If the more-than-human world is full of subjects with intrinsic value – a core tenet of the MOTH Project – then how should we reconceptualize the collection of data, the application of new and evolving technologies, and data ownership?
In 2021, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador handed down what is perhaps the most sophisticated ruling on MOTH rights anywhere in the world. After hearing from scientists, government officials, environmentalists, artists-activists, and community leaders, the Court established that the government’s authorization of mining concessions in the forest violated not only local communities’ rights to water and a clean environment, but also the rights of nature itself. Invoking the precautionary principle that advises restraint in the face of the unpredictable effects of mining on the forest’s web of life, it revoked mining permits and banned any future mining activities in the Los Cedros reserve. Indeed, since 2019, the court has issued several rulings on the rights of animals and ecosystems like mangroves, rivers, and forests. This makes Ecuador a fascinating legal laboratory to elaborate many of the core inquiries of the MOTH Project, including the content of the rights of nature.
To help instantiate the content of MOTH rights, we at MOTH are exploring ways to create a licensing framework in which the fungal datasets collected in an Indigenous territory in Ecuador would be owned by the forest itself, as a holder of rights, together with the Indigenous community. This would be the first instance in which an Indigenous nation co-owns data rights with its territory, a development which we believe would help advance both human and more than human rights. The MOTH Project’s work on this front is intended to serve as a prototype to guide similar efforts in other areas to further illuminate the practical implications of MOTH rights and develop data ownership and licensing models – central to the deployment of much modern technology – that respects the needs and interests of the more-than-human world.