Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

Scientific evidence is increasingly supporting the theory that the Earth is alive and replete with intelligence. In fact, the wild diversity of earthly organisms exhibits the characteristics that human beings attribute to personhood. How is it then, by the law, that a corporation is a person, but nature is not? What if we expand the anthropocentric boundaries of our systems of laws, rights and responsibilities to encompass ALL living beings? How would this new legal story affect our relationship with our vast other-than-human Earth family? In this episode, we imagine a planet with rights for all, with visionary lawyer César Rodríguez-Garavito.

This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. ⁠Visit the series page to learn more.⁠

César Rodríguez-Garavito, a Professor of Clinical Law, Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and founding ⁠Director of the More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program⁠ and the Earth Rights Advocacy Program (all based at NYU School of Law), is a human rights and environmental justice scholar and practitioner whose work and publications focus on climate change, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and the human rights movement.

Resources

⁠More-Than-Human-Life (MOTH)⁠

⁠Report Assessing the Implementation of the Los Cedros Ruling in Ecuador⁠ | MOTH

⁠César Rodríguez-Garavito – More-Than-Human Rights: Pushing the Boundaries of Legal Imagination to Re-Animate the World⁠ | Bioneers 2025 Keynote

⁠Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature⁠

⁠Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature⁠ | Bioneers Newsletter

Credits

Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel

Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel

Producer: Cathy Edwards

Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch

Producer: Teo Grossman

Associate Producer: Emily Harris

Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey

Production Assistance: Mika Anami

Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

As we hurtle into the Sixth Age of Extinctions, we face the cataclysmic loss of half the world’s biological diversity. 80% of the remaining biodiversity is on Indigenous lands. Ethnobotanist and Indigenous rights advocate Mark Plotkin of the Amazon Conservation Team tells us how scientists are helping protect the people who will protect the land, and the age-old wisdom that’s imperative for our future.

At the core of our civilizational breakdown is an extractive economy that wastes both nature and people, at the same time it is Hoovering extreme wealth up to the billionaire class. But with breakdown comes breakthrough. Professor Manuel Pastor believes we’re living through a moment of profound transformation. It will come down to what we do – or don’t do – at this moment of radical change.

In this episode, we hear from Pastor on how shocks to the system are precipitating a great awakening and growing movements to transform the economy to our economy.

Featuring

Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC and Director of its ⁠Equity Research Institute⁠, has long been one of the most important scholars and activists working on the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has held many prominent academic posts, won countless prestigious awards and fellowships for his activism and scholarship, and is the author and co-author of many important, highly influential tomes.

Resources

⁠Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter⁠ | 2021 Book by Manuel Pastor and Chris Benner

⁠SolidarityEconomics.org⁠ | Joint Project of the Equity Research Center (ERI) at the University of Southern California and the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz

⁠Manuel Pastor – Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum⁠ | 2021 Bioneers Keynote Address

⁠Solidarity Economics: Our Economy, Our Planet, Our Movements⁠ | 2021 Bioneers Panel

⁠Bioneers Reader: Our Economic Future⁠ | Free eBook

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

In the late 20th century, a handful of scientists proved that aquatic mammals have advanced communication capabilities and a consciousness strikingly similar to humans. Author and adventurer James Nestor leads us on a deep dive into the mystery of marine mammal consciousness, and the story of how a small band of freedivers, pushing the limits of human endurance, is finding that saving the whales may become the story of the whales saving us.

Additional Resources

James Nestor's Keynote at Bioneers

James Nestor's website

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

Humans have harnessed many plants, fungi, and even animals, for our medicines. But we aren’t the only species that can do this. From chimpanzees to dolphins to geese, a striking range of animals use remedies that grow naturally in their environments. We meet primatologist Elodie Freymann, whose work in the forests of Uganda and Peru has given us new insights into how animals self-medicate.