Film: Rights of Nature

Watched by Phil Scraton:

Narrated by Ireland's fine singer-songwriter, poet, story-teller, and environmental activist John Spillane, Rights of Nature is a fine short film proposing the necessity of taking a 'journey of unlearning' to develop and progress a 'dialogue with nature'. It envisions a new socio-economic narrative for Ireland that resonates well beyond its shores.

It is self-evident that living beings are subjects despite consistent attempts to objectify the human experience, limit potential and impose restrictions on freedoms of thought, association and movement. We live in environments alongside non-human subjects consistently objectified as property to be used and discarded. Land is owned, enclosed, exploited and changed forever without consideration of long-term consequences for the future of life in its broadest definition.

The film asks what it means to claim ownership, to 'belong' within place, exploring the significance of cultural and spiritual inheritance and their connection to identity. It considers the destruction of culture, language and community through colonisation and its invidious political-economic exploitation and cultural subjugation; the objectification of place and the control of land through property law; the denial of access and the right of commons. It proposes a new dimension in approaching democratic rights.

The narrative challenges the assumption that nature is nothing more than property to be owned, developed, laid waste and destroyed by private interests but is essential to the construction and maintenance of communities through time. It calls for the defence of our environments against commercial exploitation and the clear evidence of harm. Only through personal engagement and collective activism, committed to challenging the short-termism of that commercial exploitation, will the health of communities, the land and seascapes be protected and advanced.

Together with the depth of his narration, John Spillane's music is woven into the film's dialogue.

Filmed and edited by Simon Wood
Directed by Peter Doran