Bolivia creates Law of Mother Earth

[RMorgan]

Hey folks,

Check this out!


Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country's rich mineral deposits as "blessings" and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".

"It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all", said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. "It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration."

The law, which is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009, has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

But the abstract new laws are not expected to stop industry in its tracks. While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman. It is also committed to giving communities new legal powers to monitor and control polluting industries.

Bolivia has long suffered from serious environmental problems from the mining of tin, silver, gold and other raw materials. "Existing laws are not strong enough," said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, the biggest social movement, who helped draft the law. "It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels."

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca said Bolivia's traditional indigenous respect for the Pachamama was vital to prevent climate change. "Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family. We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values," he said.

Little opposition is expected to the law being passed because President Evo Morales's ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, enjoys a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament.

However, the government must tread a fine line between increased regulation of companies and giving way to the powerful social movements who have pressed for the law. Bolivia earns $500m (£305m) a year from mining companies which provides nearly one third of the country's foreign currency.

In the indigenous philosophy, the Pachamama is a living being.

The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."

Ecuador, which also has powerful indigenous groups, has changed its constitution to give nature "the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". However, the abstract rights have not led to new laws or stopped oil companies from destroying some of the most biologically rich areas of the Amazon.

source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/10/bolivia-enshrines-natural-worlds-rights

Things like this give me hope for the future of mankind! :)

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For those who speak Spanish, you can check the full law here:

http://pt.scribd.com/doc/44900268/Ley-de-Derechos-de-la-Madre-Tierra-Estado-Plurinacional-de-Bolivia

Cheers,

Raf.

[westhill]

It's a sad day when we have to make it a law to respect/honor our earth.
Laws are a means of control and it will be the poor who will suffer.
Those with money (corporations) will have the power to do business as usual
but the farmer will starve. Smacks of Agenda 21.

[shadowstalker]

It's a sad day when we have to make it a law to respect/honor our earth.
Laws are a means of control and it will be the poor who will suffer.
Those with money (corporations) will have the power to do business as usual
but the farmer will starve. Smacks of Agenda 21.

Not all together true, it just may prevent Agenda 21 in those type areas

[Carmody]

Is not the 90,000(?) hectare Bush ranch in Bolivia?

[Arrowwind]

I commend Boliva to standing up to the United Nations. I hope they will find a way to honor the earth that honors humans needs also.

[Cjay]

Raf, this is great news.

Let's see if the law passes and how well it works in practice.

I hope all other nations enact and enforce similar laws to protect the environment.

We need to do much more than just protect the environment. We need to repair the damage we have done to Mother Earth.

Most of us are aware of, concerned about and discuss environmental issues - then we get distracted by the next big sporting, political or exopolitical event.

Some of us act daily to reduce our environmental footprint - that's great.

However, few take any direct action to repair what we have destroyed.

Whether we repair the Earth (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?52523-ANNOUNCEMENT-Huge-Scale-Environmental-and-Humanitarian-Projects-to-Repair-The-Earth) or continue destroying it, we all share the consequences.

[Arrowwind]

I do see a glimmer of hope in South America. The nations of that continent have a common struggle and now seem to be developing a common vision and seem to be talking to each other. Their best chance is a united front against imperialism and to listen to thier indigenous elders.

I often think back to the predictions of the astrologer Linda Goodman. I remember reading some of her stuff when I was a kid probably in Readers Digest or Life magazine cause thats about all that was around my parents house. She said that America would move into decline for quite a while (for some reason 100, or was it maybe 200 years sticks in my head) and that South America would rise.

[westhill]

It's a sad day when we have to make it a law to respect/honor our earth.
Laws are a means of control and it will be the poor who will suffer.
Those with money (corporations) will have the power to do business as usual
but the farmer will starve. Smacks of Agenda 21.

Not all together true, it just may prevent Agenda 21 in those type areas

Just take a look at our EPA (loads of rules and regulations). it is all about moving populations,
loss of private property rights and means of employment (farming). If a direct way meets opposition
they will come at it sideways. Don't be fooled.

UiDKWy_oSMw

Winning “Rights” for “Mother Earth: Van Jones’ Dream Team Mission-Now Possible
May 2, 2011 By Michelle Horstman

Now that the Agenda 21 Dream Team is officially in place, “Mother Earth’s” rights and yours could get swapped- at least that’s the mission.

Last week it was announced that Van Jones has officially become a board member of the Pachamama Alliance. To ignore the progression
of Agenda 21 and “sustainability” is to ignore a potentially major change in global power that will affect the lives of everyone worldwide.

If they are able to gain the rights they seek, this could apply to just about everything we do and would certainly gain them total control
of land and resource use at the very least. You need to know just what Agenda 21 and Pachamama Alliance are and why you should care.

Pachamama’s stated purpose:

to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture and, using insights gained
from that work, to educate and inspire individuals everywhere to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world.

Van Jones has been very close to founder Lynne Twist for years, working on many of the same projects, so why is this the time they
would choose to “officially” bring him on board at Pachamama? Looks like it’s full steam ahead for Agenda 21.

Along with the announcement, it was stated that they are working toward a proposal for the 2012 UN Rio Summit for “rights” for
Mother Earth, otherwise known as sustainable development and/or Agenda 21. Agenda 21 came out of UNCED in Rio back in 1992:

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, agreed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit 2002)
affirmed UN commitment to ‘full implementation’ of Agenda 21, alongside achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
and other international agreements.

Agenda 21 has the potential for complete global control, as it calls for sustainable development. According to the American Policy Center:

…the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced
consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based
on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.

“Every societal decision” made by the UN’s Agenda 21 policy; that is pretty all encompassing. With this policy, we can be told we must live
by their idea of social justice, redistribution, population control, elimination of private property ownership and lack of sovereignty. Property is
considered to belong to the community and be controlled by the government. It seems that Agenda 21 is one big Marxist wish list come true.

If it sounds far fetched to you, you haven’t been paying attention. Federal, state and NGO groups have been hard at work implementing these
policies, often under the radar. Implementation comes under many names and many groups to disassociate it with the phrase “Agenda 21”
and can usually be identified whenever you see “sustainability,” “smart growth,” “biodiversity” or “habitat” in the wording of the effort.

In some cases, it is proposed as a voluntary plan, but that is just a step in the process. Citizens can already dedicate their land use on a
voluntary basis, so there is no reason to legislate it unless it is merely the beginning of a process.

Among hundreds of efforts nationwide, just this week we have seen the agenda in action is happening in West Texas. U.S. Fish & Wildlife
is working to shut down oil and gas production due to their grave concern over the dunes sagebrush lizard, which the Obama administration
is working to add to the endangered list. (I guess BP wasn’t available to shut things down in the desert, so they had to go for an endangered
lizard to get the job done.) Investors.com commented:

When Obama recently addressed the current energy crisis, he told Americans not to worry:
We’ve been down this road before.

But we should worry — and for that very reason. We’ve seen the spotted owl kill logging and create ghost towns in the Northwest.
The ESA’s listing of the delta smelt created 40% unemployment in California’s San Joaquin Valley and turned America’s food basket
into a dust bowl.

Already you will see plans of how the UN agenda is being used to relocate populations to where they want them. Referring to Nigeria,
Sidney Clouston of Clouston Energy Research writes:

The Top Down services are to meet with the Bottom UP activities which are to be Contract Growing contracts for the poor rural people.
Employment opportunities can be promoted in urban slums so voluntary relocation to jobs and a better future may be the result.

China has been very active in the manipulation and movement of its’ people as well, following the Agenda 21 game plan. The Daily Bell describes
the empty ghost towns of China as the government builds a mega city where they can concentrate population, and they suggest a possible link to
Agenda 21 planning:

To us the entire plan as enunciated, seems to mimic the worst features of the USSR, where sterile, crumbling planned developments
still dominate local landscapes. The Chinese may do it better but the spirit is no more laudable. The powers-that-be will decide where and how
average Chinese will live, and obviously most of them will live in cities.

No wonder Van Jones wants a bigger piece of this action.
Coming soon to a metro area near you? Starting on a local level, as many citizen groups are already doing, every effort must be made to
stop this in its tracks. Check out what’s going on in your state. It’s time to educate others and speak out loud and clear wherever you see
this happening.

For those who would write them off as a bunch of environmental crazies; crazy, yes. Crazy like a fox, and the fox is already in the hen house.