A cloud forest in Ecuador could be recognised as an author – the latest development in a burgeoning global movement to grant legal rights to nature. The More-Than-Human-Life (Moth) Project has petitioned Ecuador's copyright office to recognise the Los Cedros forest as the co-creator of a song composed there. The move by the NYU School of Law-based initiative is the world's first legal attempt to "recognise an ecosystem's moral authorship of a work of art", said The Guardian.
The song, which includes the sounds of bats, monkeys and leaves recorded in Los Cedros, was "written with the forest", said writer Robert Macfarlane.
Los Cedros in the northwest Andes is home to a "vast" number of species, said BBC Future. Most of the reserve is in a "cloud forest", where "the air is heavy with moisture" and permanent condensation. Despite "extensive deforestation" in the region, the forest's nearly 12,000 acres "buzz and thrum with life". That's thanks to a "powerful, and increasingly influential, global legal movement". In 2008 lobbying by Indigenous groups led Ecuador to constitutionally enshrine the rights of nature alongside humans: a world first.
But conservation efforts hit a "major stumbling block" in 2017, said Yes Magazine. Ecuador granted the state-owned mining company concessions in Los Cedros – which local groups argued would contravene the forest's rights. After a prolonged legal battle, the Constitutional Court agreed; in 2021 it revoked the permits and granted Los Cedros legal personhood.
That landmark ruling has inspired similar efforts around the world. To date, efforts to grant legal rights to nature have been pursued in 44 countries. The ruling provides "a firm legal foundation" for the claim on moral authorship, César Rodríguez-Garavito, founding director of the Moth Project, told The Guardian. | 
