The Orcas Win in Court!

Submitted by Silver Donald C... on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 01:43

http://www.ecojustice.ca/blog/ecojustice-delivers-a-big-win-for-the-canadian-orca-population

This ruling fills me with jubilation. In my 1998 book The Living Beach, I took a look at the idea that natural phenomena should have legal rights. Bolivia has passed a landmark law on this topic -- and here's a Canadian court asserting the duty of Canada to protect the habitat of a wild animal.

Here's the passage from The Living Beach. I'm very proud to have written it. 
 
 
    If stewardship became a major objective for us, what would we do differently?

    Geologist Stanley Riggs suggests that we might begin by giving legal rights to beaches and other natural objects. He proposes that beaches themselves should have legal standing in the courts; they should become "jural persons," with rights which the courts would be obliged to consider. The idea is disorienting at first, but then so is the present situation. If I sue my neighbour over ownership of some dune land, is there not something absurd about the fact that the law considers my interests and my neighbour's, but not those of the dunes? Surely Gaia is also a party to this dispute.

   Of course, the courts already consider the legitimate interests of persons who are unable to speak for themselves -- infants and the mentally incompetent, for instance. Other entities which are,literally, legal fictions are "persons" in the courts, including corporations, trusts, estates and nations. In many jurisdictions, animals have at least minimal rights, such as the right not to be
treated cruelly. Even ships are sometimes treated as jural persons.

   If a ship or an estate, why not a beach, a mountain, a stream?

The Living Beach re-visited

Submitted by Silver Donald C... on Sat, 02/18/2012 - 21:19

In 1998, I published The Living Beach, my most extensive piece of environmental writing -- an account of the fascinating dance of wind, sand and water that makes beaches, live, grow, shrink, die and adapt. The book won a bunch of awards, but when the publishing house was sold to a multinational corporation it instantly went out of print.  (The hardcover is still available from my author website, www.silverdonaldcameron.ca.)

Lloyd Bourinot: Farewell, and Fair Winds

Submitted by Silver Donald C... on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 01:30

While travellin' down to Isle Madame you'll find the sea is mighty ca'm
Cause a dirty oil slick's holdin' down the foam;
But Ottawa don't seem to care 'bout the Bunker C that's lyin' there
In that little oil-ringed island we call home.

In 1970, the tanker Arrow impaled itself on Cerberus Rock, just off the coast of Isle Madame, Cape Breton, and the Bunker C oil that poured out of it created the worst oil spill in the history of Canada, even to this day. The Talkin' Arrow Blues was written by a local musician, printer, sailor, naval reserve officer, bon vivant and businessman named Lloyd Bourinot. The Bunker C belonged to Imperial Oil, who at that time had the slogan "Always look to Imperial for the best."  So Lloyd's chorus went: