Victory: Rights of Nature in the state of Oaxaca.

CRUS Board Secretary Forest Jahnke was in Oaxaca recently and reported back about the Rights of Nature victory there:


After the last few months tracking and investigating the issue on any front possible while down in Oaxaca, Mexico, I was ecstatic to hear that Oaxaca recently voted to update their state constitution to recognize the rights of nature! In Mexico, this effort is formally being helped along at the federal level, despite the obvious resistance from many of the entrenched interests who oppose such measures (logging, industrial ag, and most notably mining companies who have secured mining concessions for 70% of Mexico).

Despite this happy news, there is a long way to go to make these words a reality on the ground, and this will require broad-based inclusion of local non-profits and communities. Many of these communities and organizations have felt like their inclusion in this process has been nominal, at best, and that there has not been real participation. There is a gap of trust that must be overcome, as people are tired of seeing one well-intentioned program after another half-implemented, used for publicity, and left to rot in their communities. Meanwhile, well-intentioned government officials and larger organizations spearheading this effort suspect corruption on the ground. In both cases, these suspicions are understandable and often well-founded, but must be overcome if we really want to protect the rights of nature. 

This is also why the Rights of Nature and Community Rights movements should be cooperating and learning from each other, as two sides of the same coin. Now is a time for real inclusion and broad-based education to lift up the real protectors of land and water, the indigenous communities who still proliferate across Oaxaca. Let them lead us back to a sustainable relationship with nature. We at CRUS are overjoyed to see this new legal tool put into Oaxacans’ pockets, and hope to use our connections to help bridge the divide between the grassroots, and the “big green” organizations and government agents pushing this. — Forest Jahnke

The following press release was published by the Earth Law Center, April 2021.

In 2021, the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, passed a state constitutional amendment recognizing the Rights of Nature. The Constitutional reform establishes the following rights for Nature: The right to preservation, the right to protection of its elements, the right to exercise its vital and natural cycles and its ecological functions, the right to integral restoration of its ecological balance, and the right to be legally represented. This reform constitutes a significant advance for the State of Oaxaca to achieve a healthy environment for present and future generations.

The full law is available here. We will update more details as they emerge in the coming weeks.

Photo credit: “Oaxaca” by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0

See the previous post when they were considering the measure HERE.