Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 25th April, 2012 | No Comments
I celebrated Earth Day along with hundreds of other earth-minded individuals at San Francisco’s Civic Center/UN Plaza. Everyone came out that day under a common idea: we live in a wondrous community of life that is planet Earth and that community deserves our awe, respect, and attention. I participated in a panel discussion at the celebration on Sunday around the question of “co-creating our sustainable future – what are the successful tools for coalition building and collaboration both within and beyond your organization’s work?”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 11th April, 2012 | No Comments
The sacred fire was lit as over 100 primarily Indigenous peoples gathered—and hundreds more participated online—for the RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH: International Indigenous Conference APRIL 4 – 6, 2012 at Haskell Indian Nations University. “This is the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st Century. How do we re-orientate the dominant industrialized societies so that they pursue human well-being in a manner that contributes to the health of our Mother Earth instead of undermining it? In other words – how do we live in harmony with Nature?”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, People Power, Not Corporate Power on 21st March, 2012 | No Comments
The international peasants and farmers organization, La Via Campesina, ends their global Call to Action for the upcoming June 16-18 Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) with ‘GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!! GLOBALIZE HOPE!!!’
The stakes are high in Rio. As Via Campesina points out, “Twenty years later, governments should have reconvened to review their commitments and progress, but in reality the issue to debate will be the “green economy” led development, propagating the same capitalist model that caused climate chaos and other deep social and environmental crises.”
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights on 8th March, 2012 | No Comments
Last week our friends at the Earth Island Journal published an article on the Rights of Nature in their spring issue. The article, titled Natural Law: From Rural Pennsylvania to South America, a Global Alliance is Promoting the Idea that Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Rights; takes a deep look at the evolution of the movement grant legal rights to nature from its origins in the small community of Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania, to the ground-breaking developments in Ecuador in 2008 when it became the first nation to recognize nature’s rights in an amendment to its national constitution, up to the present moment as environmental and climate justice activists gear up to advocate for nature’s rights at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil this June.
Read More...
Posted by Shannon Biggs in Community Rights, Global Exchange News & Events, World News & Events on 19th January, 2012 | 1 Comment
We could begin to ask new questions like: what if corporations aren’t the problem at all? Or: If the Supreme Court had never granted “personhood” rights to corporations, would they still be trammeling the rights of citizens and riding roughshod over communities and nature—Would we have democracy? The revolution for new rules is already here. Its happening at the grassroots. 150+ communities have already begun to challenge the system by writing new laws that place community and ecosystems above corporate profits and they’ve challenged the entire structure of law—right from Main Street, where they live.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, Featured on 6th December, 2011 | No Comments
Our day began early as we worked feverishly with students who travelled across South Africa on the “Climate Train,”(one of the most visible campaigns in the COP 17 process) to finish decorating 10 4-foot tall beach balls emblazoned with “Earth Rights NOW” in English, French and Spanish.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, World News & Events on 3rd December, 2011 | 1 Comment
The sun rises at 4:45 each morning in Durban, and like most of those still on California time, I woke soon after. The beach here is beautiful and nearby so I decided to take a brisk walk amongst the shore fisherfolk and shell collectors, a great change the mad bustle of the ICC center, where the official negotiations for the climate conference are taking place.
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, World News & Events on 22nd November, 2011 | No Comments
This December, the 2011 UN Climate Talks will be held in Durban, South Africa. As we approach this year’s conference, environmental and climate justice activists around the world have reason to doubt that our world leaders will come together in Durban and reach a solid agreement on a solution to climate change. Past conferences have »
Read More...
Posted by Kylie Nealis in Community Rights, Global Exchange News & Events, World News & Events on 1st November, 2011 | No Comments
We were asked to speak and share stories from the frontlines of the grassroots movement for community and nature’s rights. But within me was also a keen desire to be a part of the conversation happening on Wall Street that has inspired Occupy Everywhere: Will history remember Zuccotti Park as a landmark location and this a defining moment we took an evolutionary step forward for democracy and system change?
Read More...
Posted by Shannon Biggs in Community Rights, Global Exchange News & Events on 27th October, 2011 | 4 Comments
On October 26 I spent a chilly and drizzly day on Wall Street along with my fellow community-rights organizer, Ben Price from CELDF. We had been asked to share our experiences with those occupying Liberty Plaza. Together we spoke on the steps in the now-famous style of ‘the People’s Mic’, an altogether exhilarating experience.
Read More...
Older Entries
