The Song of the Forest

Radical Legal Moves for the Benefit of All Beings

A forest in Ecuador is petitioning the government for the authorship rights to a song. Its a legal move built upon a growing, global movement to give rights to the other-than-human world.

If we want our re-wilding, ancestral re-weaving and mythic re-imaginings to deeply take root in our current culture we, I believe, will need to re-write some foundational legal structures. One of these is the legal concept of Personhood, it is being radically challenged in countries outside of the US.

What does it mean to be a person?

Currently, in the USA, only humans can be “Persons” in the eyes of the law. Only humans are rights-bearing, that is they can have “human-rights”. Everything else, is considered Property. That is, all non-human persons have no rights and can be owned by humans.

This state of affairs is an improvement from the days of slavery where some humans were considered property and other humans could own them. At least now all humans are considered Persons under the law although we still have a long way to go before all human people are treated equally in this country.

The established legal structure means that non-human persons, such as dogs, mountains, rivers, cows, carrots, oak trees, earthworms and shiitake mushrooms can be legally owned, and traded, by humans. We can do whatever we choose to that “property” and the non-humans have no rights to do anything about it. To the rational, Western mind, it can sound preposterous to even question this. The human-centric concept of personhood is deeply rooted into our materialistic worldview.

But what if, we step outside that view, for just a moment, and consider an alternative?

Beyond-Human Persons

Any human who has lived with a dog, cat, horse or other beyond-human animal likely knows well that theses beings have consciousness, are sentient in some way. Different from the way we are conscious maybe, but aware of themselves and aware of us. Scientists from around the world have been gathering data showing that plants respond to human actions and thoughts, and they communicate with each other in complex ways in response to changes around them. Some have shown that the structure of water changes with human prayer and intention. All these beyond-human persons exhibit sentience and intelligence in various way. Whether they consider us humans sentient or not remains a mystery.

This is not news for other cultures. Many human cultures across the planet, and through history, understand other-than-human beings to be persons. These humans see our species as one of many in a web of life, and act accordingly. No one species is considered above or better than others, we each play our role in a healthy multi-species community. All beings are afforded respect and consideration, and given a voice, as is appropriate in a healthy community.

When I was deeply involved in Rights of Nature activism I had the honor to visit with the Sarayaku people in the Ecuadorian rainforest. They have been on the front lines of this work for three generations now fighting for the rights of their people and the forest against multinational oil companies. They are wining, and its a huge load to carry.

They explained their understanding of Kawsak Sacha - the Living Jungle - the entire forest is alive for them. Each place in the forest has guardian spirits that help maintain the balance between the various species who live there. The humans make decisions about what to cut or harvest in the forest through dialogue with these beings. This is how their people have always approached the forest, but now they have to take this worldview to international courts in order to stop companies, that see the forest as a “natural resource”, from damaging the living jungle.

Legal Rights of Nature

Ecuador, in 2008, was the first country to establish the rights of nature as part of their constitution. Now in Ecuador humans can file law suits on behalf of various ecosystems, usually forests and rivers. This legal mechanism has already been used successfully to shut down extractive and harmful operations of large multinational companies. Ecuador was just the start, the global rights of nature movement is growing.

Bolivia, Colombia, New Zealand, India are among the countries to have adopted a similar legal structure, one that allows beyond-human persons to have the right to flourish and not be harmed. There are also ongoing efforts in the US to bring this legal structure here. Most have focused on local, grassroots efforts around specific ecosystems, such as Lake Erie while working on pushing legislation up from city to state levels. It’s a long road.

You can learn more about the Rights of Nature movement in my TEDX Talk.

The Forest’s Song

The recent copyright claim from a Ecuadorian forest, Los Cedros (The Cedars), rests upon this body of already established law. Los Cedros was given legal rights in 2021 by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador which resulted in numerous mining rights being revoked.

The song in question - The Song of the Cedars - was bought into the human world by musician Cosmo Sheldrake, writer Robert MacFarlane and mycologist Giuliana Furci, who acknoweldge they couldn’t have done it without the forest. The song was conceived while they were in the forest researching fungi and includes recordings of the many beings who live there. The More Than Human Project (MOTH) out of New York University’s School of Law are petitioning the Ecuadorian government, insisting that the forest be granted legal co-authorship rights to the song.

In itself the petition is a simple request but it could have system changing ramifications if accepted. It may open a doorway to countries across the world giving nature a legal voice and let us reimagine our legal systems to represent all of life, not just humans.

What then does it mean to be a human-person?

In the light of this re-writing of legal structures foundational to the human-centric, materialistic world view perpetuated by our society, what then could it mean to be a human in this web of persons?

These legal cases are creating an opening for us to re-imagine ourselves in the world.

As is science. We know that more than half the cells in our body are “nonhuman” (i.e. our microbiome) yet they are essential for us to be human. We are not a neat, discrete, node in the web of life, it is in us, as we are in it. Life lives through us.

How do we extract ourselves from this legal ownership model? What concrete steps can we take to live from the knowing that we are one-of-many, that all voices count, and we are indebted to so many other species for our lives?

I ask that question earnestly. I don’t know the answer, I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s some practices I’ve been exploring over the years in the search for answers:

• Honoring the plant, fungal and occasional animals that give their lives so I may eat.

• Offering food back to the land that feeds me

• Asking permission before I harvest anything

• Consciously and lovingly tending plants, fungi and animals (human animals too!)

• Offering greetings to the forest, rivers and mountains before I enter

• Sitting still in the forest or field and listening with all my senses

• Listening to, and uplifting, indigenous human voices

• Asking my well ancestors for insight

• Advocating for policy change at various legal levels

• Donating to organizations that work in these ways

• Being kind to myself when I think I’m not doing enough

Please let me know how you approach this question and what this brings up in you.