Dominique Hes is an author, educator and policy advisor with a PhD in Architecture and has been thinking about biomimicry, biophilia and regenerative development for a long time, publishing the award winning book 'Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative sustainability', a decade ago. Her continued research centres on how to create a built environment that is good for people and the nature they are a part of.

Dominique is the chair of Greenfleet, an NGO planting native forests in Australia and New Zealand. But our conversation is centered around her new role as the Voice of Nature on the Board of RegenMelbourne. This was a lively conversation, with a third participant, Max the parakeet who inhabits a cage behind Dominique as we speak, prompting us to briefly talk about animals as our helpers in getting a culture which has become a bit lost to find its way again. It is a long distance between Sweden and Melbourne, so there are small glitches in the conversation.

Nature on the Board

https://www.regen.melbourne/news/dominique-hes-nature-on-the-board

In this episode, Christiane Bosman presents the Embassy of the North Sea. She talks about how the sea is often seen as empty space, where human activity can take place. Through using the frame of an embassy, she often gets access to spaces to represent the interests of the North Sea that would otherwise not be available. The Embassy began as an art project, which turned out to be a constructive point of access. The creative and wild perspective brought by art paved the way for deeper conversations and ways forward. Christiane also reports from the Confluence of European Waterbodies, recently held in Amsterdam. A large group of people representing 34 waterbodies - rivers, lakes, glaciers, lagoons, and seas - came together.

Christiane Bosman studied museology, art history and communication management. She has over 15 years of experience in developing, curating and producing cultural interventions in the public domain, with a focus on human non-human relationships since 2019. Previously she worked at SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Domain and TAAK cooperative. As a freelancer she worked for various cultural clients such as Het Nieuwe Instituut (La Biënnale di Venezia and La Triënnale di Milano) and Public Art Amsterdam. At the Embassy of the North Sea she is public programme director since 2019, and Confluence of European Water Bodies lead, a network of over 35 grass roots interdisciplinary collectives all over Europe, working on the legal, cultural and political representation of water. Since June 2023 she is also curator at the Ministry for the Future.

Links:

https://www.embassyofthenorthsea.com/over/

https://water-bodies.eu/

Nonhuman Nonsense is a research-driven art and design collective working in the realm of social dreaming and world-making. Their projects engage with the nonhuman: animals, objects, ecology, technology, and the spectres between and beyond categories. Nonhuman Nonsense sees nonsense as an antidote to "common sense" – embracing paradoxical stories to explore the ethical and metaphysical layers of our relationship with the (nonhuman) world.

In this conversation with Leo Fidjeland and Linnea Våglund of Nonhuman Nonsense we discuss the role of art in speaking for nature and how the arts may provide a bridge in troubled times: widening the field and deepening conversations on ethical and burning issues beyond polarized views. We focus on the recent project Council of Forest, a forum where nonhuman entities supported by AI deliberate on the fate of their shared home in the north of Sweden, the Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka Biosphere reserve. You hear from Salmon, Reindeer, Pine and Wind turbine as they eloquently describe their perspectives on the green transition. Through the project, Nonhuman Nonsense are asking if AI can embody the wisdom of a tree, a river or a reindeer herd? What does it mean to act in the forest's best interest? And what happens if we take nonhuman voices seriously? We also touch upon Nonhuman Nonsenes interplanetary campaign, recognising the legal personhood of Mars and Martians.

Nonhuman Nonsense: https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/about

Council of Forest: https://council-of-forest.com/

Planetary Personhood, a universal declaration of Martian rights https://planetarypersonhood.com/

Hugo Echeverria is an attorney who has worked in environmental law since 2001, with an emphasis on biodiversity conservation, the environmental rule of law, and the rights of nature. He is a member of the UN Harmony with Nature, as well as the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. Ecuador is the first, and still the only, country on the planet to recognize rights of nature in the constitution. Hugo has worked on a variety of cases to enforce this provision, contributing to some of the world's first jurisprudence on rights of nature. We talk about how it became possible for nature to be recognised as a rights holder in the constitution and how the Constitutional Court has weighed in lately to define what it means. Hugo describes some of the most significant cases, and discusses influence on international law systems. We also touch on the risk of the rights of nature being taken out at a potential revision of the constitution.

Chapter 7, Article 71 in the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador: "Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes."

Read the whole chapter on the rights of nature: https://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Ecuador/english08.html

Article in Science co-authored by Hugo: Science and the legal rights of nature (2023) https://portal.research.lu.se/en/publications/science-and-the-legal-rights-of-nature

Inside Climate on the marine coastal ecosystems ruling in the Constitutional Court of Ecuador: A Court Says Coastal Marine Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Value - and Legal Rights https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17012025/ecuador-constitutional-court-marine-ecosystem-rights/

Yolanda Esguerra is a passionate environmental and social justice advocate from the Philippines. She is a leading voice in the movement to integrate ecological justice into Philippine legal and social systems, the National Coordinator of the Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc, a network of over 230 civil society organizations and church groups which is the leader of the RoN movement in the Philippines. She has represented the Philippines in international forums, including the International Rights of Nature Tribunal.

Our conversation is held shortly after the passing of Pope Francis and we talk about the leadership of the catholic church for RoN in the Philippines, as well as the importance of Laudato Si, Pope Francis encyclical letter on the care of our common home, the Earth.

Links:

https://pmpi.org.ph

https://laudatosimovement.org

Oliver Costello is a First Nations man from Bundjalung Country, now known as the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Australia. He has a diverse range of personal and professional expertise in culturally connected stewardship. Oliver has extensive experience working within Indigenous land and sea management and conservation and has been particularly interested in empowering Aboriginal perspectives on fire, water, as well as threatened and culturally significant species. He established the original Firesticks initiative which lead to the foundations of Firesticks Alliance and many other Cultural Fire programs in South Eastern Australia. He currently serves as a Executive Director of the Jagun Alliance Aboriginal Corporation, Commissioner on the NSW Net Zero Commission and Board member for the Australian Governments Clean Energy Regulator and Natural Hazards Research Australia along with various other consulting and advisory roles.

This conversation happened in the context of the Small Giants' Wisdom and Action Forum in Melbourne. Oliver focuses on his relationship with Cultural fire, what he has learnt about fear and how Aboriginal people collaborate with Country in a reciprocal relationship with fire. Fire is often perceived as something wild, scary and unpredictable. Oliver explains how fire is actually lawfully responding to its environment. We also talk about complex and sophisticated Indigenous protocols around balance and reciprocity.

This is only scratching the surface of Olivers rich experience and multitude of stories. It feels appropriate that we are in a lively place, surrounded by birds and flowers and people and an airplane in this conversation.

Host: Pella Thiel, producer: Fredrik Arestav, music: "Nightjar" by Cosmo Sheldrake, art: Scene from "Thanatopsis" by Asher Brown Durand.

Alessandro Pelizzon is associate professor in the School of Law and Society at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. He has been part of the movement for rights of nature since its inception as a co-founder of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, the current chair of GARN's Academic Hub, and an expert member of the UN Harmony with Nature programme. Alessandros classical education has led him to go far back in time to find the legal and philosophical roots of the norms and perceptions we navigate today, something he eloquently develops in his new book Ecological Jurisprudence – the law of nature and the nature of law. The book is open source and a keystone publication in understanding the roots of the developing field of rights of nature. We speak about the ethical grounds of ecological jurisprudence, how placing law in an ecological context is a development of law comparable with how quantum physics expanded physics, and much more. Host: Pella Thiel, producer: Fredrik Arestav, music: "Nightjar" by Cosmo Sheldrake, art: Scene from "Thanatopsis" by Asher Brown Durand.

Eduardo Salazar Ortuño is an environmental lawyer. Together with professor of law Teresa Vicente Giménez, he supported the salt water lagoon Mar Menor in Spain to attain legal personhood, as the first ecosystem in Europe. Eduardo has been practicing environmental law for 20 years. He is an expert on the Aarhus Convention, which empowers citizens and NGOs to defend the environment using access to information, public participation, and access to justice. Eduardo talks us through the process of getting the legal subjectivity of Mar Menor acknowledged and the importance of leadership from civil society. He explains how representation of the lagoon is developing through tutorship (representation), informed by the example of Río Atrato in Colombia. Eduardo also shares how rights of nature shifted his own perspective as a lawyer, and the importance of his personal connection to Mar Menor.

Host: Pella Thiel, producer: Fredrik Arestav, music: "Nightjar" by Cosmo Sheldrake, art: Scene from "Thanatopsis" by Asher Brown Durand.

Craig Kauffman is a professor of political science at the University of Oregon and author of the book The Politics of Rights of Nature together with Pamela L Martin. Craig is one of the first academics to engage with the rights of nature. He gives an overview of how rights of nature frameworks started to emerge simultaneously in different parts of the world as a response from common pressures that communities were facing, where they experienced how the law did not protect them or their lands. Craig has been part of developing the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor (https://ecojurisprudence.org/), a tool to keep track of the emerging field of ecological jurisprudence; legal initiatives that transcends anthropocentric law. They have been growing exponentially since those first steps almost 20 years ago, and at the time of recording there are 500+ documented cases.

Host: Pella Thiel, producer: Fredrik Arestav, music: "Nightjar" by Cosmo Sheldrake, art: Scene from "Thanatopsis" by Asher Brown Durand.

Welcome to On the Rights of Nature! In this podcast we will explore the emergence of expanding legal frameworks to include nature; rivers, lakes, mountains and land. We will hear from academics, activists, lawyers and indigenous voices who are doing this profound work.

Pella Thiel, ecologist, author and teacher living in Sweden, will be your host. In my view, Rights of nature is a necessary foundation for the transformation we find ourselves in, to orient towards regeneration and peace.

With over a decade in this vibrant movement I am delighted for the opportunity to share the exciting stores from the people who make rights of nature go from a good idea to a lived reality. I could not do this without my brilliant producer Fredrik Arestav. A big thank you to Cosmo Sheldrake for the music.

Hope to see you along the way!