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Rights of Nature

AI Is Decoding Whales’ Communications. Could That Be a Turning Point in the Push for Their Rights?

The Cetacean Translation Initiative is using artificial intelligence to help understand sperm whale communications. Lawyers think the discoveries could galvanize the world to recognize whales’ legal rights.

By Katie Surma

 Sperm whales swim near the Eastern Caribbean island of Dominica. Sperm whales are the deepest diving mammals on Earth, going as far as 3,000 meters. Credit: Amanda Cotton/CETI
An emerald glass frog sits on a leaf in Ecuador’s Mindo cloud forest. Credit: Jon G. Fuller/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Ecuadorians to Vote on Constitutional Rewrite, Possibly Gutting Rights of Nature

By Katie Surma
Micaela Huaman Fernandez, an Asháninka stingless beekeeper, inspects a hive of Tetragonisca angustula bees. Credit: Teresa Tomassoni/Inside Climate News

Defending Stingless Bees in the Peruvian Amazon

By Teresa Tomassoni
José Gualinga, a leader of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku, speaks at an Indigenous council event in New York City on Sept. 22. Credit: Courtesy of GARN

How a Declaration of Ancestral Wisdom Is Changing Law, Science and Our Understanding of the World

By Katie Surma
Zebras and wildebeests roam around a swamp in Amboseli, Kenya. Credit: Eric Lafforgue/Corbis via Getty Images

The Scientists Making the Case for Nature’s Rights

By Katie Surma
The Colorado River flows near Parker, Ariz. The Colorado River Indian Tribes want to give the river the same legal rights as a person, taking millennia of cultural values and putting them into law. Credit: Alex Hager/KUNC

The Colorado River Is This Tribe’s ‘Lifeblood,’ Now They Want To Give It the Same Legal Rights as a Person

By Alex Hager, KUNC
Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho from the Kingdom of Tonga speaks at the One Ocean Science Congress on June 4 ahead of the U.N. Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Credit: Stephane Lesbats/Ifremer

Tonga Poised to Be the First Country to Recognize Rights of Whales

By Katie Surma
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari receives the Goldman Environmental Prize for her decades-long fight to protect the Marañón River in Peru. Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Precedent-Setting Work Protecting an Imperiled River

By Katie Surma
A group of Adélie penguins hop around on a beach of Paulet Island on the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

What Are the Rights of Nature?

By Katie Surma
Carola Rackete looks into the Majdanpek copper mine in East Serbia. The mine, run by the Chinese company Zijin, has been linked to large scale pollution, river alteration and deficient environmental impact studies. Credit: Courtesy of Carola Rackete

The European Politician Bringing Nature Into the Halls of Power

By Katie Surma
Judge Tom Goldtooth addresses the 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal on Feb. 28 in Toronto, Canada. Goldtooth noted that people around the world are starting to reevaluate colonial legal systems. Credit: Courtesy of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature

The Rights of Nature Become a Rallying Point Against an Ascendant Mining Industry

By Katie Surma
Fish and sharks swim around North Seymour Island in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands on March 8, 2024. Credit: Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images

A Court Says Coastal Marine Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Value—and Legal Rights

By Katie Surma
A view of the Snohomish River Estuary near Everett, Wash. Credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

A River in Washington State Now Has Enforceable Legal Rights

By Katie Surma
An Adelie penguin is seen on Horseshoe Island in Antarctica on Feb. 14. Credit: Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Antarctica’s Fate Will Impact the World. Is It Time to Give The Region a Voice at Climate Talks?

By Katie Surma
Firefighters arrive to extinguish a wildfire on Sept. 24 in Concepcion, Bolivia. Credit: Rodrigo Urzagasti/AFP via Getty Images

Bolivia Has National Rights of Nature Laws. Why Haven’t They Been Enforced?

By Katie Surma
Environmental activists hold banners and chant slogans as they protest against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project on Aug. 26 in Kampala, Ugandan. Credit: Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images

In the Heart of Wall Street, Rights of Nature Activists Put the Fossil Fuel Era on Trial

By Katie Surma
A jaguar rescued from animal trafficking is seen at the Santa Cruz Foundation in Cundinamarca, Colombia. Credit: Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Jaguars, Macaws and Tropical Dry Forest Have a Right To Exist, a Colombian Court Is Told

By Katie Surma
Young people from Amazonian communities march during the Pan-Amazon Social Forum in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia on June 12. Credit: Katie Surma/Inside Climate News

To Save the Amazon, What if We Listened to Those Living Within It?

By Katie Surma
Natalia Greene, an Ecuadorian environmentalist and judge with the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, walks through the Chocó Andino cloud forest with her family in Mindo, Ecuador. Credit: Katie Surma

How the Drug War and Energy Transition Are Changing Ecuadorians’ Fight For The Rights of Nature

By Katie Surma

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