Earth Law Center Blog
Inside Earth Law Center’s Work Advancing the Constitutional Right to a Healthful Environment in New York
Chiara Grimes interviews Earth Law Center New York Ecocentric Law Fellow Maria Florencia Pérez about the organization’s initiative to help New York municipalities implement the state’s Green Amendment — its constitutional right to a healthy environment — passed by voters in 2021.
Steps to Integrate Earth Law into Your Career
Are you intrigued by Earth law but not sure what to do? Maybe you attended the Earth Law Summer Course, had a university lecture on the Rights of Nature, or have been doing your own research. While opportunities for full-time “Earth lawyers” are limited for now, there are many other ways to make a difference, including small steps you can take to test out integrating Earth law into your career or volunteer time.
Decades in the Making, the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) Is Now Binding: What Happens Next?
The High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) represents a turning point for Ocean governance—but its success depends on what happens next. As nations prepare for the first Conference of the Parties (January 2027), they have a rare opening to shape domestic legislation that doesn’t just comply with the treaty's requirements but goes further, embedding Earth law principles into the governance of marine ecosystems. Whether that promise is realized will hinge on institutional capacity, political will, and the frameworks states choose to build now.
Rights of the Animas River: Reflections from Colorado Student Advocates Who Helped Achieve River Rights Resolution
The Animas River begins high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and runs 126 miles south before joining the San Juan River in Farmington, New Mexico. Along the way, it moves through alpine forests, narrow canyons, agricultural valleys, and the city of Durango. In Fall 2025, the authors and other students in a sociology course on water justice at Fort Lewis College in Durango had the opportunity to shift how the Animas is understood in local governance. They developed and presented a Rights of Nature resolution to the Durango City Council, which passed unanimously in November 2025.
Policy and Cultural Support for a Healthy Environment: How Is Your Town Managing Organic Waste?
The New York Green Amendment represents an affirmative backdrop for local governments to enact laws designed to implement its goal of providing all New Yorkers with a comprehensive right to a clean and healthful environment, and Earth Law Center (ELC) has been working with New York municipalities to explore such possibilities. Organic waste management is an area where Green Amendment rights, though not a prerequisite for local policy and action, can draw communities into thinking about and acting on their desire for a healthy environment in ways that develop culture and awareness of the right to a healthy environment.
A Conversation with Lindsay Branham, Author of New Book “Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees”
Lindsay Branham is an environmental psychologist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and founder of NOVO and The Heartwood Institute, initiatives that address ecological and human rights crises through film, culture, and community engagement. Her work explores how humans can restore a sense of kinship with the living world, weaving together environmental psychology, storytelling, spirituality, and ecology. ELC has been collaborating with Lindsay on initiatives related to the rights of rivers and broader efforts to reimagine our legal and cultural relationship with nature.
Closing the U.S. River Protection Gap through Earth Jurisprudence
A 2026 study published in Nature Sustainability reveals a startling statistic: only 11.7 percent of river lengths in the contiguous United States are adequately protected. Meanwhile, less than 19.3 percent of American waterways are protected at a level deemed viable by the National Protected Rivers Assessment of the United States. This article details contemporary river protections, investigates their inadequacies, and explores how Rights of Nature frameworks could improve watershed protection in the U.S.
Verte Volar: An Homage to Ancient Pollinators
"Verte Volar" is a new composition that honors the sacred relationship between humanity and stingless bees through an interdisciplinary partnership bridging science, law, ecology, poetry, and Indigenous ancestral knowledge. This spoken word and musical piece emerges from an unprecedented collaboration between Indigenous wisdom keepers, scientists, legal advocates, artists, and educators, weaving together diverse ways of knowing into a unified homage to Amazonian stingless bees. It was created by Carine Gibert, founder of Grounded In Motion, composed with Jacinta Clusellas, and produced by Benjamin Furman.
Ocean Rights and International Law: Five Things to Watch in 2026
With the RoN movement gaining momentum in Ocean governance, here are five of the most exciting Ocean-related developments to keep an eye on in 2026:
The entrance into force of the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ)
International Seabed Authority negotiations about deep-sea governance
Coral reefs rights developments
Lawsuits from Ocean guardians using Advisory Opinions in different courts
The Republic of Panama continues leading the way in Ocean protection
What If the High Seas Were a Country?
Imagined as a country, the Ocean would rank as the world’s fourth-largest economy, valued at approximately $24 trillion, and would exercise sovereignty over 70 percent of global territory. Dare we dream of an Ocean Nation—a government of representatives selected through expertise rather than nationality, a transboundary bioregion that can activate hard-fought Earth (and marine) law?
Groundbreaking Women-Led Rights of Nature Resolution Passed by Eastern Band Cherokee
On January 8th, 2026, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council unanimously approved a Rights of Nature (RoN) resolution for the Longperson, a 790 mile long interconnected water system whose headwaters begin in the Great Smoky Mountains and whose feet stretch to the sea. The resolution was presented by the North American Indian Women Association (NAIWA) Daughters, an all-female, youth-led group of Indigenous environmental protectors and advocates. NAIWA Daughters shared a moving testimonial to the Council as the culmination of 18 months of community outreach, research, prayer, and hard work. This historic event marks the first all women-led RoN resolution passed in the United States.