by Cole Mellino

The concept of “a wild law,” which grants equal rights to nature, is based on the idea that humans do not have an explicit right to destroy our natural environment. Under wild law, natural ecosystems’ rights supersede the interests of any one species (including humans). Obviously, this idea can be incredibly controversial. Even in Bolivia, where they’ve amended their constitution to give nature equal rights to people, they are still working out the details.

Bolivia amended its constitution after pressure from its large indigenous population who places the environment and the earth deity, Pachamama, at the center of all life. But what this means in practical terms, such as how to address the serious environmental problems caused by mining for raw materials in the Andean nation, is yet to be determined. Bolivians hope that this will give their country the power to hold mining companies accountable and force them to adhere to stricter environmental standards.

Research by glaciologist Edson Ramirez of San Andres University in the capital city, La Paz, suggests temperatures have been rising steadily for 60 years and started to accelerate in 1979. They are now on course to rise a further 3.5-4C over the next 100 years. This would turn much of Bolivia into a desert.

Most glaciers below 5,000m are expected to disappear completely within 20 years, leaving Bolivia with a much smaller ice cap. Scientists say this will lead to a crisis in farming and water shortages in cities such as La Paz and El Alto.

Ecuador, which has a large indigenous population, has also amended its constitution to grant rights to nature. But like in Bolivia, the law has not stopped oil companies from destroying their natural landscape.

Even though these laws are mostly abstract, their existence helps elevate a debate about the relationship between people and nature. Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, puts it well:

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Chevron, responsible for a multi-billion-dollar environmental disaster in Ecuador, is instead spending millions to shore up political support and to evade the clean up. Senate disclosure forms reveal that oil giant Chevron spent $2.9 million lobbying the federal government last quarter, eclipsing even Exxon ($2.6 million) and BP ($2.2 million). Chevron’s 2010 lobbying totaled $12.89 million, following a tremendous outlay in 2009 of $20.8 million. Chevron also recently launched a major greenwashing campaign, “We Agree,” which claims that it shares the public concern that “oil companies should put their profits to good use” and “oil companies should support the communities they’re a part of.” However, Chevron is also spending millions to defend itself in a 17-year-old lawsuit over the billions of tons of toxic waste its now-subsidiary company Texaco dumped into the Ecuadorian watershed. The case is finally nearing its conclusion in the Ecuadorian court system:

The attorneys representing Amazonian communities in a lawsuit against Chevron have submitted their final argument to a judge in Ecuador, the latest development in a legal saga involving the oil giant that that began nearly two decades ago. The plaintiffs are seeking up to $113 billion in compensation for environmental damages in the Amazon.

Ecuador, smaller than the state of Nevada, is a remarkable hotbed of diversity. The rich life above lies above significant oil reserves — another legacy of millions of years of biological richness. Those reserves have both fueled and threatened the future of the nation and its peoples. The costs of the extraction — including 16 billion gallons of toxic waste water — have been been borne by the indigenous communities of the Amazon watershed, even as the profits were enjoyed elsewhere. The closing argument made by the plaintiffs sums up the toxic record of Chevron in this case:

The evidence makes it clear and unmistakable that Chevron is guilty. Guilty of polluting the rainforests with toxic sludge from lucrative oil drilling operations, guilty of a shoddy and haphazard cleanup operation, guilty of letting toxic waste continue to devastate the rainforest and its inhabitants’ lives, and perhaps worst of all, guilty of trying to cover it all up by destroying documents and making false accusations of fraud before courts in the U.S. and Ecuador. Chevron’s complete disdain for Ecuador, its courts, and its citizens was captured perfectly by a Chevron lobbyist who told Newsweek: “We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this – companies that have made big investments around the world.”

So far, Chevron disagrees.

I just returned from a two-week vacation in Ecuador. The nation, slightly smaller than the state of Nevada, is fascinating for its diversity. From the isolated Galapagos archipelago to the fecund jungles of the Amazon headwaters, from coastal forests to the volcanic highlands of Quito, one finds an explosion of life, culture, and language straddling the equator.

Part of my trip was spent in the rainforests of the Napo River, at an eco-lodge on the border of Yasuní National Park, at the intersection of the Andean foothills, the Amazon basin, and the equator. Each day offered the chance to see dozens of species of birds, insects, and reptiles, as well as a practically uncountable array of plantlife. The Kichwa people own and maintain the land, farming on the river banks, hunting in the forests, and selling crafts in the city upstream. The apparent diversity is no mistake:

A team of scientists has documented that Yasuní National Park, in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, shatters world records for a wide array of plant and animal groups, from amphibians to trees to insects.

The newly-published study by a group of international scientists found that Yasuní contains more species of frogs and toads than are native to the United States and Canada combined. The plant and insect diversity is even more striking — each hectare of the park contains more tree and shrub species than all of the United States and Canada combined, with 100,000 species of insect estimated in each hectare. The entire park covers about 9,820 square kilometers, less than Los Angeles County, a little larger than Yellowstone National Park.

However, this vast store of biodiversity and culture is under unprecedented threat:

However, numerous major threats confront the ecosystems of this region—including hydrocarbon and mining projects, illegal logging, oil palm plantations, and large- scale transportation projects under the umbrella of IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America). For example, oil and gas concessions now cover vast areas, even overlapping protected areas and titled indigenous lands.

In particular, Ecuador’s second largest untapped oil fields lie beneath the largely intact, northeastern section of the park, known as the “ITT” block for the Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini oil fields, representing 20 percent of Ecuador’s crude oil reserves. In 2007, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa proposed the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, which would prevent exploitation of its $6 billion worth of oil in exchange for some percentage of international aid or carbon market proceeds. In the run up to the Copenhagen conference, it appeared that Yasuní-ITT would coalesce into a deal, with Germany taking the lead with seed financing. However, Correa joined the Hugo Chavez bloc of South American countries that condemned the limited accord struck by leading nations, leaving the fate of Yasuní in doubt. After Correa announced on January 9 his intentions to drill in the park, several members of his government resigned in protest, including Fander Falconi, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

This battle over conserving untold riches of life and our fragile atmosphere versus a decade or two of polluting but valuable energy is repeated throughout the globe, including the United States. The Appalachian hardwood forest is a center of biodiversity in the United States, but mountaintop removal coal mining is literally stripping away the mountains and filling the streams, as people choose profit over their children’s future.