Interdependence Day!

Rights of Nature

I sent this out on my E-News today and am extending to my Substack audience. If you’d like to subscribe to that as well as Substack, it’s typically only once a month. Sign up on any page of my website—scroll down : marinarichie.com.

I’d also like to add another resource, thanks to information I just received from my artist friend and activist Liz Fox: Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment. And I’d love to hear from people in other states on similar amendments and Right to Nature movements.

July 4th Crossroads

America has come to a crossroads on our 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Autocracy is here. Democracy is the fraying flag. Our public lands are being trashed for corporate greed.

And yet, people are standing up with love, bravery, and commitment. At a time of the great unraveling, we must embrace a new and better Democracy based not on independence but on interdependence that is all about kinship with the more than human world.

With that, I’d like to offer a piece I wrote in 2019 (during the first fateful Trump presidency): Interdependence Day: Time for a New Celebration that begins:

“This July 4th morning I woke contemplating why Interdependence Day resonates more than Independence Day. I believe interdependence forms the foundation for a brand of independence that leads not to war and consumption, but to global cooperation and a kinder world that values kinship with all species.”

In that piece I held up people -- including my mother who would pass away the following year--people who exemplified the meaning of interdependence:

“Reflecting on our trip East these past two weeks, every act of kindness, generosity, compassion, and care we received, witnessed, and participated in flowed with the spirit of interdependence woven with the sparkling riffles of independence.”

My mother Cate Richie was an avid fan of Rachel Maddow and rarely missed her news show. Early on in 2016, she had the prescience to worry about Trump --a time when most of us still brushed him off as an impossibility. In her last years, she struggled with her memory and yet when it came to that man, she would often ask with bewilderment how he ever got elected and why? (The photo below shows my mother in May of 2020, the month before she passed-I miss her so much!).

VOTE! LOCAL ACTIONS MATTER TOO

So here we are. How do we get to Interdependence? For starters, lets all VOTE in November--and stand up for voting rights, while working for a Democracy that is truly representative--starting at the local level with Ranked Choice Voting. (See FairVote).

Let’s also find and support environmental candidates. I’m thrilled that right here in Deschutes County, Oregon, climate scientist Jamie Collins upset a MAGA incumbent county commissioner in the May primary with more than 50 percent of the vote and automatically won, so no need for a general election. He was joined by another great new commissioner Rick Russell. Now, we have to roll up our sleeves and work hard for two more champions--Amy Sabbadini and Morgan Schmidt--in the general election in November. People here worked to expand our commissioners to five seats from three to be more representative, and now a petition drive has started to implement Ranked Choice Voting.

RIGHTS OF NATURE

If I had my way, we would give votes to rivers, mountains, roadless areas, and to all wildlife. We would change all state constitutions and yes--our country’s constitution to recognize the rights of nature.

We would respect Indigenous wisdom and elevate their voices. Montana (my former home) took a big step in the right direction in 1972, enshrining the rights of citizens to a “clean and healthful environment” and that precedent led to a youth-led victory on climate change, affirming young Montanans right to a clean and healthful environment. (Now it’s all about enforcing the Oregon State Supreme Court decision--yes it’s never-ending. We can never sit on our hands-- see Our Children’s Trust).

It’s hard to be on defense and also on the offense. We just need more environmentalists! (And really we ALL ought to be environmentalists). Dreaming big is how big things happen--like the Declaration of Independence.

Rights of Nature is an international movement. I highly recommend reading Robert MacFarlane’s Is a River Alive? And check out the Ecuador Constitution! In your state, find out if there’s a Rights of Nature group near you. I have joined Oregon’s Rights of Nature.

That’s my key message for this landmark 4th of July! Here’s to Interdependence, to the Rights of Nature, and to all the kind, wonderful, giving people in our country who care deeply about each other and the natural world.

(Below--the White-headed Woodpecker has come to our yard-- a messenger from the big ponderosa pine forests now at risk from accelerated logging--and thanks to Oregon Wild, Greater Hells Canyon Council and other groups--we are standing up to save the last big trees. And yes--I feature this bird in my new book).

IN OTHER NEWS-- FEATHERED FOREST: ALOFT WITH BIRDS

As my new book edges ever closer to the September 8th date, Chelsea Green Publishing and I are asking people to preorder the book--to assure as many bookstores as possible will carry and feature my book--and I hope with the cover facing outwards for all to see the beauty!

Thank you--and I will find a way to sign yours (looking into mailing bookplates if I’m not seeing you in person).

PREORDER FROM YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR GO TO THIS LINK.

I am also thrilled to be filling up my Events calendar that now includes appearing at Powell’s Books in Portland on September 14th in conversation with Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth.

Thanks to all of you--and may you find kinship with birds on Interdependence Day.

(Now I’d better pack to leave for England on July 6th--presenting on Feathered Forest at the Global BirdFair on July 10th at 11:30 a.m.)

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