Mother Earth is a Living Being

From the book chapter: Nature

“This declaration was drafted in 2010 during the World’s People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in which thirty-five thousand people and delegations from more than a hundred countries participated.

The declaration affirms that: “We are all part of Mother Earth, an indivisible, living community of interrelated and interdependent beings with a common destiny.” It states: The inherent rights of Mother Earth are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence [ … ] Just as human beings have human rights, all other beings also have rights which are specific to their species or kind and appropriate for their role and function within the communities within which they exist. The rights of each being are limited by the rights of other beings and any conflict between their rights must be resolved in a way that maintains the integrity, balance and health of Mother Earth.

These rights include the “the right to life and to exist”; “to maintain its identity and integrity as a distinct, self-regulating and interrelated Nature being”; to “integral health” and “well-being.” While the text called on the General Assembly of the United Nations to adopt it, this has not yet been the case. The text was adopted as Law 71 of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.”