Common Dreams · Rights of Nature: One Big Step for Nature, One Small Step for Humankind

By Thomas Linzey

Published on Friday, July 10, 2020 by Common Dreams.

Between the forest fires, plagues, and locusts, it’s beginning to look like humanity has finally breached the “seventh seal,” initiating a showdown of biblical proportions. Unlike the holy version, however, this time humankind has only itself to blame.

In a statement released in June, leaders at the United Nations, World Health Organization, and World Wildlife Federation International declared that “pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity’s destruction of nature. . . the illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade as well as the devastation of forests and other wild places are the driving force behind the increasing number of diseases leaping from wildlife to humans.” 

Will the virus known as SARS-Cov-2 be the tipping point for humanity – the point at which we realize that our incessant bulldozing of the natural environment must end because we are destroying ourselves along with it?