This week, the Quebec town of Terrasse-Vaudreuil became the first government in Canada to recognize trees as living things with rights.
It is part of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Trees, a global movement begun in Paris in 2018 to treat trees like people, with rights including “the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration.”
The town’s gesture of recognition is largely symbolic, but it sets the stage for tests in various courts in Canada around its legal validity. All to say, what used to be thought an absurd proposition by many will soon be treated seriously by the law.
The same path was forged by the idea that a river is a living creature as well. Last year, British naturalist Robert Macfarlane) wrote Is a River Alive? (declared “a masterpiece by The Economist), which fleshed out three examples of rivers being declared living things who should be recognized as such, both in law and in our imaginations. One of those rivers is in India, another in Ecuador, and a third, the Mutehekau or Magpie, is in northeastern Quebec. It is being defended from death by damning in a river-rights campaign.
Macfarlane points out that this is not a new idea, created to help environmentalists preserve and protect vast swaths of land from mining, tourism, rapacious development and climate change. It is one of humankind’s most ancient ideas, that humans and nature are all connected, all one. It’s also a fundamental precept of most Indigenous people as well, and very much alive in their view of the world and their politics around reconciliation.
My sense is that the “trees are living things” movement has been fueled by the success of UBC Forestry Professor Suzanne Simard’s global best-seller, Finding the Mother Tree, which came out in 2021 and popularized the idea that trees can think and communicate, and that they behave as groups as well as individuals.
All of this – that trees and rivers are much like people in that we have certain unalienable rights – must come as a surprise to those who believe humans (and especially white-skinned humans) are at the top of the food chain with everyone else, and certainly everything else, working and heaving below in order to keep us at the top of the pyramid.
The fact that the movement to endow rivers and trees with rights is largely a governmental and legal initiative puts it years ahead of movements that are simply carrying signs in the public square.
All the more we should ready ourselves with news from the animal rights movement, which has also been gaining strength in the courts around the idea of “non-human persons.”
But it seems a popular book like Is A River Alive? and Finding the Mother Tree can congeal public opinion and accelerate it to give new rights to the previously disenfranchised.
So stay tuned to American legal scholar Cass Sunstein’s new book in January on why Animals Matter: The Case for a Kinder World.
Then get ready for huge blowback from the meat and fish industries.
Meanwhile…
1. A problem redefined is a problem half-solved. Ask Rolex how to appeal to crazy rich Asians. Or Air Force One, which isn’t a plane, but a call sign. Or shooting ten years in the air. Or delivering a speech for the ages to celebrate the New York Knicks’ first NBA championship in 53 years. Or like McKinsey, capitalizing on your intellectual capital. And finally, how FIFA uses technology to wipe out bad calls.
2. You can be healthier. First, as if more proof was needed, “Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for global burden of disease, injury and premature death.” Next, the FDA has just approved the first new sunscreen option in two decades. And…is AI smarter than doctors? It’s growing to be.
3. Is Trump flailing? Look, I know nothing, but I get a sense that the world has tired of cowering whenever he barks. There’s Iran, of course, and Italy. And Americans watching his accelerating mental decline. (See his flailing over Washington’s Reflecting Pool.) And now, an arch-enemy from Trump’s first administration, George Conway (ex of Kellyanne Conway), is running for Congress, and he sure doesn’t sound afraid. In fact, I’m predicting that when Trump speaks to the world next Saturday, July 4, celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, he will perform so disgracefully, even his flunkies will flee. But I’ve been wrong about Trump before, as have we all.
4. The World Cup’s real heroes…prove you don’t need to be big to matter…Canada’s captain, Alphonso Davies, has a backstory we should all know, and cheer. And what’s with Curaçao and its 78-year-old manager?
5. Men acting badly, unconsciously…get caught when women infiltrate their networks, as Avery Haines did, winning her a Governor-General’s Award for Investigative Journalism.
And why Ron MacLean in particular should stop saying ‘roofies’. Also, cities need to be more aware of how they can serve women better…And women (or at least Michelle Obama) speaking well of her husband…and why the RCMP still needs work. And how one father-daughter combo flies high.
6. Two left feet. They don’t have them. Nor does he. Nor they. Finally, here are the 20 greatest dance routines ever.
7. Good advice for…families’ Chief Memory Officers (plus what old photos of our parents say about us)…and advice for we who like wild maps. Plus, the London Underground from overground…plus people who only flush the toilet once…those of us who make every second count…and finally, Americans who want a coat of arms.
8. Big mistakes. 19 big errors that will make you feel better about your next ones. Gwyneth Paltrow shilling for condos in Israel…Plus Mark Twain was a hater when it came to Jane Austen. And old people shouldn’t do this.
9. Second thoughts on what we do. First, 100 ways to tie your shoes. Next, is cheap travel overturning the world for good? Plus, how one new word on an AI prompt can change everything. And the Nobel Prize-winner who spent 40 years learning why smart people lose money. Finally, does the world need another museum? The Last Museum doesn’t think so: it already has 5.8 million items.
10. Big money. First, how to make a billion dollars (give people what they don’t know they want). Next, how to hack a superyacht. Finally, what does it mean to have a trillion dollars?