The Rights of Nature: From Legal Recognition to Social Acceptance
Carlos Zorrilla
In 2024, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court upheld a lower-court ruling that exploratory mining in Intag’s primary cloud forests violated the Rights of Nature (RoN), which are protected under Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution. The Rights of Nature recognize that ecosystems and their components have the right to exist, thrive, and regenerate, independently of human rights to a healthy environment.
In the Intag case, It is thought that the presence of two critically endangered frog species found only within the mining area was a key factor in the Court’s decision, as the judges concluded that mining would clearly violate Nature’s rights. The Intag’s resistance rocket frog and the longnose harlequin frog were not the only reason the courts saw mining as a threat to the Rights of Nature. The 4,829-hectare mining concession also harbors 99 additional endangered plant and animal species- several of which are also critically endangered.
The Intag case is one of several legal cases where Nature has won in Ecuador’s courts in the last few years. The concept of protecting Nature by recognizing it as a subject having rights and not just an object, is growing outside Ecuador’s borders. Colombia and New Zealand, for example, are just two of of several nations have, since 2008, come to value the tool’s importance to conserve species and ecosystems, and have incorporate Nature’s right into their national laws.
In effect, the past few years have shown that the Rights of Nature has emerged as a powerful legal and ethical framework for confronting the accelerating degradation of the biosphere. In some cases, it has also helped communities defend basic human and environmental rights. However, a critical gap remains between how these rights are applied on the ground, understood within legal and academic circles and how they are perceived — or not perceived — by the broader population.
In countries such as Ecuador, where the rule of law often functions more as an aspiration than a lived reality, rights tend to exist only on paper unless they are widely understood, socially internalized, and actively defended. Without this social grounding, even constitutionally enshrined rights risk being ignored or selectively applied by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The Rights of Nature are no exception.
For RoN to move beyond the work of academics, civil society organizations and other advocates, these actors must make a concerted effort to translate the rights into terms that resonate with everyday life. This means linking the Rights of Nature to fundamental rights that people already recognize as essential to their well-being — especially among communities most exposed to environmental harm. A logical and effective entry point is the clear connection between environmental rights (such as the right to a clean, healthy, and safe environment) and the rights of ecosystems, species, and natural systems to exist, regenerate, and flourish.
In many Ecuadorian communities — whether Indigenous or campesino — the Rights of Nature as a legal concept remain abstract or poorly understood. What is far more immediate and tangible are rights such as the right to live in peace and safety; to remain on ancestral or chosen land; to secure clean water and uncontaminated food; to choose livelihoods freely; and to preserve cultural identity. These are the rights people experience directly, and the ones they are more likely to mobilize to defend when threatened. For individuals facing displacement, pollution, or violence linked to extractive or infrastructure projects, the protection of rivers or species may initially seem secondary to survival itself. This reality is reinforced by centuries of deeply rooted anthropocentrism.
Yet experience shows that when the Rights of Nature are explained through their direct relationship to human and environmental rights, communities do grasp their significance — and increasingly choose to adopt them as part of their defensive and organizing toolkit. Over time, an expanded understanding emerges, one that includes respect for other species and for the integrity of ecosystems as inseparable from community survival and dignity. This process, however, requires patience, dialogue, and the deliberate construction of conceptual bridges.
Sumak Kawsay and the Rights of Nature
Human rights, environmental rights, and the Rights of Nature are also embedded in another constitutional principle that remains unappreciated: Sumak Kawsay. Enshrined in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution, this concept — often translated as Buen Vivir or “Living Well” — is deeply intertwined with the Rights of Nature.
While Sumak Kawsay has multiple interpretations, extractivist development models have reduced it to a materialist vision of well-being defined by income, consumption, and infrastructure. This interpretation perpetuates the very paradigm that has historically violated human rights, eroded community cohesion, and driven ecosystems to the brink of collapse.
For advocates of the Rights of Nature, the central challenge is to make explicit what should be self-evident: Sumak Kawsay, human rights, environmental rights, and the Rights of Nature form an indivisible whole. Genuine well-being is impossible in a territory where ecosystems are being decimated, water sources poisoned, species becoming extinct, and communities torn apart by typical “development” projects. Increased income from mining or petroleum employment cannot compensate for the long-term costs of displacement, political persecution, cultural loss, social conflict, gender-based violence, public health crises, and irreversible environmental damage. When these outcomes occur, the development model is not merely flawed — it constitutes a direct violation of both human rights and the Rights of Nature.
This missing connection has weakened many narratives promoting the adoption of the Rights of Nature. Framing RoN through Sumak Kawsay — through well-being as lived experience rather than legal abstraction — offers a far more effective pathway toward social legitimacy and widespread adoption.
Finally, it must be emphasized that the environmental and social impacts described here are not theoretical (1,2). They are well-documented consequences of extractive industries, particularly in developing countries. Mining and petroleum projects are consistently associated with environmental degradation, social conflict, and violence, as evidenced in Ecuador and elsewhere. The communities of Intag bear direct witness to these realities, having experienced many of these impacts firsthand.
Beyond embracing the Rights of Nature as a transformative legal framework, our societies would benefit profoundly from reclaiming Sumak Kawsay as an overarching principle — one that prioritizes harmony among people, communities, and nature over the narrow and destructive pursuit of the current version of economic “development”.
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*Carlos Zorrilla is a full time resident of the cloud forest region of northwest Ecuador known as Intag. He is founding member of several environmental and productive organizations, including DECOIN, Defensa y Conservacion Ecológica de Intag, a local grass-roots environmental organization that has been on the front lines of defending Intag’s ecosystems and communities from large-scale mining since 1995-
References and further reading
1.Grzybowski, A., & Yahya, M. (2012). Natural Resources and Conflict: Toolkit and Guidance for Preventing and Managing Land and Natural Resources Conflict. UN Department of Political Affairs / UN Inter-Agency Framework Team for Preventive Action.
2.Bannon, I., & Collier, P. (Eds.). (2003). Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions. World Bank.