Every being on Earth has both inherent rights and the responsibility to participate in the web of life. WORDS Mashudu Takalani and Gertrude Pswarayi-Jabson | IMAGES Tim Hawkins The Gaia Foundation is an international organization with nearly forty years of experience accompanying allies to revive biocultural diversity. Having graduated from Gaia’s three-year, UN-recognized “Trainings for

A designer takes responsibility to learn about the landscape and the Aboriginal languages that describe it. WORDS AND ART Kathryn Morgan . In this body of work, I explore the role language can play in honoring lives of the past and the present-day sovereignty of First Nations people. I’m trying to learn about the precolonial

Reflecting on his life’s path, a young writer from Ghana realizes that there are no rights without responsibilities. Abraham Ofori-Henaku Back when I was a kid, living out my prepubescent years with no worries about responsibilities whatsoever, I had every excuse to enjoy the bliss of ignorance. Shamelessly, I carried on with this fatuous sense

A wilderness hike reminds a young woman that privileges come with responsibilities. WORDS AND IMAGES   Jessica Herman . “Alright, good luck then,” my friend Michael offered, scooting away on his aluminum boat after he dropped me off on the western edges of Átl’ḵa7tsem, or Howe Sound, north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Oh no, I thought

Rising sea levels threaten a local community’s biocultural heritage and the residents’ right to an ecologically responsible way of life. WORDS AND IMAGES Thor Morales   . Coconut palm trees stand tall, their roots kissed by the sea in its incessant going back and forth. Soon these tropical palms will be wiped out by the

A local community grapples with increasing social and environmental pressures that are shifting the balance between rights and responsibilities. WORDS Léa Denieul-Pinsky | IMAGES Thomas Ravessoud . The right to have responsibility, the responsibility to have rights. This is what emerges when I reflect on the moments shared at kitchen tables, on the phone, in

Indigenous cultures understand wildlife as fellow nations whose actions enable or curtail human aspirations. Jay Cooney and Brandon Harrell   The notion of extending rights beyond humanity is hardly new, and from the beginning the act entangled us in responsibilities. In Becoming Kin, Ojibwe writer Patty Krawec describes the Anishinaabe myth of a flood unleashed upon

For Indigenous Peoples, their relationships to the lands, waters, and natural world shape their responsibilities, governance, and self-determining authority. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel   Osiyo nigada. Jeff Ganohalidoh Corntassel dagwado’a. Tsalagi ayetli agwenasv’i. Echota galsgisgo’i. Jean agitsi nole Gary agidoda. Dagwaltina’i Westville, Ogalahoma nole Huntington Beach, California aneha. Agwetsi ageyutsa Leila Victoria otseha. Nigohilv tsigesvi anehe’i

In Hawaiʻi, the concept of rights is more accurately understood to mean responsibilities. Kawika Winter . Highly advanced societies have existed at various points throughout antiquity, before the modern era of globalization. Some have been classified as “civilizations,” and they have been taken as models for how we humans should live on this planet. The