I had two major takeaways from Democracy School. The first was a quote by Jane Ann Morris, an anthropologist who studied corporate culture, who said, “The only things environmental laws regulate are environmentalists.” As a water defender working primarily for the Ichetucknee River and its associated springs, I can vouch for the fact that Morris’s statement is true. We activists are extremely limited in what we can speak about—usually only minor problems and never the “big picture”—and limited in how or even whether we can challenge activities that cause harm to ecosystems.



When faced with questioning or openly challenging environmentally harmful activities, activists at state agency meetings find themselves trapped in scenarios that play out like this:




1. Agency staff members present a slide show and describe their “process.”
2. During public comment, people point out the “big picture,” including substantive flaws in the agencies’ positions and/or flaws in scientific methodology and findings. People decry lack of meaningful action, beg for substantive change, and ask pointed, simple questions that put agencies on the spot.
3. Agency representatives hem and haw with answers to simple questions. Very frequently, there are comments about the need to do more studies.
4. An email address for written comments is projected on a slide.
5. The meeting is adjourned.
6. Nothing seems to change, except for the harm to our natural systems, which increases.

The results of those meetings are inevitable. After public feedback, which is sometimes received patiently and sometimes not, the individuals or corporations eventually get the permits they’ve requested or the state agency moves forward with its planned actions. Water defenders are left feeling like we’re behind a big truck that’s dumping trash (or worse!) at us as we desperately try to shovel it away, only to be buried by the contents of the truck at the end of the road.

My second takeaway from Democracy School was a lot more positive:  It was the idea that by granting legal rights to individual natural systems like the Ichetucknee or Santa Fe rivers, we could level the playing field between business/commerce and Mother Nature in our courts of law and possibly provide much-needed protections for vulnerable ecosystems.

I see the rights of nature (RON) concept not as a magic bullet, but rather as a “helicopter idea” that might enable us to get up, over and out in front of that trash truck by sparking a paradigm change in our culture. Instead of treating our springs and rivers as objects, people could be encouraged to treat them as living systems with whom we humans can exist in a healthy relationship instead of an abusive one—not simply as “things” that can be destroyed for private profit. After all, living systems such as the Ichetucknee and the Floridan Aquifer are what we, and many other animals and plants, depend upon for our survival; they are benefactors, to whom we owe acts of kindness in reciprocity for all they have given us.

And I was thrilled to learn from CELDF’s representatives that rights of nature laws were being adopted in various parts of the world!

I came home from Democracy School determined to spread the word as widely as I could about this new approach to defending Mother Earth. One of the first people I told laughed out loud. “Giving rights to the river?” he exclaimed. “That’s some real fluffy bunny stuff right there.”

He might have even rolled his eyes.

For the next seven years, I talked about the rights of nature idea to anyone and everyone who seemed even slightly receptive. I bulldogged the idea because I knew that Florida was on the fast track to lose our priceless freshwater springs—the largest such concentration of springs on the planet—and because I couldn’t stand by and do nothing as the springs were damaged by overpumping from the Floridan aquifer and by pollution from people, animals, agriculture and industry.

Florida’s Eden, a group of artists who had joined forces in Gainesville to create awareness of springs problems, produced the “Dead and Dying Springs” graphic. The list of dead and dying springs is a reminder for anyone who needs it that we human beings are playing an active role in the destruction of these ecosystems.



I felt like I was talking into empty space for most of those seven years. When I mentioned rights of nature, people would smile and nod; sometimes a more engaged person would ask a question or two, but that would be the end of it. The impression I got from these conversations was that people thought it was an interesting new idea but they didn’t think it was something that would ever catch on. Every now and then, though, I’d run into someone who would resonate with it. Those people gave me hope.



Fast forward almost seven years from 2013, and I saw a Facebook post from Chuck O’Neal in the Orlando area, who—coincidentally or not—I had met at Democracy School when we sat next to each other. Chuck was musing about the idea that he might want his activist’s legacy to be the establishment of a rights of nature movement in Florida.

I immediately messaged him, “You need to get in touch with Thomas Linzey.”



I had been in touch with Thomas about the possibility of having the Ichetucknee Alliance, the group I work for, get involved with RON, but the directors of that small group weren’t interested in taking up the rights of nature banner and had several good reasons for not doing so.

 I exchanged several more messages with Chuck, and in each one I stressed, “You need to talk to Thomas Linzey.” I gave Thomas’s contact information to Chuck, and eventually the two connected—and what a connection that turned out to be!



Chuck arranged for Thomas to come to Florida and hosted a meeting at his house in which Thomas gave a crash course in RON to a small crowd of people who were intrigued with the idea. It seems like things moved really fast after that, but actually it took almost a year for the big event to unfold:  the Florida Rights of Nature Convention (RONcon), held in February 2020 at the University of Florida Law School’s annual public interest environmental conference, right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

 I’ve heard from one person who attended those events in the past that the second day of that conference, which was the day RONcon was held, usually has an attendance of about 35 people. This year, we filled a large lecture hall to standing room only capacity!




Following RONcon, a group of people who were particularly interested in and committed to starting a rights of nature movement in Florida got together and with Chuck’s leadership, we formed the Florida Rights of Nature Network. There are now people working on bills of rights for local rivers in all areas of Florida, from the Panhandle to the southern part of the state. Orange County voters overwhelming passed Florida’s first rights of nature ordinance in November 2020!

And the person who called these ideas “fluffy bunnies” has now admitted that the rights of nature movement has momentum in Florida.

But what exactly are these bills of rights for natural systems supposed to do?

The idea that Mother Earth and her ecosystems have the right to exist and to thrive is not a new idea. Indigenous people have lived this view for thousands of years, but relatively modern European law (upon which U.S. law is based) was developed largely by the landed gentry. It has subverted the idea of humanity’s relationship with the natural world by relegating natural systems to the status of “property.” And in property-based law, only certain people are allowed to have legal “standing” to defend those systems in court.



Christopher Stone’s landmark article, Should Trees Have Standing?, was published in 1972 and makes the argument that natural systems should have their own legal rights. The article is often cited as the inspiration for the current rights of nature movement. (Stone later expanded the article into a book with the same title.)



The nonprofit group I work for, the Ichetucknee Alliance, was granted standing to defend the Ichetucknee in one legal challenge but was denied standing in another. So there is no guarantee that even groups whose mission is to restore, protect and preserve specific natural systems can fulfill that mission through our courts of law.

 I have watched other environmental groups challenge actions by state agencies and corporations that harm Florida’s springs and rivers. Those groups are sometimes denied standing, as the Ichetucknee Alliance was, but even if they are granted standing, they invariably lose their challenges.



The Florida Rights of Nature (RON) movement is a response to this crisis of legal standing that leads to the destruction of nature, but it is more than that: It is also a response to a crisis in our democracy in which state governments and the federal government can deny people the right to govern their local communities.



Like many people who are worried about what we humans are doing to Mother Earth, I am committed to doing what I can to reverse our current destructive trends. When I had the opportunity to get involved with a campaign to amend Alachua County’s home-rule charter by having a Bill of Rights for the Santa Fe River placed on the 2020 ballot, I jumped on board.

 At the first public information session we held for this SAFEBOR (Santa Fe River Bill of Rights) effort, one young man asked, “How long do you think it will be before the State of Florida preempts you from doing this?” My answer was quick:  “Until the next legislative session.” Everyone laughed because they knew that was true.

 Sure enough, in 2020 the Florida Legislature pre-empted local governments from enacting rights of nature laws in the confusingly named Clean Waterways Act (SB 712). Those of us involved in SAFEBOR and Florida’s RON movement knew this was coming and we see it as validation for our efforts. As Thomas Linzey said recently, “The fact that they’re trying to preempt you means you already have the right to do what you’re doing.”



At the Florida Rights of Nature Convention (RONcon) held at the University of Florida’s Law School, I asked Linzey:  “If Alachua County wants to put SAFEBOR on the 2020 ballot and the State preempts us from enacting rights of nature laws, what should the County do?”



Linzey’s answer:  “Do it anyway.”



Do it anyway because our springs and rivers are being destroyed.



Do it anyway because our current regulations and laws are not preventing our springs and rivers from degrading.



Do it anyway because Florida needs to recognize nature and ecosystems as having that highest level of protection that can be afforded by law.



Do it anyway because ecosystems need substantive rights that can be enforced.



Do it anyway because people in communities have a constitutional right of local self-government that enables us to enact stronger environmental protections than those set by the state.



Do it anyway because that same constitutional right of local self-government limits what laws the state can override.



Do it anyway because the Declaration of Independence reads:  “…That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”



Do it anyway because the Florida Constitution reads:  “Article I, Section 1. Political power. – All political power is inherent in the people. The enunciation herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others retained by the people” and “Article II, Section 7. It shall be the policy of the state to conserve and protect its natural resources and scenic beauty. Adequate provision shall be made by law for the abatement of air and water pollution and of excessive and unnecessary noise and for the conservation and protection of natural resources.”



Do it anyway to get a challenge into the courts that will enable resurrection and expansion of the Cooley Doctrine that asserts certain municipal lawmaking cannot be preempted by state law.



Do it anyway because even though a court challenge will be costly, there are some things that are more important than money.



Do it anyway because now is not the time for baby steps. Now is the time for brave people to stand up strongly to the forces that are destroying Mother Earth.



Do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

Update: Worried about the consequences of putting a rights of nature charter amendment on the ballot in 2020 in the face of state pre-emption, the Alachua County Commission declined to take that action.

Note: Thomas Linzey and Mari Margil, formerly of CELDF, now run a new organization, the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), https://www.centerforenvironmentalrights.org/