From Global Alliance for Rights of Nature Earth Day 2026
We capitalize Nature because relationship begins with recognition. Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)
A simple pivot when you pick up the pen or your fingers touch the keyboard – from nature to Nature. Nature – a collection of living, breathing beings each and everyone more than deserving of our recognition. Not a collection of ‘its’ to be exploited. A whole that IS LIFE.
And it is time, this Earth Day, to remember and recognize just that. GARN’s post which greeted me this morning says it well:
This Earth day change how you write and you begin to change how you relate.
We always capitalize Nature. Why?
Long before modern law, many cultures understood the living world as a community of beings, not a collection of resources. Mountains had presence, rivers had voices, forests were relatives, and language reflected that relationship.
The industrial age broke that bond: Nature became lowercase, abstract, extractable, governable without consent.
Capitalizing Nature is a return, not backward, but deeper. It restores agency and aligns language with a growing legal reality where rivers, forests, and ecosystems are recognized as rights-bearing entities.
The United Nations now capitalizes Nature in official reports. The law is shifting because the story we tell is shifting, as words shape perception, perception shapes behavior, and behavior shapes the future.
We capitalize Nature because relationship begins with recognition.
This Earth Day, start there.
I made this pivot some years back when I first became aware of the Rights of Nature movement and this simple yet profound shift one can make. As I’ve hiked these sacred mountains and as I saunter in the Woods Out Back, more and more I sense the true nature of Nature and that we indeed all are One. And when I forget, there is always some gentle reminder, like the mule deer that was resting under Grandmother Pinon on my morning walk a couple days back.
Honor the Earth and all Her Beings this day. Honor Nature and honor you as a part of all Life.
Resting Under the Grandmother Tree