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 (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 like rivers, 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.” 1
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.
Delineating Narrow and Broad Social Ecology
One of the initial confusions is that the phrase ‘social ecology’ can have a range of meanings. I will therefore delineate these between ‘narrow’ and ‘broad’ Social Ecology. As a term, it contains a range of scopes of meaning, from the (literal) understanding of society and ecology through to the full political project which Bookchin roots in this. To be clear, this is a distinction which I am creating, using ‘narrow social ecology’ as shorthand for the philosophy of nature and conceptual framework of Bookchin’s which I am using, and am not saying this is a normal way of using the term.
To show that this variety of uses exists see Bookchin’s use: “Social ecology is an appeal not only for moral regeneration but, and above all, for social reconstruction along ecological lines.” 2 and a one-line summary by a commentator: “The basic promise of social ecology is to re-harmonize the relationship between society and nature, and to create a rational, ecological society.” 3 This usage is one of many examples of the broad use of the term. The re-harmonisation described is both philosophical and social, a conceptual foundation and a political project.
The distinction which I wish to make is that ‘narrow’ social ecology is the conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between society and ecology, humans and nature, whereas the ‘broad’ social ecology includes Bookchin’s political project of what to do about this. Bookchin uses terms for his political project which are not social ecology: initially he talks of ‘post-scarcity anarchism’ (1971 book title), then of ‘libertarian municipalism’ (eg in his 1990 book Remaking Society), then, later, of ‘communalism’ (as he also notably dropped the term anarchist due to both its baggage and the difference between his thinking and differences with the dominant strain of anarchism).
Can this separation be made? I’m not entirely sure. I think it is possible to take the conceptual foundations of a project without taking the spires that the thinker builds on those foundations. Ultimately, though, this question becomes less about whether the conceptual foundations of Bookchin’s work can be taken and used while leaving his political project behind, and more about whether any neutral’ positivist project or a theory of law which is not wedded to a political theory. To put things otherwise: my legal theory project here is not necessarily to take a social ecology project to law, but rather to develop a socio-ecologicaly holistic approach to legal theory. My project is distinct from that of Bookchin’s. It needs a conceptual foundation, a theory of nature and society, and Bookchin’s is the foundation I use from which to think about law.
- 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 silver 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…
When we want to realise freedom, for example, we should be looking to create and cultivate relations that empower people and foster freedom. Freedom should be talked about in terms of conditions and relations of freedom, within which individual people are able to be free, instead of trying to crudely manifest freedom in an individualistic way. In some ways, this is the legal parallel of focusing on public infrastructure instead of private luxuries concentrated in the hands of a minority.
Similarly, sustainability is a relational value: when we talk about ecological sustainability, that is a relational question between actors and Nature, whether it’s about a particular ecosystem or a planetary system. Sustainability must be addressed at al levels: individuals, corporations, geographic areas, communities, nations and economic systems. Looking only at individual activity without a systemic approach is doomed to fail, as is only setting top-down ‘legally binding’ targets and duties on nation states or governments.
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, businesses 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 and RoN remain partial as they lack meaningful consideration of social justice, political dynamics, and just inter-human relations. They are generally focussed on moral, cultural, and spiritual transformation and concentrate energy on moral argumentation and granting legal rights in order to bring about legal transformation. We need a broader approach to encompass the interconnectivity of socio-ecological relations. The Interconnected Law approach is intended to help us move towards societies where humans live in harmony with the rest of nature and have sustainable relations which reflect the particular social context. For the RoN this means that we must seek democratic and decentralised, not bureaucratic, methods of implementation.
To challenge the legal status quo for corporations to cause severe ecological harm, we must also recognise the links with the way that it is normal for them to cause social harm. Often, it is the same action which leads to both harms: a chemical spill will both harm people who live nearby and cause wider ecological harm. These were perhaps justified by the false assumptions that (a) anything people pay for is socially beneficial, and that (b) regulation can limit harmful corporate activity. Thus, RoN based critique of law’s role in ecological destruction must critique law’s role in social domination, and the social forces driving ecological destruction, to provide a full picture and try to transform society away from destruction and domination. RoN advocates must learn from critical approaches to human rights for their principles to develop within a broader vision for an ecological society.
This generative critique comes from an understanding that we can only transform a (legal) system by tackling its entirety. Rights of Nature is merely one part of the transformation of law that we need as part of a broader approach for the entirety of our socio-ecological relations and activity. In this, it is crucial that Rights of Nature are 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.
This 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.
For Rights of Nature campaigns to be successful, it is important that they both show people and work to realise improved social outcomes. Instead of ending in an adversarial dynamic which pits ‘planet’ against people, they should both show how improvements for nonhuman nature are also good for humans and be part of broader social movements which work towards social justice. The principle of Community Ecological Governance shows that the two should be in harmony, avoiding the ‘conservation’ dynamic based on boundaries and nature as the exclusion of humans which is often used to remove people embedded in a place from that place.
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 environmental regulation to be RoN so that agriculture, industry, land development, etc, all happen in a pro-eco way [state-down] – political campaign
- What is Social Ecology? By Murray Bookchin, From Social Ecology and Communalism, AK Press, first printing, 2007. PDF available online such as here. ↩︎
- Murray Bookchin, ‘What Is Social Ecology’ in Social Ecology and Communism (2006), introductory section. ↩︎
- Eirik Eiglad, ‘An Introduction to Social Ecology and Communalism’ in Bookchin, Social Ecology and Communism
(2006). ↩︎