The Guardian: Growing rights of nature work and obstacles focus of The Guardian-5/4/2021
On Saturday, May 1st, 2021, The Guardian featured an article on the first U.S. rights of nature enforcement case, known as Wilde Cypress Branch et al. v. Beachline South Residential, LLC and Noah Valenstein, Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Titled “Streams and lakes have rights, a US county decided. Now they’re suing Florida”, this explores the new Orange County, Florida lawsuit utilizing the rights of nature law that was overwhelmingly supported by 1.5 million voters in November 2020 in that municipality. The lawsuit itself is to prevent a 1,900-acre housing development by Beachline South Residential LLC from eradicating 63 acres of wetlands and 33 acres of streams or more from pollution.
This journalistic piece discusses the history of the Rights of Nature movement, with laws present and enforced in countries such as Ecuador, Uganda, and Switzerland, but also the potential future for such obstacles in the U.S. The first enforcement case in the United States was filed in the ninth judicial circuit court of Florida, seeking to secure the rights of waterways “to exist, flow, be protected against pollution and maintain a healthy ecosystem” according to the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights press statement. The Guardian holds a positive outlook, citing recent legal successes across multiple countries and CDER’s Senior Counsel Thomas Linzey’s assessment that there are a variety of grounds that would lead a court to uphold that protection.
Chuck O’Neal of Speak Up Wekiva provides a quote on the motivation of the plaintiffs he is representing, stating he “hopes the court ‘reaches beyond current conventional thinking’ in considering the case. Our waterways and the wildlife they support have been systematically destroyed by poorly planned suburban sprawl. They have suffered in silence and without representation, until now” (The Guardian, 2021). This kind of legal representation will be vital in securing the rights of local species, as well as ensuring water quality for the local community.