter Commissioner at the Tampa, FL Summit,

Dr. Gary Yohe, 2007 co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize (with Al gore) for his work with the International Panel on Climate Change, at the East Haddem, CT Summit,

James Hansen, NASA scientist and professor at Columbia University who revealed in 2007 that the White House edited climate-related press releases to make global warming seem less threatening, at the New York, NY Summit,

Majora Carter, MacArthur-winning activist for "greening the ghetto" and urban renewal, advocate for national "green jobs" agenda, and co-host of the Green on Sundance Channel at the Washington D.C. Summit,

Puri Canals, Vice-president of IUCN as well as the chairperson for the World Conservation Congress and will be speaking on Role of Women & The Environment from the ICUN conference in Barcelona.

Jackson Browne, musician and activist, for his work throughout his career on behalf of the planet, lending his support, voice and talents raising awareness to the perils of nuclear power, peace and the environment at the Ventura, CA Summit where eight other local heros will be recognized for their courage and work.

These remarkable individuals and the incredible work they do have made the connection and are making a difference. The world is indeed better for their efforts.

Each of us might ask ourselves: What will be our commitment in realizing this opportunity?

Participants at this year's summit will be encouraged to make a commitment to an ongoing action in the year ahead to reduce their environmental impact and help sustain the planet.

The Earth Charter concludes with a challenge called "The Way Forward": "Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life."

We invite you to join us in this effort.

For more information on the Earth Charter Community Summits in your community, or the Earth Charter itself, contact: www.earthcharterus.org or www.earthcharter.org.

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Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Barcelona. Originally posted Friday, October 10.
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change. It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.

Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.

Capital losses
Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News. "So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."

The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding. The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.

Stern message
Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available. Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions. The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.

Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.

"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation. "Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."

A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days. Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.

Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review. But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.

"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over. Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."

The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.

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Ecuador voters approve rights of nature

On September 28, Ecuadorian voters approved a new constitution that is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable ecosystem rights, or Rights of Nature.

The Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly developed the new constitutional provisions with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which is pioneering similar work in the US by helping more than a dozen local municipalities in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia with drafting and adopting similar laws.

"Ecuador is now the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights," stated Thomas Linzey, CELDF's Executive Director.

Article 1 of the new "Rights for Nature" chapter of the Ecuador constitution reads: "Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies."

The Ecuadoran declaration is a departure from settled U.S. law, in that all of the major environmental laws in the U.S. - including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and similar state laws - treat nature as property, with no rights in and of itself. These laws legalize environmental harms by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur. Rather than preventing pollution and environmental destruction, these laws instead codify it.

The Rights of Natures laws developed by the Legal Defense Fund for local municipalities in the U.S. represent changes to the status of property law, eliminating the authority of a property owner to interfere with the functioning of ecosystems that exist and depend upon that property for their existence and flourishing. These local laws allow certain types of development that do not interfere with the rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish.

These local laws - and now Ecuador's constitution - recognize that ecosystems possess the inalienable and fundamental right to exist and flourish, and that people possess the legal authority to enforce those rights on behalf of ecosystems. In addition, these laws require the governments to remedy violations of those ecosystem rights.

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Ecuadorian Assembly approves constitutional rights for nature

Published on July 10 at climateandcapitalism.com

On July 7, the 130-member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly, elected countrywide to rewrite the country’s Constitution, voted to approve articles that recognize rights for nature and ecosystems.

“If adopted in the final constitution by the people, Ecuador would become the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights,” says Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

The following clauses will be included in the constitution that will be submitted to a countrywide vote, to be held 45 days after Assembly finishes its work later this month.

Chapter: Rights for Nature

Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.

Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.

Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.

In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.

Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.

The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited.

Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing.

The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.

“Public organisms” in Article 1 means the courts and government agencies, i.e., the people of Ecuador would be able to take action to enforce nature rights if the government did not do so.

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Asserting Community Rights Over Corporate Rights - Index

Community Rights Barnstead NH bans corporate theft of water

• Speaking Out For the Rights of Nature
• Rural Communities Act to End Corporate Domination
• Rights of Nature Model Ordinance
• Rights of Nature Law - First In The USA
• Community Rights Articles collected to date
  

Read more about rights-based organizing the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund - www.celdf.org

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Rights of Nature Model Ordinance

http://www.celdf.org/Ordinances/RightsofNatureOrdinance/tabid/133/Default.aspx
				Rights of Nature
			An Ordinance by the Second Class Township of ________, _________ County, Pennsylvania, Acknowledging the Rights of Natural Communities and Ecosystems and Establishing a System of Enforcing and Protecting Those Rights Against Corporations and Other Business Entities Section 1. Name. The name of this Ordinance shall be “The Rights of Nature Ordinance.” Section 2. Authority. This Ordinance is adopted and enacted pursuant to the authority granted to _______ Township by all relevant state and federal Constitutions and laws, including, but not limited to, the following: The founding documents of the United States, which recognize that governments are created to secure and protect inalienable and fundamental rights; The Constitution of the United States, Article IV, §4, which requires the United States to guarantee a Republican Form of Government; The Constitution of Pennsylvania, Art. 1, § 2, which provides that all power is inherent in the people, and that all free governments are founded on the peoples’ authority and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; The Constitution of Pennsylvania, Art. 1, §27, which recognizes that Pennsylvanians are trustees of the natural world; The general authority granted by the Constitution of Pennsylvania and the Second Class Township Code to make and adopt all such ordinances, bylaws, rules, and regulations as may be deemed expedient or necessary for the proper management, care, and control of _________ Township and its finances and the maintenance of the health, safety, peace, good government, and welfare of ________Township; Pennsylvania Statutes, Tit. 53, Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations, §66506, which authorizes _____________ Township to enact ordinances necessary for the proper management, care, and control of the Township and its finances and the maintenance of peace, good government, health, and welfare of the Township. Section 3. Findings and General Purpose. The ________ Township Board of Supervisors recognizes that: (1) Governments are created to secure and protect inalienable and fundamental rights; (2) People and their communities are trustees of nature, and communities of nature and ecosystems form part of the natural trust; (3) It is well-settled law that trustees are required to protect and preserve the trust, (4) As trustees, people and communities are obligated to protect and preserve natural communities and ecosystems; (5) Natural communities and ecosystems are currently being destroyed, degraded, and weakened by corporations and other business entities; (6) Governments empower those corporations and other business entities through the bestowal of constitutional “rights” and powers upon them; (7) The environmental regulatory system merely regulates how quickly natural communities and ecosystems will be destroyed and degraded; (8) The environmental regulatory system has failed to protect and preserve natural communities and ecosystems because regulations focus solely on minimizing the adverse environmental impacts resulting from certain activities, (9) The environmental regulatory system fails to protect and preserve natural communities and ecosystems because it treats those communities and systems as property; (10) Creation and validation of the environmental regulatory system thus fails to satisfy the duties of humans and communities to be trustees of natural communities and ecosystems; (11) Recognition by humans and communities that natural communities and ecosystems have fundamental and inalienable rights is necessary to satisfy the obligation and duty of people and communities as trustees; (12) Creating a process for the legal enforcement of those fundamental and inalienable rights by people and communities is necessary to fulfill peoples’ role as trustees for natural communities and ecosystems. Section 4. Specific Purpose. The specific purpose of this Ordinance is to acknowledge the inalienable, fundamental rights of nature, and establish an enforcement system whereby people and communities can protect and vindicate the rights of nature against actions taken by corporations and other business entities. Section 5. Statement of Law. Natural communities and ecosystems possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and prosper, and no corporation or business entity – or persons acting in corporate or business capacities – shall deny those rights, or interfere with the vitality or functioning of those communities or ecosystems. Section 6. Statement of Law. Every living creature within the Township of ____________possesses an inalienable and fundamental right to be an integral part of a community of nature and ecosystem, and no corporation or business entity shall deprive or deny living creatures that right. Section 7. Statement of Law. The Township Board of Supervisors shall not make or enforce any law which shall abridge the rights of natural communities and ecosystems. Section 8. Statement of Law. The enumeration in this Ordinance, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by natural communities, living creatures, and ecosystems within the Township of ___________________. Section 9. Enforcement. When this Ordinance or the underlying rights recognized by this Ordinance are violated, it shall be the duty of the Board of Supervisors of the Township of _____________to file an enforcement action against any corporation, business entity, or persons acting in corporate or business capacities. Such action shall seek to protect, preserve, and vindicate the rights of nature as recognized by this Ordinance. Any natural person shall also have the authority to file an action in the appropriate judicial forum against any corporation, business entity, or persons acting in corporate or business capacities, which has violated, is violating, or threatens to violate, the rights of animals or ecosystems within ___________ Township as outlined by this Ordinance. Protecting, preserving, and vindicating the rights acknowledged in this Ordinance shall include seeking both punitive and compensatory damages against a corporation, business entity, and/or managers of those entities, under the authority of state and federal civil rights statutes. Section 10. Enforcement. For purposes of the enforcement of the rights acknowledged in this Ordinance, natural communities and ecosystems shall be considered “persons” within 42 U.S.C. §1983 and other federal and state laws adopted to vindicate and enforce rights. Section 11. Severability. The provisions of this Ordinance are severable. If any section, clause, sentence, part, or provision of the Ordinance shall be held illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional by any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision of the court shall not affect, impair, or invalidate any of the remaining sections, clauses, sentences, parts, or provisions of this Ordinance. It is hereby declared to be the intent of the Board of Supervisors of __________ Township that this Ordinance would have been adopted if such illegal, invalid, or unconstitutional section, clause, sentence, part, or provision had not been included herein. Section 12. Effective Date. This Ordinance shall take effect five days after enactment by the Board of Supervisors of _________ Township.

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Rural Communities Act to End Corporate Domination

by Ruth Caplan

Corporate Destruction of Nature & Grassroots Solutions to Save the Planet
Justice Rising - Summer 2007, Vol 3, #1
July 1, 2007
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2439-AA.shtml

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The Alliance was created to "End Corporate Domination." When corporations invade every nook and cranny of our existence, where do we begin to respond to this daunting call to action? The answer lies with action that can be taken right in our own communities, which, when such actions reach a critical mass, have the potential to overturn "settled" law created by our courts and drive the rights of nature straight into the U.S. Constitution.

It all began in the most unlikely of places— rural, conservative Pennsylvania townships. This was not the result of progressives getting together. In fact, it was in reaction to a coalition made up of labor, environmentalists, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, and the Democratic governor, which succeeded in getting a law passed to establish regulations that would reduce the pollution from CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations).

Trouble was, farmers did not want these corporate hog farms in their communities period. They called Thomas Linzey with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in rural Chambersburg and said they wanted him to help them keep the CAFO’s out. Well, Linzey knew from his previous legal assistance to communities that the regulatory system was not going to do it. Together they took a radically different approach. The towns passed local ordinances that banned corporate farming altogether, with an exception for local family-based corporations. Instead of focusing on the regulatory action, the ordinances focused on the corporate actor.

These towns did not get down on their knees and plead with the corporations to be "responsible" or "accountable" to the community. They asserted their local authority over the corporations in order to protect their local farms and the health and welfare of their communities.

Then two teenagers drove their all-terrain vehicles over a field freshly spread with sludge from municipal treatment plants. Within days, Daniel Pennock, one of the teenagers, was dead from inhaling toxics from the sludge. It was a wake-up call. Farmers had been sold a bill of goods. What was supposed to be a boon to farmers—free fertilizer— was in fact laced with an unknown mix of toxins. Townships now knew how to respond. They banned corporations from spreading sludge in their towns.

The idea spread to western Pennsylvania, deep in mining country, where the coal companies were using long wall coal mining techniques to tunnel horizontally deep under homes and farms without supporting pillars. Homes cracked. Ponds disappeared. Water had to be trucked in to feed the livestock. Blaine Township, knowing that in the not too distant future the long walls would be coming to their township, has taken the incredibly brave step of passing an ordinance banning corporate mining in their town. Are our towns that brave?

As with the 19th century Populists, these farmers were learning just how the system of corporate domination works. They learned about how corporations had gained protection as "persons" under the Bill of Rights through "settled" law and they learned how in our history citizens have created movements to overturn "settled" law—the abolitionists and the suffragettes. In some townships they themselves took on "settled" law by denying corporations the rights of persons within the township as part of their ordinances against corporate farming or sludge spreading or coal mining.

Today over 100 communities in Pennsylvania have passed laws grounded in asserting community rights over corporate rights.

Inspired by Pennsylvania, the citizens of Barnstead NH became the first town in the country to pass an ordinance banning corporations from taking their water. The ordinance also denies corporations the rights of persons in Barnstead, as well as denying them protection under the commerce clause and contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution or similar provisions in the NH Constitution. The Alliance’s Defending Water for Life campaign triggered local interest in taking this approach and provided strategic support such as sponsoring a Democracy School in Barnstead.

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Speaking Out For the Rights of Nature

by Ruth Caplan

Corporate Destruction of Nature & Grassroots Solutions to Save the Planet

Justice Rising - Summer 2007, Vol 3, #1
July 1, 2007
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2439-AA.shtml

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When was the last time you read the US Constitution—read it carefully? Did you take note of how the Constitution protects the rights of persons to own property, even the right to own slaves as property, although the "S" word is never used. Did you remind yourself that the Fifth Amendment requires "just compensation" for any taking of private property for public use and that the Fourteenth Amendment says "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."

Now search for any language referring to protection of nature. Nothing—Nada. This is why Congress resorted to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution—"The Congress shall have the Power ...To regulate Commerce...among the several States...."—as a justification for passing national environmental laws. A bird flies across state lines. A stream feeds a river that eventually crosses state lines. Air knows no state boundaries. The environment as an article of commerce!

If the abolitionist movement was about driving freedom for slaves into the Constitution; if the women’s suffrage movement was about guaranteeing women the vote as part of their Constitutional rights; then why isn’t the environmental movement about driving the rights of nature into the Constitution? This is the logic followed by environmental attorney Thomas Linzey with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) when he asserts that there is no environmental movement in this country.

So where is this new approach taking root? In the work of the national environmental organizations? No, it began in the rural town of Tamaqua, located in the anthracite coal-mining region of eastern Pennsylvania. On September 19, 2006, the Tamaqua Borough Council unanimously passed a law banning corporations from spreading sludge in the borough and recognizing that ecosystems in Tamaqua possess enforceable rights against corporations. Who will enforce these rights? The ordinance "establishes that Tamaqua residents can bring lawsuits to vindicate not only their own civil rights, but also the newly-mandated Rights of Nature."

Just a week later, the Board of Supervisors in nearby Rush Township passed a similar sludge ordinance recognizing the rights of nature. Then in early December the East Brunswick Board of Supervisors passed a similar ordinance. Three towns in three months in rural Schuylkill County took this radical action. The East Brunswick ordinance goes one step further: "In the Ordinance, the Township Board of Supervisors declared that if state and federal agencies—or corporate managers— attempt to invalidate the Ordinance, a Township-wide public meeting would be hosted to determine additional steps to expand local control and self-governance within the Township."

As CELDF historian Richard Grossman notes, "East Brunswick has joined other Pennsylvania municipalities in contesting the constitutional, legal and cultural chains that bind communities to the corporate system. They have heroically nullified corporate privilege delivered from on high by exercising democratic rule of law from below."

In April, Linzey joined with Wild Law author Cormac Cullinan to speak at a conference on "Earth Jurisprudence: Ethics, Ecology, and Law" hosted by the Barry and St. Thomas University Law Schools. In 2006, the law schools had joined to launch the Center for Earth Jurisprudence, whose mission is to "re-envision law and governance in ways that support the well-being of the Earth community as a whole, and to foster mutually enhancing relationships among humans and nature and recognize the rights of nature."

It is time to stop treating nature as property, to stop trying to protect the environment by treating air, water and wildlife as articles of commerce. It is time to build a real environmental movement! Ruth Caplan is the national coordinator of AfD’s Defending Water for Life Campaign. She will help lead a pre-convention Democracy School in Tucson this Fall.

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Rights of Nature Law - First In Nation To Recognize Rights Of Nature

http://www.celdf.org/PressReleases/TamaquaLawRecognizesRightsofNature/tabid/367/Default.aspx
				Tamaqua Law Is First In Nation to Recognize Rights of Nature
			The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund 675 Mower Road Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201 Pennsylvania Borough Strips Sludge Corporations of “Rights” Becomes First Municipality in the United States to Recognize the Rights of Nature CONTACT : Ben Price, Projects Director (717) 243-6725 bengprice@aol.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (September 20) – On September 19th, the Tamaqua Borough Council in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, unanimously passed a law declaring that sludge and dredge corporations possess no constitutional “rights” within the Borough. Tamaqua thus becomes the fifth local government in the country to abolish the illegitimate “rights” and privileges claimed by corporations. Those constitutional “rights” and legal privileges have been routinely asserted by corporations in other localities to nullify local laws. The Tamaqua law also (1) bans corporations from engaging in the land application of sludge within the Borough; (2) recognizes that ecosystems in Tamaqua possess enforceable rights against corporations; (3) asserts that corporations doing business in Tamaqua will henceforth be treated as “state actors” under the law, and thus, be required to respect the rights of people and natural communities within the Borough; and (4) establishes that Tamaqua residents can bring lawsuits to vindicate not only their own civil rights, but also the newly-mandated rights of Nature. In the ordinance, the Borough Council also declared that if state and federal agencies – or corporate managers – attempt to invalidate the ordinance, a Borough-wide public meeting would be hosted to determine additional steps to expand local control and self-governance within the Borough. Ben Price, the Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the organization that helped draft the Ordinance, declared that “the Tamaqua Borough Council has taken an extraordinary – but logical – step. Since this nation’s founding – and for thousands of years before – ‘law’ in the western world has treated rivers, mountains, forests, and other natural systems as ‘property’ with no rights that governments or corporations must respect. This has resulted in the destruction of ecosystems and natural communities, backed by law, public policy, and the power of government. The people of Tamaqua have changed how the law regards Nature, and have acted in the grand tradition of the Abolitionists, who launched a people’s movement in the 1830’s to end the legal but immoral treatment of slaves as property and to establish forever their rights as people entitled to fundamental and inalienable human rights.” Richard Grossman, the Legal Defense Fund’s historian, pointed out that the work in Tamaqua Borough has several parallels to prior people’s movements, and declared that “Abolitionists struggled over decades to undo constitutional law which had long defined slaves as ‘property’ and to transform this nation’s ‘property and commerce’ constitution into a ‘rights and liberty’ constitution. Tamaqua has now challenged today’s constitutional injustices – against Nature and against the self-governing ‘We the People.’” The Tamaqua ordinance emerged out of six months of discussion and debate across Tamaqua Borough and Schuylkill County. Democracy Schools presented by the Legal Defense Fund along with public meetings, hosted by local governments and community groups, laid the groundwork for the Borough Council to overturn years of collusion between the Pennsylvania legislature, state environmental agencies, and corporate polluters focused on denying the rights of people within Tamaqua. Helping to drive the campaign was the Army for a Clean Environment (ACE), a thousand-member Schuylkill County citizen organization led by Dr. Dante Picciano. In the coming months, other municipalities in Schuylkill County are expected to follow Tamaqua’s lead. Municipalities across Pennsylvania are considering similar ways of equipping their citizens with the legal authority to stop corporate assaults engineered by mining, sludge, and factory farm corporations – assaults enabled and protected by State permitting agencies and courts. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has worked with communities resisting corporate assaults upon democratic self-governance since 1995. Among other programs, it has brought its unique Daniel Pennock Democracy Schools to communities in Pennsylvania and twenty-five other states where people seek to end destructive and rights-denying corporate acts routinely permitted by state and federal agencies. Over one hundred Pennsylvania municipalities have adopted ordinances authored by the Legal Defense Fund. -30-

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