Rights of Nature and Ecosystem Approach: An Introduction

In this introduction the aim of the author is to delve into the main concepts on which this book is built: rights of nature (RON) and ecosystem approach. By analysing these two core concepts, the introduction bridges the preface, where the aim and the methodology of the book are explained to the reader, and the different parts and chapters of the book, each exploring a theoretical aspect or a practical case of the research object. First, the author defends the necessity of abandoning the legal paradigm of sustainable development, which has failed to reach its goals. The aim of the book is to demonstrate that through a transcultural and ecosystem approach, it is possible to substitute the unsustainable old legal paradigm with a new one based on holistic premises on the relationship between humans and nature. Both RON and the ecosystem approach are concrete solutions pointing in this direction. The author analyses the scientific, ethical and philosophical basis of RON and the ecosystem approach and she highlights how the ecosystem approach has been incorporated into some international legal documents. In the conclusions, building on the previous paragraphs, she argues that a broad understanding of the ecosystem approach, also included in RON, is the common core of all the different analysis and proposals hosted in this book.