Ecuador's cloud forest has legal rights – and maybe a song credit

In a world first, 'rights of nature' project petitions copyright office to recognise Los Cedros forest as song co-creator

Photo collage of a hand holding a quill, with a photo of a forest overlaying the hand
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

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, an initiative that works to advance non-human rights, 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 group 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 sounds of bats, monkeys and leaves recorded in Los Cedros, was "written with the forest", said writer Robert Macfarlane, who organised the expedition for his upcoming book about the rights of nature movement. "We were briefly part of that ongoing being of the forest, and we couldn't have written it without the forest."

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Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021.