|
Oct 16
2009
|
Ecosystem RightsPosted by Bruce Robinson in wildlife , water , trees , speaker , resources , protest , politics , policy , nonprofit orgs , Marin , legislation , land rights , justice , international , Ideas , government , environment , conservation , climate change , birds , author , animals , activism |
|
U.S. law gives constitutional rights to corporations. Now a countervailing legal theory is emerging that defines and defends the legal rights of the environment.
Mari Margill is Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in their West Coast office in Portland, Oregon. But as she explains here, the organization's origins lie in Pennsylvania.
Obtaining legal standing for nature, says Margill, requires enacting new laws to spell that out, something that is beginning to happen in scattered local jurisdictions, but faces an uncertain future on appeal.
For more information about CELFD click here.
Sixteen years after it was adopted, the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gay and lesbian service members is up for review, as public support for it is waning.

A group representing several thousand former Sonoma County employees is suing the county to roll back a reduction in health care benefit for the retirees.
The famous rum-making Bacardi family has deep roots in their native Cuba, where they first supported, then vehemently opposed the Castro-led revolution.
The Bacadi family were still strong backers of the revolution led by Fidel Castro (center, below) when they marched into Havana to claim power in 1959, although that changed 20 months later when their rum distillery and other business properties were seized by the new government.
