Center for Humans and Nature: Ceridwen Dovey, “Making Kin with the Cosmos”-5/18/2021

One of the authors of the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon, Ceridwen Dovey, has recently published an article on the Center for Humans and Nature’s blog, titled “Making kin with the Cosmos”. The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights is featured, with Mari Margil and Michelle Maloney’s role in this important document, along with co-authors Thomas Gooch, Dr. Alice Gorman, and Dovey herself.

Cerdiwen Dovey writes from an ethnographic perspective, sharing how her love for space extends beyond sci-fi space marauder fantasies but transcends into an understanding of the philosophy of where we reside in proximity to these interplanetary beings. She discusses environmental ethics to consider the mark we have left on our own planet, and how to minimize or completely prevent the destruction of space as we attempt to mine it. Especially lunar bodies. As Dovey states:

“Outer space is nature. Nature does not refer only to living things. It refers also to the physical world and everything in it that is not human, nor made by humans. We now have the opportunity to defend nature-places in space from our worst impulses before the destruction begins. The growing sophistication of environmental ethics frameworks means that many of us now understand that nature—whether on Earth or off-Earth—has intrinsic worth and the right to exist outside of any use-benefit it may bring to humans.”

This quote is the full thrust of the argument for why the Moon matters in the rights of nature framework. Using the works of Anne Dillard, Robert McFarlane, and even Ayn Rand, Dovey deftly utilizes environmental jurisprudence to highlight the value the Moon has on our own planets’ climate change and balance of biodiversity.