The emergence of the Rights of Nature (RoN) marks a new paradigm shift in the philosophical approach to nature. The concept has aroused enthusiasm among environmentalists and lawyers. This is not surprising, since granting legal personality to nature seems to be a relatively simple solution to the multitude of shortcomings in “modern” environmental law. However, critical appraisal challenges many of the underlying assumptions that justify a shift to rights-based approaches to nature. In this article, which takes a more critical stance on the topic of RoN, it is argued that the much-criticized modern environmental law is also moving towards a recognition of the intrinsic value of nature, violating property rights, offering remedies for pure ecological damage, and also giving environmental NGOs increasingly broad access to justice. In addition, at a second level, it is argued that RoN is not a legal revolution and that many problems. Then there`s the chimpanzee. At Kyoto University`s Primate Research Institute, a chimpanzee named Ayumu often embarrasses its human competitors in short-term memory competitions. Numbers one through nine are randomly assigned to a computer screen with touchscreen technology. As soon as you touch number one, the other numbers will be blacked out, but you will have to type them one by one. Ayumu can correctly remember the position of the nine numbers almost immediately, while most of the time, people have trouble remembering the correct order even after long efforts to remember it. As researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa told the Guardian, “No one could have imagined that chimpanzees – young chimpanzees as young as five years old – would perform better at a memory task than humans.” A variety of different species practice deception and intentionally behave in a way that misleads predators or even members of their own group. In his bestseller The Parrot`s Lament, Eugene Linden documents acts of deception committed by parrots, elephants, orangutans, dolphins and falcons.
Some birds simulate injuries to keep predators away from their nests. Jays will not temporarily store food when other animals are watching them, nor will they store it again in another location. Chimpanzees and gorillas pretend not to notice desired foods when accompanied by more dominant family members. Less dominant primates later return unaccompanied to collect food. The area-tailed falcon mimics the flight style of a vulture, a scavenger that poses no threat to other birds, and then dives to attack unsuspecting birds. This use of deception suggests that some species have the ability to understand what other animals are thinking. In 2016, the journal Marine Mammal Research published a remarkable paper on the seemingly altruistic behavior of humpback whales. In dozens of sightings recorded around the world, humpback whales have responded to distress calls from other species — including seals, sea lions and gray whales — attacked by groups of killer whales. Regardless, humpback whales disrupted hunting by harassing and hunting orcas. Scientists cannot find a plausible biological explanation for why humpback whales endanger themselves on behalf of other species, and must speculate that this is an example of altruism.
California lawyers in New York are fighting for the legal rights of chimpanzees and orcas, and lawmakers are ending the era of keeping these intelligent animals in captivity. In Hawaii and India, judges have recognized that endangered species – from birds to lions – have a legal right to exist. Around the world, more and more laws are being passed recognizing that ecosystems – rivers, forests, mountains and more – have legally enforceable rights. And if nature has rights, then man has a responsibility. Some animals cooperate to raise and protect their young, share food, take care of each other or take turns to seek danger. Hyenas and killer whales both hunt in groups. On YouTube, there is a video of a group of orcas near Antarctica floating a seal on an ice floe. Killer whales circle the pack ice for a while, and then all but one leave. A few moments later, they return and swim side by side at high speed towards the joint before braking quickly. Their actions result in a powerful wave of water that washes the unfortunate seal of the pack ice into the mouth of the remaining orca. “The rights of nature movement is needed more than ever, especially if we hope to ensure the well-being of Earth`s species and ecosystems for this and future generations. David Boyd is convincing to help plan this trip. ” – Terry Tamminen, CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation Until the 1970s, the prevailing view was that nonhuman animals were automatons that simply instinctively reacted to external stimuli.
Then came Dr. Donald Griffin, an American zoology professor who rose to prominence in 1944 when he discovered that bats used echolocation to navigate. In 1976, after decades of observing different species in the lab and in nature, Griffin suggested that scientists study the minds of animals and try to learn how they think. Griffin claimed that animals are conscious, even if they think about different things and in different ways than humans. It opened the door to a whole new field of science called cognitive ethology – the study of the mind, consciousness and, yes, even consciousness of nonhuman animals. Other scientists resist the idea that animals that react by seeing themselves in a mirror should be an indicator that they have confidence in themselves. For example, conservationist Carl Safina argues in Beyond Words that the everyday behavior of many different species provides clear evidence of self-awareness. He concludes that “perhaps a mirror is mostly a test of which species is the most narcissistic.” The appeal could also lie in the fact that octopuses are really intelligent and have individual personalities. Octopuses have a hundred times more neurons than any other invertebrate.