| | |  Editorials | Environmental 
US Slaps Bolivia and Ecuador
 Brenda Norrell - narcosphere
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April 14, 2010
 |  | The Obama Administration's denial of funds to Bolivia and Ecuador is not the only indicator of the power of both the summit and Ecuador's recognition of the rights of Mother Earth. |  | | |
As Bolivia prepares for the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the US has pulled out its daggers, slicing millions of dollars in climate change funds to Bolivia and Ecuador, a slap in the face to countries who do not support the dismal Copenhagen accord.
The London Guardian and Washington Post exposed the United States' denial of funds to Bolivia and Ecuador in response to the failed Copenhagen accord. However, more to the point of the US overreaction is the fact that Bolivia is launching the climate summit, April 19-22, and Ecuador was the first country in the world to recognize the legal rights of Mother Earth.
"By an overwhelming margin, the people of Ecuador voted for a new constitution that is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights," said the US Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
"Ecuador is now the first country in the world to codify a new system of environmental protection based on rights," stated Thomas Linzey, executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
The Obama Administration's denial of funds to Bolivia and Ecuador is not the only indicator of the power of both the summit and Ecuador's recognition of the rights of Mother Earth. While the US and some writers attempt to diminish the power of these two actions, the force created by Bolivia and Ecuador grows in magnitude.
Corporations and governments in the so-called "developed world," ensnarled in greed, land grabbing, water poisoning, air polluting and the obliteration of Indigenous rights, are alarmed that their wealth base may now be shaken. Their methods of murder, assassination, torture and land and water theft are now being exposed, leaving those corporations and nations operated by corperations such as the US, raw and exposed to the world.
The Bolivia climate summit and Ecuador's recognition of the rights of Mother Earth threaten to tip the balance of the corporate world and the devouring corporate nations, whose tentacles have long clasped and ripped out from the Earth that which does not belong to them.
Ecuador: Article 1 of the new "Rights for Nature" chapter of the Ecuador constitution reads: "Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public bodies."
Also see: US Denies Climate Aid to Countries Denying Copenhagen Accord
Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 27 years. She is currently based in Tucson and covers Mexico, the U.S. borders and the West, focusing on Indigenous Peoples and human rights. She cohosted the five-month Longest Walk talk radio across America, with American Indians walking for sacred Mother Earth and publishes Censored News. Visit her Personal Website: www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/ |
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