NRW: possibly the single most important strategy on Earth’s behalf – Arturo Escobar

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Nature Rights Watch, the latest initiative spearheaded by one of Latin America’s premiere environmental think thanks and advocacy organizations –the Centro Latinoamericano de Ecologia Social, CLAES– is possibly the single most important strategy on Earth’s behalf to emerge in a long time.

Besides the creation of a sophisticated and effective infrastructure to assess the status of Nature’s rights and ascertain cases of violation of such rights, the NRW facility will constitute a dynamic platform for discussing some of the most difficult, and intractable, questions of our time: the valuation of nature, beyond the preponderance of conventional economic assessments; the relation between the devastation of nature, environmental unsustainability, social injustice, and the cultural and political mobilizations to redress them; and, in the last instance, the need for civilizational transitions towards models of society and notions of the human capable of holding in check the most damaging effects of anthropocentric models of contemporary capitalist globalization.

Conceived in, and from, Latin America, this vital initiative should arouse interest and support from all over the world.

Arturo Escobar

Arturo Escobar, colombian, is professor of anthropology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.