EXPLORE WILD HOPE

Callie Veelenturf is a marine conservation biologist specializing in sea turtles, the founder of The Leatherback Project, and a National Geographic Explorer.

Panama recognizes the rights of sea turtles under national law, including their right to a healthy environment. To figure out which places are critical to the turtles’ well-being, biologist Callie Veelenturf and children from affected communities are tagging dozens of turtles and tracking them by satellite.

The Pearl Islands were a paradise off the Pacific coast of Panama, until industrial fishing fleets threatened fish stocks and endangered wildlife there. Local residents have teamed up with biologist Callie Veelenturf to propose—and pass—a new national law that grants legal rights to nature itself.

Marine biologist Callie Veenlenturf came to the Pearl Islands to study sea turtles, but soon helped spark passage of remarkable laws that grant legal rights to nature and the turtles themselves.

In the mountains of northern Ecuador, the Los Cedros Protected Forest, a place granted a legal standing — called “rights of nature” — that environmentalists are striving to replicate all over the world.

Since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, it has become one of the most powerful tools to fight extinction in the United States.

Protecting "rights of nature" is a legal movement that recognizes ecosystems have fundamental rights, including the right to exist, evolve, and thrive without interference from human-caused harms like pollution and resource extraction.

Young volunteers from the Reserva Youth Land Trust are exploring the jungles of Ecuador to survey, photograph, and identify species—and to help protect their right to exist.

The Reserva Land Trust has rallied together young people from across 25 countries to create the world’s first youth-funded nature reserve in Ecuador.

Ecuador is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet— and the first country in the world to enshrine the “rights of nature” in its constitution.