Communities Stand for the Rights of Nature: From Ecuador to Ireland to Brazil, Grassroots Voices Unite in Belém

MEDIA RELEASE | 11 November 2025

Image: The crystalline waters of Río Los Cedros. Credit: Liz Downes

Communities Stand for the Rights of Nature: From Ecuador to Ireland and the Balkans to Brazil, Grassroots Voices Unite in Belém

Belém, Brazil – As global movements converge in the Amazon for the 6th Rights of Nature Tribunal, Yes to Life, No to Mining (YLNM), a global solidarity network, is bringing together frontline defenders from across continents to assert a shared truth: the Earth is not property to be owned, but life to be respected.

At a time when extractive industries are accelerating destruction of life in the name of transition, growth and militarisation, YLNM members from Ecuador, Serbia, and Ireland are standing together to champion the Rights of Nature – a legal and moral recognition that Nature has the inherent inalienable right to exist, live, persist, flourish, evolve and regenerate herself.

Mirko Nikolić from Earth Thrive, Serbia, Balkan Centre for the Rights of Nature and YLNM member stated:

In Serbia, together with local and international allies, we have since 2021 been running three complaints to the Bern Convention to protect the Valley of River Jadar, Homolje Mountains and Nature in Bosilegrad region from destructive mining.* The complaints are grounded in RoN. One of the projects has recently been stopped. Rights of Nature is a genuine environmental and climate solution, and we trust that enshrining them into the national and international frameworks will contribute to long-term fair and just relations between humans and Nature for the benefit of all.”

The Rights of Nature framework represents a profound shift away from a worldview that treats living beings and their homes as commodities. It calls for laws and systems grounded in respect, interconnection and reciprocity, not extraction and profit. For many Indigenous cultures, these principles are not new, they are ancient, grounded in the understanding that human and ecological wellbeing are inseparable.

Jose Cueva, Environmental and Social Observatory of Northern Ecuador, (OMASNE) and the National Anti-Mining Front said:

Ecuador is days away from a constitutional crisis. On November 16, we Ecuadorians will vote whether or not to give the government of Daniel Noboa the chance to shred our constitution—a global precedent setter in Indigenous, Collective, and Nature Rights—-to replace it with a vaguely written advertisement for international mining companies to turn some of Earth’s most mega-diverse remaining forests into catastrophic mining camps.

Mining extractivism is entirely based on violating the Rights of Nature, killing living beings and their webs of life. There cannot be a just transformation out of this destructive system without a full recognition of all living beings’ rights to live free from human caused harm. No one is free until everyone is free!

Lynda Sullivan, Co-coordinator, YLNM said:

“We don’t defend Nature because it’s useful to us. We defend Nature because we are part of it.”

This stance is enshrined in the Yes to Life, No to Mining Principles, which affirm that the wellbeing of all communities, human and non-human, depends on keeping the Earth alive and healthy. 

YLNM’s presence in Belém underscores its commitment to decolonising development, supporting community-led alternatives, and challenging extractivism in all its forms.

*Bern Convention is the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. One of these cases has also been brought to the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, and the Verdict will be read at the Global Alliance on the Rights of Nature pre-COP Summit at Belém do Pará. For more details, see links: https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/14th-local-rights-of-nature-tribunal-serbia-2024
Verdict: https://www.rightsofnaturetribunal.org/homolje 

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For more information

Tom Takezoe
(EN, ES, PT, FR)
Mobile/WhatsApp +55 11 95199-1818
membership@yestolifenotomining.org

Nat Lowrey (EN)
Mobile/WhatsApp +61 421226200
info@yestolifenotomining.org

Yes to Life No to Mining at Events in Belém

YLNM delegates will participate in:

Rights of Nature Tribunal, 11 November

COP do Povo / The People’s COP, 12 November

Cupula dos Povos / The People’s Summit, 12–16 November

UNFCCC / COP30, 10-21 November

These gatherings mark a critical moment as part of COP30, as movements from around the world converge in the Amazon to reassert people’s and Nature’s rights in the face of climate and ecological collapse.