Nature-rights advocacy is moving into the big time. Indeed, the mainstream media have finally discovered that advocates want to give nature human-style rights. From the CBS News story:

We’ve all heard of human rights and civil rights, but what about the rights of nature? A growing global movement is working to give plants, animals and ecosystems some of the same legal protections as humans, and in some countries, it’s leading to new legislation.

Nature Rights in Panama

Indeed, and that legislation elevates the putative “rights” of the natural world over the needs of humans. The story hardly expresses disapproval of this trend, citing Panama’s nature-rights law as an example:

It’s a bolder approach than environmental protections, which limit how much humans can exploit nature, instead of granting that nature has a right not to be exploited.

“It prioritizes the needs of the ecosystems and not the needs of humanity,” [Callie] Veelenturf explained.

This leads to practical adverse consequences for human thriving:

“Every Panamanian citizen, every human, can use this bill, go to court, and make sure that we defend the rights of nature,” [legislator Juan Diego] Vasquez said. “This will not be a bill that it’s gonna be left in a cabinet. It’s going to be used when it needs to be used.”

Just last week, Panama’s Supreme Court used the new law to effectively shut down a $10 billion copper mine that opponents said threatened tropical jungles and water supplies.

In Ecuador, another copper mine was blocked because it violated the rights of a nearby forest.

So, all of the employment, increased wealth, and other human benefits that the mines would have produced in very poor countries have been throttled. And that stifling is treated as if it were a good thing.

But It’s Not Good

It’s very bad. These laws empower the most radical, anti-human environmentalists to materially threaten all major enterprises that make use of the earth’s bounty, either by stopping them cold in a lawsuit or by using the prospect of lawfare to chill all investments in such projects. I mean, how would any major enterprise that uses natural resources even obtain liability insurance if anyone in the world can sue to uphold the rights of nature not to be exploited? And think of the extortion possibilities.

It will be catastrophic if nature rights takes hold in the West — as it clearly threatens to do, with more than 30 U.S. municipalities having already passed such laws, and, according to CBS, North Carolina considering granting rights to the Haw River ecosystem.

And here’s another foreboding thought: We are already too reliant on China for our raw materials and manufactured supplies. If we grant “rights” to nature, our ability to mine, fish, timber harvest, produce energy, etc., will be materially impeded.

Concomitantly, China would never be so stupid as to grant rights to nature. They don’t even grant them to humans.

Our Reliance on the CCP

So, we face the realistic prospect of the Western world stifling its ability to make productive use of our natural resources — meaning the world will grow even more reliant on the CCP tyranny to supply it with the raw materials required for modern economies to function. That would come at a terrible cost, both economically and for freedom in the world.

One last point: Note that the story did not present any opponents’ perspectives about why nature rights is a terrible idea. Isn’t that just par for the mainstream-media course?

Cross-posted at National Review.