by Michelle C. Pardo<\/p>\n
If you thought animal and environmental activists had already pushed the envelope far enough in the world of federal court litigation, think again.<\/p>\n
This week, an Oregon federal judge ruled that a group of plaintiffs \u2013 made up of animal and environmental activist organizations and individuals \u2013 do not<\/strong> have a constitutional \u201cright to wilderness\u201d and dismissed with prejudice their lawsuit which sought to force the federal government to cease policies that contributed to climate change that, in turn, harmed plaintiffs\u2019 enjoyment of nature and wildlife.\u00a0 \u00a0ALDF et al. v. United States, <\/em>(6:18-cv-01860-MC)(D. Oregon).Plaintiffs, comprised of frequent-flyer animal rights group, Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), Seeding Sovereignty, an organization that works to \u201cshift social and environmental paradigms by dismantling colonial institutions and replacing them with Indigenous practices created in synchronicity with the land,\u201d and several individuals, including an 11-year old child (whose mother has worked for ALDF as well as the Nonhuman Rights Project and Farm Sanctuary), had sued the federal government in Oregon. Their sweeping complaint\u00a0blamed climate change for closing hiking trails, forcing one to wear mosquito repellant with \u201csevere chemicals,\u201d cancelling swim team practice due to an increase in Blue-algal bloom, and making the waves in the ocean too big to go surfing, among other things. (Interestingly enough, Plaintiffs\u2019 First Amended Complaint dropped the amorphous group \u201cFuture Generations\u201d as a plaintiff \u2013 presumably after concluding that a category of plaintiffs that included all future people living on the planet did not pass the smell test).<\/p>\n Plaintiffs\u2019 core allegation was that the United States government, through its officials, has enacted national policies that promote, subsidize and develop carbon-intensive industries \u2013 such as fossil fuel extraction, animal agriculture, and large-scale commercial logging \u2013 that contribute to climate change and expose Plaintiffs to dangerous conditions on federal lands. Plaintiffs sought an injunction compelling the government to, among other things, protect Plaintiffs\u2019 \u201cconstitutional right to wilderness\u201d by ordering the government to implement a \u201cnational remedial plan to mitigate climate change impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n Plaintiffs\u2019 First Amended Complaint gives poignant examples of their injuries \u2013 all attributed to climate change \u2013and the government policies that exacerbate or fail to reverse it. One ALDF member, who left her job to \u201clive among the wilderness of the Shoshone National Forest\u201d in Cody, Wyoming, was alleged to have a \u201cdeep, emotional connection\u201d with the wildlife surrounding that is impaired by her inability to return to hiking trails that have been closed due to \u201cwildfire, drought, and tree death from beetle bark infestations.\u201d Amend. Compl. \u00b6 6. ALDF also claimed that its member was injured by climbing over trees downed from beetle kill and suffered mental distress from \u201cwatching her local forest die.\u201d Id.<\/em> \u00b6 7.<\/p>\n The complaint continues:<\/p>\n \u201cLeslie needs wild refuges where she can wander for days without seeing a person or even a trail; a place where the natural forces of the Earth are allowed to shape the land; where her eyes can come to rest in a limitless horizon; and where the ageless drama of life is played out by the animals that live there.\u201d Id. \u00b6 8. Climate change, as ALDF alleged, is destroying Leslie\u2019s \u201copportunity for such necessary solitude\u201d and is affecting her physical and mental health.\u201d Id.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If Leslie\u2019s plight wasn\u2019t moving enough, the Complaint also detailed the injuries suffered by an 11-year old New Jersey resident, all attributable to climate change. The Complaint recounts the child\u2019s surfing camp cancellation due to undertows and big waves that came from a passing hurricane and her need to wear harmful mosquito repellant to protect against a proliferation of insects from standing water brought on by storm surges. Plaintiffs characterize their injuries as \u201cgrave.\u201d<\/p>\n Plaintiffs sweeping allegations demanded sweeping relief \u2013 including ordering the government to phase out fossil fuel extraction, animal agriculture, and commercial logging.<\/p>\n In ruling on the government\u2019s Motion to Dismiss, the court \u2013 in a relatively brief decision \u2013 found that plaintiffs did not establish Article III standing and failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted. (7\/31\/2019 Opinion). In recognizing that the harm plaintiffs sought to address is a \u201cdiffuse, global phenomenon that affects every citizen of the world,\u201d the court determined that plaintiffs\u2019 general grievance about government was not individualized and they therefore lacked standing. \u201cEven if this Court were to recognize a formal \u2018right to wilderness,\u2019 it would necessarily be a right held in common by all citizens, and the effects of climate change would be an abstract injury that all citizens share.\u201d Id.<\/em> at 6. The Court also determined that plaintiffs have failed to satisfy the \u201ccase or controversy\u201d requirement of Article III and, as such, lacked jurisdiction over the matter. Id.<\/em> at 7.<\/p>\n As to plaintiffs \u201cright to wilderness\u201d claim, the court echoed prior judicial decisions that have consistently found that there is no substantive due process right to \u201clive free from government regulation.\u201d Id.<\/em> at 9. More importantly, the court rejected plaintiffs\u2019 invitation for it to engage in \u201cnothing short of revolutionary thinking\u201d by recognizing \u201ca right to wilderness\u201d under the First, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In declining to recognize this new right, the court stated:<\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiffs\u2019 asserted fundamental \u2018right to wilderness\u2019 lacks foundation in this \u2018Nation\u2019s history, legal traditions, and practices\u2019 and is unlike other fundamental rights the Supreme Court has enumerated.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ALDF has indicated that they plan to appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Michelle C. Pardo If you thought animal and environmental activists had already pushed the envelope far enough in the world of federal court litigation, think again. This week, an Oregon federal judge ruled that a group of plaintiffs \u2013 made up of animal and environmental activist organizations and individuals \u2013 do not have a … <\/p>\n Continue reading “Animal Activist Group Loses “Right to Wilderness” Lawsuit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":318,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[174,97,44,156,21,36,403,405,401,404,175,42,402,406,400,37],"ppma_author":[698],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-aesthetic-injury","tag-aldf","tag-animal-activist","tag-animal-legal-defense-fund","tag-animal-rights","tag-article-iii","tag-climate-change","tag-environemental-activist","tag-farm-sanctuary","tag-global-warming","tag-michelle-c-pardo","tag-michelle-pardo","tag-nonhuman-rights-project","tag-right-to-wilderness","tag-seeding-sovereignty","tag-standing"],"authors":[{"term_id":698,"user_id":318,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mcpardo","display_name":"Michelle Pardo","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/pardomichelle-125x150.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Pardo","first_name":"Michelle","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/michellecpardo.html","description":"Read Michelle's bio.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/318"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}