This public event was hosted by East Boulder County United in Boulder, Colorado. Presenters included Merrily Mazza, Cliff Willmeng, and Thomas Linzey. A Q&A followed their presentations. Merrily Mazza is President of the Colorado Community Rights Network. Cliff Willmeng is President of the National Community Rights Network, and lives in Lafayette, Colorado. Thomas Linzey is [...]
A videoed talk by Carol Van Strum, discussing the need for voters to mobilize to support the May 2017 ballot initiative in Lincoln County, Oregon, that would ban aerial spraying of pesticides on forest lands county-wide. Presented by Lincoln County Community Rights. To watch the video, click HERE.
Thomas Linzey and Mari Margil shared the stage at the annual Bioneers Conference in California in October 2016. As species collapse around the world while governments still authorize fossil fuel extraction and other destructive, unsustainable activities, communities across the U.S. are rising in resistance to "occupy the law". They're enacting "community bills of rights" that [...]
Paul Cienfuegos was invited to give an interactive Community Rights talk to 50 students at Joanna Macy's week-long residential training intensive in Mendocino County, California on July 13, 2016. Joanna was Paul's first significant mentor beginning when he was just 23 years old, and continuing to this very day. Paul taught Joanna almost everything she [...]
This Keynote Speech by Paul Cienfuegos was presented at the 6th Annual Symposium of the Arnold School of Public Health ‘Center for Research in Nutrition and Health Disparities’, and ‘The Environment and Sustainability Program’, on March 18, 2016 at the University of South Carolina. The topic of this annual symposium was “Healthy Eating in Context: Realities of the Dietary Guidelines”. “Corporations [...]
An original speech by Paul Cienfuegos - presented in Minneapolis on February 23, 2015. Paul used Naomi Klein's extraordinary book, This Changes Everything, as the jumping off point for his groundbreaking speech, proposing the Community Rights strategy as the critical missing piece in Naomi's book. In fact, Naomi's vision begs for a Community Rights solution, [...]
Thomas Linzey is an environmental attorney and the founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit law firm that uses bold and aggressive legal methods to remove rights from corporations and give them back to communities and the natural world. This keynote speech took place at the annual Earth At Risk: The Justice [...]
Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, gave a speech at the Colorado Community Rights Network's State Assembly on August 30, 2014. Linzey spoke about the challenges and successes of local communities asserting their rights to local governance. The Colorado Community Rights Network helps communities create their own local laws to define and [...]
A Panel Discussion at the Cascadia Rising bioregional confluence event at Portland State University in 2014. Panelists included Aurolyn Stwyer, Treothe Bullock, Paul Cienfuegos and Lucy Marie. Here's the text about this Panel Discussion from the conference program: This panel seeks to explore the positive and problematic intersections between Indigenous Sovereignty strategies and rights-based organizing [...]
This is an original speech presented by Community Rights US' Founding Director Paul Cienfuegos, in the small town of Decorah, Iowa, on September 26, 2013, sponsored by the Community Rights Alliance of Winneshiek County. An edited version of Paul's speech was later nationally broadcast via David Barsamian's 'Alternative Radio' show. I wish to thank the [...]