From 99% Invisible Podcast – Episode 496
“The Ojibwe name for wild rice is Manoomin, which translates to “the good berry.” The scientific name is _Zizania palustris_. It’s the only grain indigenous to North America, and while it might be called rice, it’s actually not closely related to brown or white rice at all. It has long played an important role in Ojibwe cultures, but last year, Manoomin took on a new role: plaintiff in a court case. Last August, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was sued by wild rice. The case of _Manoomin v Minnesota Department of Natural Resources_ alleges that the Minnesota DNR infringed on the wild rice’s right to live and thrive. But can wild rice sue a state agency? The short answer is: yes. This is the story about what might happen if rice wins.“
“For many advocates, giving nature legal rights isn’t just about trying to protect the environment. It’s also about legally validating longstanding Indigenous way of thinking, specifically about the role that nature plays in everyday as well as spiritual life — by writing it into the law, you’re saying that you think nature’s personhood is just as valid as, say, tax law.” – 99% Invisible
NOTES / EXCERPTS
7:11 rights of nature
“But we’ve used conceptual versions of what a person is in the eyes of the law for quite some time. Corporations, schools, and law firms, for example, are all technically allowed to enter into contracts as if they were singular human beings. And while this environmental version of the concept is relatively new to the American legal system, it has deep roots in indigenous ways of thinking” – Roman Mars
8:01 relationship
“The rights of nature really is more like ancient law as Chippewa and I say Chippewa because that’s what we’re called in our treaties as Anishinaabe or Ojibwe. We have a relationship with all of nature, and we refer to them as our relations.” – Frank Bebo, a tribal attorney and a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe
“We have a relationship with these plants where you know, we’re human people, there’s tree people, there’s beaver people, there’s deer people, there’s their people, their salmon, people in the Pacific Northwest salmon, our ancestors as well. And in some ways they’re revered as much more important than humans.” – Miko Albert, a member of the Cherokee Nation and the Executive Chef of burning cedar indigenous foods.
9:11 earth, ancestors & land
“from a Maori perspective, we have always known and believe that we are of the land that we are part of this place that the lands in the mountains, the sky, the earth are our ancestors. And through that we have our responsibilities to care and to nourish the lands and the waters around us.” – Jacinta Ruru a professor of law at the University of Otago in New Zealand
25:24 rights of the earth and what it means
“The idea here isn’t to actually protect each grain of rice or salmon or squirrel as if it’s a human being, you can still hunt or fish or build, as long as overall, it doesn’t infringe on the right of the natural system to thrive.” – Roman Mars
“So if a forest is protected, doesn’t mean you can’t cut down a tree. It just means you can’t cause damage to the ecosystem by taking out so many of the trees that the entire ecosystem folds… You want more people not less representing ecosystems because you want more of these cases brought not less. But folks that have some kind of relationship to the ecosystem itself. It’s important for those folks to be recognized as guardians or plaintiffs in this case.” – Thomas Lindsay, the senior legal counsel for the Center for democratic and environmental rights.
41:01 acting now imperfectly
“You can do both right, you can do your like weird little law fiddling, and also be trying to imagine a system that is a little bit more holistic” – Producer and host of the podcast Flash Forward, Rose Eveleth
“or we’re talking about as a complete overhaul here. This is just the beginning of seeing the world in a different way. Because if there’s no, there’s no better, well trod concept in the Western system of law than the one in which nature is property. It’s basically the building block for everything in a Western culture, Western civilization.” – Thomas Lindsay