Author’s note: this blog post is an unfinished draft of a blog post I was working on earlier this year… but due to severe illness have been unable to continue working on. Perhaps in the coming months I’ll be able to finish it, but I thought that it was better to have the unfinished version available, rather than nothing at all. Version 1 September 2025.
An understanding of Social Ecology focuses the idea that Rights of Nature must be rooted in changing social relations.
Introduction
Political discourse and social movements typically make strong moral arguments and seek to have rights enshrined in law – and this is the case with Rights of Nature. Yet changing the law is not itself the goal; rather, just one part of social change. In our campaigning and legal designs, we must look beyond the legal change and keep our eyes on the goal of: how will Rights of Nature change the underlying social relations.
The key question is: how does this law help change social relations to address the problems and move us towards a more just world. In approaching this, an understanding of Social Ecology is vital. How can Rights of Nature laws change eco-social relations – which drive the destruction – so that non-human nature is protected and can flourish?
What Is Social Ecology?
Starting with how we conceptualise both ‘the environment’ and society helps to clarify things. Social Ecology[1] (by Murray Bookchin) is an excellent foundation for this.
The core point is that society is part of nature, not separate from it, and therefore environmental issues are all rooted in social relations. The problems are not ‘out there’ in some way but addressing these requires changing society.
Our ecological relationships and our social relationships cannot be separated.
Humans are part of nature. This seems obvious but actually most of “green” politics is still based on ‘nature’ as some ‘other’.
That there isn’t a distinction between “society” and “ecology”. Society is the segment of nature which is human activity, but society has ecological components likerivers, fields, soil, plans, animals, and so on. Social relations are ecological and some ecological relations are social.
“Environmental” problems are actually about social relations. The domination of nature is rooted in social domination. To achieve ecological harmony, we must change society. “Green” politics must be social politics.
The ecological crisis is a social crisis.
In Murray Bookchin’s words:
“What literally defines social ecology as “social” is its recognition of the often overlooked fact that nearly all our present ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. To make this point more concrete: economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today – apart, to be sure, from those that are produced by natural catastrophes.”
Quote from: What is Social Ecology? By Murray Bookchin, From Social Ecology and Communalism, AK Press, first printing, 2007. PDF available online such as here.
In other words, ecological destruction is part of social domination between humans. Which means that addressing our ecological relationships must also include addressing social relationships.
Ultimately, we cannot only think about “Nature”. We must think about the human social systems which cause ecological harm and also are part of social oppression. Environmental politics does not make sense, and cannot be seriously effective in transforming the relationships between humans and the rest of Nature, if it is not also involving social political issues.
Mini footnote. [1] Confusingly, ‘Social Ecology’ can refer to a few different things…
- Different strands of social ecology:
- Human-nature philosophical conceptualisation
- Social relations are the focus
- The proposals of what to do – communitarianism – not relevant here and not much to say about RoN as such
Law and Eco-Social Relations
We have to ask what social relations are causing ecological destruction, what sustainable and harmonious relations would look like instead, and how law can help move us there.
It isn’t enough to simply establish rights in law: we must think about changing society. For example, rights to equality have not created an equal society. They have helped, but they aren’t a magic bullet or complete solution.
What law does is mediate interactions and social relations and social structures.
Law’s goal should be to improve the web of relations we live in so that they are better – more just, harmonious, empowering…
Law is the medium for social change but social change is the actual aim.
Both environmental issues and Rights of Nature cases should be thought about in terms of their eco-social relations. If there is river pollution: what is driving it? What are the socio-economic conditions that mean that farmers end up with lots of fertiliser spilling into rivers, for example – high demand for meat, business blah forcing it.
Cases in South America have typically involved a local community on one side or the other. Positively, a local community can be protecting nature – and usually themselves at the same time – from destruction from development, typically from ‘outside’ the local community.
Sometimes, it’s the other way round: protection from ‘outside’ (eg government or an NGO) against actions by the local community. Such as small-scale mining, deforestation, farming. Nature needs protecting but think about the social relations and social justice too.
So, this social ecology approach allows us to analyse; then we think about how to transform.
Critiquing and Developing Earth Jurisprudence
This is an area where Earth Jurisprudence and ‘orthodox’ RoN has been lacking.
Earth Jurisprudence often does not look at social relations and the causes; often is moral or cultural spiritual transformation.
Often assumed that moral argumentation and legal transformation is the main thing or that legal rights will do the job.
We cannot transform only part of a (legal) system but must transform the whole system, and Earth Jurisprudence is only partial
- Therefore we need a broader approach for the entirety of our socio-ecological relations and activity
- Ie social justice
– RoN should not blindly follow human rights lines but must learn from critical approaches to human rights.
- Importance of Rights of Nature thought about with social justice and within a vision for an ecological society.
What Does This Mean For Rights of Nature?
Our aim is to move to a world, a society, where humans live in harmony with the rest of nature and have sustainable relations. Our question is: how does rights of nature law contribute to bringing this about?
This depends on the particular social context – as law and social change should each always be.
Also means we should think about democratising and decentralising, not state bureaucracy. This combination then means that there can be grassroots bottom-up democratic change. It harnesses people who are already connected to aspects of nature to act to protect it – and it also means more people getting connected with their local aspects of nature. This can bring about a shift from alienation from nature to connection with it: most people in the UK are alienated from our nature, there aren’t indigenous people or peasants, so rebuilding this connection is vital for the legal change to be meaningful — to make a bottom-up democratic revolution to protect nature.
Legal changes must be paired with a bottom-up social transformation and internal change. I think most of us probably agree that bottom-up social movements are key…
UK context:
- Civil society protection (not wait on weak government) as above
- Local protection of habitats and species
- National NGO on gov policy or big business
- Change env regulation to be RoN so that agriculture, industry, land development, etc, all happen in a pro-eco way [state-down] – political campaign