Rights of Nature for the Southern Resident Orcas

Despite over a decade of environmental legislative and policy protection attempts, the Southern Resident Orca population of the Salish Sea continues to decline. As we witness the continuous destruction of our non-human kin and the ecosystem we are a part of, many of us are experiencing environmental grief. By harnessing environmental grief, we can take action to transform our relationship to the non-human natural world. This panel discussion will review the international movement towards legal articulation of the rights of nonhuman entities and beings, broadly called 'Rights of Nature' or 'Earth law'. These approaches draw and operate in collaboration with Indigenous, Native and Tribal worldviews and are consistent with ecological, geophysical and evolutionary science. Rather than positioning humans at the center, with all other biotic and abiotic beings and processes acting in service to them, these laws decenter humans and recognize our place as an embedded piece of a complex and richly dynamic world of dependence and interconnection. Elizabeth Dunne (Earth Law Center) and Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin (Shearwater Law) will introduce the Rights of Nature and the ways this legal transformation is manifesting itself, as well as challenges and best practices for implementation. Dr. Jennifer Calkins (evolutionary biologist and attorney at WELC) will discuss why this alternative is more consistent with what science tells us about the world. Michelle Bender (Earth Law Center) will speak to the application of a rights-based framework to protect the Southern Resident Orcas, and the call for a State bill recognizing rights of the Southern Resident Orcas. Dr. Kriss Kevorkian (Legal Rights for the Salish Sea) will teach us meaningful ways to cope with environmental and ecological grief, and practice self care as we rebuild the future of the collective.