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Rights of Nature Timeline

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Rights of Nature Timeline

2006
Tamaqua Borough

Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania is the very first place in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature in law by banning the dumping of toxic sewage sludge.

2008
Ecuador

Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature in its national constitution.

2010
Bolivia

Bolivia’s Legislative Assembly passed the Law of the Rights Of Mother Earth.

2014
New Zealand

New Zealand Parliament passed the Te Urewera Act. recognizing the Te Urewera national park – as having “legal recognition in its own right.”

2016
Ho-Chunk Nation

The Ho-Chunk Nation took a first vote for a Rights of Nature tribal constitutional amendment, the first tribal nation in the U.S. to do so.

Colombia’s Constitutional Court  ruled that the Atrato river possesses rights “protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration,” and guardianship shared by indigenous people and the national government.

2017
Lafayette, Colorado USA

Lafayette, Colorado, in the U.S., enacted the first Climate Bill of Rights, recognizing rights of human and nature to a healthy climate, and banning fossil fuel extraction as a violation of those rights.

2018
Ponca Nation, Oklahoma

The Ponca Nation of Oklahoma adopted a customary law recognizing the rights of nature.

The High Court of Uttarakhand recognized rights of the “entire animal kingdom.”

2019
Philippines

PMPI and NASSA/Caritas Philippines led the filing of the very first Rights of Nature Bill at the both houses of the Philippine Congress.