Paper short abstract:

‘Rights of Nature’ and the ‘Anthropocene’ are two prominent contemporary environmental discourses. This paper critically reconstructs the coupling and intersection of the two discourses in current scientific and political debates.

Paper long abstract:

Rights of Nature and the Anthropocene are two prominent contemporary environmental discourses. The Rights of Nature discourse articulates a call for re-defining ecosystems, such as forests, as subjects with legally enforceable rights. The Anthropocene discourse refers to a geological epoch characterized by the significant influence of human activities on Earth. This paper critically reconstructs the coupling and intersection of the two discourses in current scientific and political debates. It thereby departs from the common constructivist premise asserting that discourses influence people's engagement with each other and with the environment, legitimize or ridicule certain systems of knowledge, appraise or degrade specific social identities, and encourage or belittle specific governance arrangements.

Both discourses have in common that they call for - partly fundamental - reforms of environmental governance systems. At the same time, they differ remarkably as regards the clout that they have gained: While the concept of the Anthropocene has been taken up in multiple contemporary environmental debates, in academic and non-academic venues, and by all sorts of actors; the Rights of Nature discourse is restricted to a small network of individuals and organizations with comparably limited political influence. Based on the analysis of this discursive interaction, the paper discusses how shifts in contemporary environmental debates affect conceivable environmental governance arrangements.