How is Bolivia Leading the World in Bigger Thinking?
By Bernard Chanliau, Monday 27 June, 2011
In 1791, on the cusp of the French Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote the Rights of Man, positing that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights and their national interests. Two centuries later, as the world is embracing simultaneous social revolutions of a scale unseen in the last centuries, Bolivia launches the first ever Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth in the face of its own ecological collapse, which has by and large been happening beneath the news radar of the West.
In this declaration, the Bolivian Government, led by the suitably named Evo Morales, posits that everything is connected and that, as a living entity, the earth has as much right to life and nourishment as do its inhabitants and that our short-sighted ways must change if the planet is to survive. We are in this together and all countries must listen and unite. As Paine stated, rights are basic needs that exist as part of nature, they are not privileges but fundamentals to sustaining human and planetary existence.Bolivia is struggling to cope with rising temperatures, melting glaciers and more extreme weather events including more frequent floods, droughts, frosts and mudslides? Citizens are struggling for life, whilst for years the world has enjoyed their mineral and commodity resources. This new act, passed by Bolivia's national congress in December 2010 paves the way for full legislation and defines Mother Earth as a dynamic and invisible community of all living systems and living organisms, inter-related, interdependent and complementary, which share a common destiny.
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