Projects & Events
Project RestoreEarth Fund Proposal
As the Earth’s ecological collapse presents financial risks to companies, they may be willing to contribute to a fund that would slow or reverse collapse, analogous to an ecological impact insurance premium, thus reducing the entities’ risk exposure while preserving their bottom lines into the future. The RestoreEarth Fund request would be for each company to donate 0.25% of annual revenue for 10 years, a share that would raise $100 billion annually and $1 trillion over this period if, for example, the 500 largest global corporations participated. Just as important as building a large fund to implement ecological recovery projects (determined by a panel of experts), the publicity around this fund and required corporate reporting would greatly enhance global awareness of the state of ecological collapse. It is believed the absence of general public awareness of the ongoing global ecological collapse is the single greatest threat to the planet.
The twin goals of Project RestoreEarth are to:
raise awareness of global ecological collapse, and
generate significant funds from corporations facing increasing financial uncertainty to implement high-leverage bioregional interventions to slow or reverse ecological collapse.
Rights of Nature Initiatives
The Society for Earth Law (SOEL) believes the planet is currently in varying stages of ecological collapse being accelerated and worsened by global warming. A key tool for slowing and reversing ecological collapse is to grant rights to nature which may be in the form of local ordinances, state laws or constitutional amendments protecting elements of nature (such as rivers, mountains, plants, animals) that are enforceable in court.
This strategy ensures nature’s right to thrive, evolve and flourish can be protected in court, just like rights enjoyed by people and corporations. As a matter of principle, enacting rights of nature (RoN) laws has the profound effect of giving nature enforceable rights similar to humans, an effective component of moving society from destructive anthropocentrism to relational ecocentrism.
The passage of RoN laws throughout the planet is accelerating, and in 2025 RoN legislation was proposed in two states, North Carolina and New York. In both states the proposed legislation would protect rivers and water bodies by granting these natural features rights to thrive, evolve, flourish, and to clean unpolluted water. As of this writing neither of these two proposed state laws has been passed. However, in 2025, precedent-setting RoN laws have passed in other states and countries protecting both geographic features (Pyramid Mountain, Colorado) and animals (stingless bees, Peru).
SOEL is currently looking for a legislator to sponsor a proposed RoN bill currently titled the New Jersey Rivers and Watersheds Bill of Rights. Similar to the proposal in New York, this legislation would protect all waterways and water bodies in New Jersey as well as the uplands that drain into these rivers and tributaries. Unfortunately, New Jersey’s uplands have more contaminated sites (in the federal Superfund program) than any other state and these sites have degraded the state’s waterways and ecology. The proposal would authorize any resident in the affected watershed or the state attorney general to bring an action in state court where there has been a violation of the river or watershed rights to be free of pollution or other degradation or deprivation of the rights to thrive and evolve.
The draft RoN bill for New Jersey is viewed positively by the state’s leading environmental advocacy group. In addition, SOEL is working toward RoN bills in several other states and would welcome funding to support this effort.
SOEL is a new association engaged in reimagining the role of law in an age of ecological crisis. Frustrated by the legal system’s ongoing failure to address escalating climate and ecological crises, SOEL calls for a bold shift: legal frameworks that recognize Earth not as property or a storehouse of resources, but as a living, interconnected community. SOEL envisions a world where legal, economic, social, and political systems are rooted in a shared commitment to nurture, regenerate, and sustain the Earth community—locally, bio-regionally, nationally, and globally.
Guided by three core principles
Relationality
We are an indivisible part of the entire community of life and life systems and must recognize the interdependence of all life.
Reciprocity
We must give back to all living beings and ecosystems to ensure justice, accountability, sustainability, and regeneration.
Responsibility
We must enter into a new ecological social contract requiring resilience, adaptation, and the ability to respond as individuals and as a collective to our obligations in the face of ecological change.