Rights for the Housatonic River
While i don’t like to start off ‘in opposition’ i have to say that right now, it seems like the right way to begin, because our 21st century reality is shaped by corporate entities which have grown far too powerful and which in some cases are completely out of control. There are other factors, such as the complicity of governments, which also play into how distorted most of our cultures and societies have become. But we don’t have to resign ourselves to acceptance. Rather let’s try to improve the future.
As i sit here up in upper Sage’s Ravine trying to organize my thoughts, on a stunningly beautiful early April afternoon, the sound of running water provides a soothing backdrop. This is clean pure water up here in the mountains, where the density of humans hasn’t yet despoiled it. But these waters will cascade down the mountain and eventually flow into the Housatonic River, where our human touch has not been so light.
Humans are not the only entities on this planet we should grant “rights” to. But history has taken us in the wrong direction, at least in the industrialized world, bestowing attributes of personhood on corporations, which don’t have the moral compass that most of us humans do. Let us look to our ancestors, and the indigenous cultures, who understood how interconnected everything is. The entities which really deserve (and *need* now more than ever) our granting of rights are ecosystems, features of our natural landscapes, like rivers, mountains, and watersheds.
There is an initiative which will be brought to a vote before Sheffield, Massachussetts’s citizens at the next Town Meeting, to take place on Monday evening, June 29th, 2020, that, when passed will grant important rights to the Housatonic River as it passes through Sheffield on its way to Long Island Sound. i have summarized the bylaw which will be voted on at the bottom of this webpage. The full text of the bylaw can be found at our “vote YES for the Housatonic River” website.
Thanks to a core group of concerned local citizens working in concert with the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, we have an opportunity to do better by nature than we have in the past, which will only end up benefiting humanity. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could be against such an effort. If you’re a resident of the town of Sheffield, MA, USA, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (charlie.derr@gmx.com), and it is my hope that you will consider attending the next Sheffield Town Meeting in order to vote on the proposed bylaw. If you don’t personally live in Sheffield, MA, perhaps you know someone who does. Certainly this is an incredibly important issue for all of those of us who live in and around the Berkshire mountains. One only has to look upstream to Lee and what is being proposed there to understand what a pivotal time this is for us, the river, and the planet.
While modern agriculture and industrial advances have provided great benefits, it is worth seriously considering what has been lost as human societies, in our recent transition away from the tribal lifestyle we evolved in, which still survives in pockets of indigenous cultures around the globe. The understanding of just how interconnected humans are to the natural environment in which we live, the myriad other species of plants, animals, insects, fungus, algae, and bacteria that we share our local and global habitat with, the ecosystems that are created by these interrelated phenomena, and also our fellow humans, is something that seems to be universally appreciated by pretty much every surviving indigenous people, as well as all of those which have disappeared and/or been absorbed into ‘modern’ patterns of living.
Let us try to blend such a spirit of understanding into the way we treat and interact with the natural world. So many of the concepts that we consider “true” and “real” are ideas that we have collectively decided to create (most of them out of thin air). i’m referring to ideas like property and ownership. Over the course of human history most of us have backed off from the previous ideas that one human can possess another. And so slavery is no longer tolerated in most of our societies. We need to go further. Who owns a river, a mountain, a watershed, or an ocean? As long as we permit private ownership of such important life-giving elements of our natural world and permit/encourage consumption/pollution/destruction of their component elements, we are living in a way that removes so many options for our future descendants and life itself on the planet in the coming years, decades and centuries.
Thank you for reading.
The Vote YES for Rights for the Housatonic River webpage has the full text of the bylaw as well as a form to fill out if you wish to be informed about the date of the upcoming Annual Town Meeting in Sheffield, MA.
Summary of the bylaw which will be up for a vote at the next town meeting:
A connection with the history of the Town of Sheffield and the Housatonic River is developed.
An explicit granting of rights for the Housatonic River and the people of the Town of Sheffield is given.
Business entities and governments are prohibited from violating any of the rights granted in the bylaw.
Enforcement mechanisms are detailed.
For anyone interested in pursuing Rights of Nature in other communities, it is important to realize that this endeavor really demands specific expertise in drafting (by)laws that will withstand legal challenges. It is recommended that folks considering such action reach out to the CDER for assistance. Thomas Linzey has been very generous with his time as this Berkshire Rights of Nature group has worked here locally. Please consider a donation to the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights if you have the ability and want to advance these efforts worldwide.
With respect to a framework, the following elements are crucial to creating an effective law:
- recognition of the legal rights of the natural entity
- detailing enforcement mechanisms
- providing for damages/recovery
The proposed Town of Sheffield bylaw includes these components.
