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South American nation, Ecuador, becomes first in the world to expand legal rights to wild animals 

“While rights of nature were enshrined in the constitution, it was not clear prior to this decision whether individual animals could benefit from the rights of nature and be considered rights holders as a part of nature. The Court has stated that animals are subject to rights protected by rights of nature,” said Hugo Echeverria, a noted environmental lawyer.

In a first, Ecuador has become the first country by expanding its legal rights to cover wild animals, getting them the rights they deserve without being exploited. 

The apex court of the South American nation ruled in favour of a case for Estrellita, a woolly monkey taken from her natural habitat, by a librarian Ana Beatriz Burbano Proaño, when she was one-month-old and kept as a pet, where she passed a month later. 

For 18 long years, Ana Beatriz kept Estrellita as a pet, but in 2019, the authorities seized the monkey and moved it to a zoo, citing that the possession of a wild animal as a pet is illegal under Ecuadorian law.

After the sad demise of the monkey in a month, Proaño filed a habeas corpus petition, asking the court to rule that the monkey’s rights were violated.

“Wild species and their individuals have the right not to be hunted, fished, captured, collected, extracted, kept, retained, trafficked, traded or exchanged,” said the top court. However, the court also noted that the animal’s rights were also violated by the owner when she removed her from her natural habitat at a young age.

Speaking on the same to Inside Climate News, Kristen Stilt, a Harvard law professor, said,”What makes this decision so important is that now the rights of nature can be used to benefit small groups or individual animals. “That makes rights of nature a far more powerful tool than perhaps we have seen before.”

Similarly, Hugo Echeverria, a noted environmental lawyer, said,”This verdict raises animal rights to the level of the constitution, the highest law of Ecuador.”

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