Interspecies Harmony
There is a growing body of innovators, artists, governments, and economic initiatives challenging our one-sided relationship with Mother Earth.
Giving agency to nature and non-human species means building Interspecies Harmony. This is what I discussed in my Tomorrow column for Spur Magazine in July’s printed issue.
What we are witnessing is the draft of a world where social justice means amplifying the unheard voices of the land and animal species suffering from climate change.
This is the transformational and most innovative way to approach sustainability and regeneration. The signals are here.
Interspecies Future created by Light Art Space works to advance the rights and opportunities of nonhuman life on Earth through cross-disciplinary work from researchers to computer science to Indigenous perspectives, aiming to shape Interspecies discourse.
Faith in Nature is the first company to give nature a vote as a board member. By making Nature a director of their company, they hope to show a future where Nature's rights are represented and respected in every business.
We can also partner financially with Nature. Brian Eno recently launched The Earth as Your Co-writer royalties scheme for musicians to fight climate change. The initiative gives artists the ability to set up “The Earth” as a songwriter and legal beneficiary of music royalties - meaning a portion of earnings go directly into the purse strings of climate justice and environmental organisations.
It would make sense to give back to nature a portion of our profits. After all, Nature is an ecosystem whose services are “valued” at more than $100 trillion. Nature has been leading research and development for billions of years. The cost equivalent of humanity replicating nature's systems is incomparable.
The legislative aspect of implementing Interspecies Harmony is also taking shape.
In 2022 Ecuador became the first country in the world to rule that wild animals possess legal rights. Since 2016 the Whanganui river, Mount Taranaki and Te Urewera national park have been granted legal personhood in New Zealand. Stop Ecocide has been advocating for destroying land being judged as an atrocity crime at the International Criminal Court. In April 2023 the European Parliament agreed on the recognition of Ecocide in EU legislation.
The Zoöp project is practice-based research into the design and application of a new kind of legal format for collaboration between humans and collective bodies of nonhumans, in order to support ecological regeneration. Zoöp makes a connection between innovations in the legal system and examples such as the DAO construction of Terra0 which enabled a forest to manage itself using an Ethereum network technology, for it to become an autonomous economic agent.
What does this mean for the fashion industry and its relationship to nature and its species? Animal rights? Soil and water degradation? Time will tell but legislations are accelerating. Governments are making it possible to pursue bad ecological actors.
The Fashion industry needs to clean up its act before brands start to land in criminal court sued by representatives of Nature, in a future where it is finally valued as the most important stakeholder.
We must create a shared and sustained value for everyone, not just humans. The scorecards are coming, as we enter the 'Ecozoic era' - a term first coined by cultural historian Thomas Berry - in which human civilization lives in a mutually beneficial relationship with our planet. It perhaps feels far today, but it is not impossible.
Read the full column in Spur Magazine July’s printed issue.
By Geraldine Wharry
