PAMELA HAINES – From the Navajo Nation to a small town in Pennsylvania to Ecuador, then across the world, the idea of enshrining the rights of nature is only growing.
Tag: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
Rights Of Nature Law Forces Revocation Of Fracking Permit
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND – In an extraordinary reversal, two weeks ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a frack waste injection well in Grant Township. DEP officials cited Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter banning injection wells as grounds for their reversal.
How a Ragtag Group of Oregon Locals Took On the Biggest Chemical Companies in World – and Won
SHARON LERNER – The people who wrote an ordinance banning the aerial spraying of pesticides in western Oregon last year aren’t professional environmental advocates. Their group, Lincoln County Community Rights, has no letterhead, business cards, or paid staff. Its handful of core members includes the owner of a small business that installs solar panels, a semi-retired Spanish translator, an organic farmer who raises llamas, and a self-described caretaker and Navajo-trained weaver. And yet this decidedly homespun group of part-time, volunteer, novice activists managed a rare feat:
First Right to Climate Law Adopted in Colorado
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND – Lafayette, CO, recently adopted the first law in Colorado recognizing the right to a healthy climate for people and nature, and banned the extraction of oil and gas as a violation of that right. CELDF assisted the community in drafting the measure.
Pennsylvania Township Legalizes Civil Disobedience
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND – Grant Township, Indiana County, PA: Tonight, Grant Township Supervisors passed a first-in-the-nation law that legalizes direct action to stop frack wastewater injection wells within the Township. Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) has sued the Township to overturn a local democratically-enacted law that prohibits injection wells.
Slaves in All But Name
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND – Communities across the U.S. are stripped of their right to local self-government, and the right to protect themselves from corporate harms and the corporate state. Read how we are “Slaves in all but Name†in Community Rights Paper 11 – and what is possible with the Community Rights Movement.