A tiny town in Quebec has become the first municipality in North America to officially recognize trees as living beings with a fundamental set of rights.
Terrasse-Vaudreuil, a town of about 2,000 people just west of Montreal, Canada, adopted a resolution on June 9, 2026, to sign the Universal Declaration of Tree Rights.
This declaration was launched in 2018 in response to worldwide deforestation and the perception of trees as nothing more than objects and a resource to be extracted by humans.
Its stated goal is to "recognize the Tree as a sentient living being, a source of Life, and a common good of humanity."
American activist Julia Butterfly Hill will be so happy to hear it as will Luna the Tree
A 2019 petition in support of the declaration had garnered just shy of 88,000 signatures, and Terrasse-Vaudreuil's adoption of its principles marks the first public entity in North America to sign on as well.
The town's Mayor Michel Bourdeau said in a press release translated from French: "By adopting this resolution, Terrasse-Vaudreuil reaffirms its commitment to building a sustainable future.
"This recognition will be accompanied by concrete programs aimed at protecting our tree canopy, planting trees, and raising public awareness of their importance."
Mayor Bourdeau told Canadian outlet CBC that "our biggest ally is the trees" when it comes to fighting climate change.
The town's mayor said he is committed to protecting the canopy, raising awareness of the importance of trees, and planting more of them.
The Universal Declaration of Tree Rights was created in response to worldwide deforestation.
Town adopts tree rights principles
Terrasse-Vaudreuil has promised to abide by the three fundamental principles of the Universal Declaration of Tree Rights.
The first principle states: "The Tree, a sentient living being and source of Life, is a common good of humanity."
The second principle states: "Life on Earth depends upon the existence of the Tree."
The third states: "Human beings, endowed with reason and conscience, must act with the Tree in a spirit of fraternity and solidarity."
According to the town's press release, adopting the resolution was a citizen-led initiative inspired by the film Des arbres et des arts ("Trees and the Arts"), by Quebec filmmaker André Desrochers.
The film argues that trees are living beings that communicate with each other through [VOCs and] underground fungal networks that interact symbiotically with roots.
The first article of the Universal Declaration of Tree Rights, which claims trees are "sentient," makes a similar argument, though it also emphasizes a distinction between the rights of trees and those of humans.
"The recognition of Tree Rights must not automatically be confused with the attribution of legal personhood," the declaration states.
"In certain legal systems, legal personhood may constitute one mechanism for protecting a natural entity. It is, however, neither a necessary foundation nor the exclusive objective of the Universal Declaration of Tree Rights."
The Universal Declaration of Tree Rights aims to change the perception of trees as simply a resource to be extracted by humans.
The town adopted the resolution after being inspired by a film that argues trees communicate through fungal networks [called mycelia] connected by roots.
The main idea behind recognizing trees as sentient beings is to stop people from viewing the plants "solely as an object, property, raw material or resource available exclusively for human benefit," according to the declaration.
Other natural bodies have been granted similar legal protections in North America on occasion. Quebec’s Magpie River was given legal personhood in 2021 by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipal council of Minganie (Duck River).
The protection granted the river nine rights, including freedom from pollution, the right to evolve naturally and a mandate to retain its natural biodiversity.
Lake Erie in Ohio was temporarily granted legal personhood similar to that of an individual or corporation through the 2019 Lake Erie Bill of Rights, but a federal judge ruled the measure unconstitutional in 2020.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Bourdeau, the mayor of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, for comment. More
The intentions and prayers for the Earth were embedded here then covered with gold leaf.
Altadena Fire Mural Project, 2026, with golden prayers and us circled in red (Ekaterina Sky)
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Channeled inspiration for artful beauty
Six months after the Los Angeles fires, we built an art wall in Altadena. There were not many walls left to paint on, so we built one on the empty lot where the vegan cafe Oh Happy Days used to be.
Over four days the foothill neighborhood came and wrote their prayers and intentions to be sealed into the golden sphere at the center of the mural, some in English, some in Spanish, some in many other languages. One was a single name. One asked for the soil to become clean again. Then we sealed every one of those prayers under gold leaf.
A gold embedded Prayer for the Earth
They are still under there, and nobody can read them.
On the final Sunday of our public art project, a woman came over to tell me about her friend: Her friend had lost her home in the Eaton Fire and had not smiled once in the six months since.
Her friend was at the wall right then, with a glistening brush in her hand. She was smiling. She had just said, “I think I should start making art again.”
I did not go over to her. That moment was hers.
I thought, “She has every fact about what she lost. The facts do nothing for her. A wall, a brush, and her neighbors gave her somewhere to put it, and she picked the brush back up.” That is what I've been trying to say for 20 years! To put it plainly:
“Data hands us the truth.
Beauty is what lets us carry it.”
Knowing is not the hard part. Holding it is. Beauty is what makes the weight bearable enough to keep holding and acting on.
Vote for this talk at SXSW 2027
Save the forest, save the animals
I want to argue for that position in front of a room full of people who build things rather than a room of those who already agree with me. So I proposed a talk at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, next March (2027) I am calling, “Why Beauty Moves Us When Data Doesn’t.”
DESCRIPTION: Two decades of painting murals converges on one idea: Shared beauty can hold what words cannot yet reach, a shift that decides what people go on to protect.
After the 2025 Eaton Fire in Altadena, survivors gathered at a community mural to write their intentions and prayers into the paint. A woman who had not smiled since losing her home picked up a brush. This talk lays out the method behind the shift and how to build it into a strategy that moves people.
SESSION TAKEAWAYS:
Art show LA Climate Week '26
Why aesthetic experience shifts emotional orientation faster than data or logical arguments, and what that means for building a movement or campaign.
A repeatable method for designing beauty and participation into engagement strategy, instead of attaching them as decoration afterward.
Real, working examples, a reforestation partnership, a global soil movement, a wildfire recovery mural, proof the method produces outcomes. More
It is about how that Sunday afternoon of the art project actually worked.
Read it HERE. It is accompanied on the page by a two-minute film of me speaking at the UN Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil.
Send me your stories!
REQUEST: If a moment like that has ever happened to you, I would love to hear it. I am collecting them to inspire others.
Every year, Peace Class goes on hiatus from July through September. There is this meeting tonight and again next week (June 24th), then summer hiatus begins. Join me for final two classes of this cycle. This is the text of the peace talk delivered last week:
When all beings can clearly see everything-that-is, all beings will choose to live in peace, in harmonious coexistence with one another.
Harmony (akin to kshanti) happens effortlessly when everyone has access to all-that-is. Harmony is what happens when everyone is engaging their full intuitive powers, seeing with clarity, gazing at the world through their higher consciousness, through their Peace Minds.
Harmony happens effortlessly when all is known by all. But we aren't there yet.
We are at the end of the age that precedes all beings knowing all. We are at the beginning of the time of revelation that bridges two ages. We are at the beginning of the revelation that gets us from not-knowing to knowing.
What does this transition period look like? What does it feel like? Imagine that all-that-is-true were shown to us as a huge sweeping picture, a massive wall-sized image, one enormous scene.
Then imagine that wall-sized picture sliced up into 10,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, one would be able to reassemble the full picture, if one had all of the puzzle pieces.
What's happening during this time of revelation is that some people are receiving some of the pieces of what-really-is, whereas most people hold just a handful of the pieces. And rarely do two people hold the same pieces.
That means we might hold a few puzzle pieces of what-really-is, and our neighbor might hold a few pieces, and those pieces could be from different quadrants of the picture. Those assembled pieces could show entirely different things.
Our neighbor might hold three pieces that seem to be part of a barn and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in the countryside."
We might hold a few pieces that seem to make a skyscraper and might say, "I've seen what is, and we're in downtown."
A third neighbor might be holding pieces that show part of a cloud and might say, "We're in the clouds—not touching ground at all!"
All three of these neighbors might have glimpsed some aspect of what-really-is yet not understand how those things fit together. So they might be tempted to turn to each other and say, "You're wrong!"
They might even be in despair wondering, "How can so many people think that this is an image of clouds we're in when I know it's a picture of a barn?"
This is what the Time of Revelation feels like, especially in the beginning. It feels to many like deep confusion. And such confusion can lead to despair.
But when we realize what's really going on, which is that all-that-is is being revealed, slowly, we can cross this bridge and transit this period with grace.
We can hold compassion for ourselves, knowing we are all undergoing a process that takes time. We can hold compassion for our neighbors, benighted as they seem. We can hold compassion for ALL beings.
Kill Iran so we can build up Israel. - OK, Bibi.
These are not easy times to transit. Our politics are polarized. Many of us look at our neighbors and say, "How can you believe that? How can you possibly see things that way?!"
What's happening is a literal difference of seeing, not a figurative one. This is not just a duel of differing opinions. Some have seen what's-really-happening by way of direct exposure or spiritual revelation, and others have not. Some have seen one slice of what's-really-happening, and others have seen a slice of a different portion.
We are stepping into knowing-what-really-is at vastly different rates. And this is exactly as things are meant to happen. What-really-is is that we're a group of beings evolving towards discovery and an expression of our own peaceful and loving truest nature. That's what's really happening!
We are evolving forwards. And eventually, we will know who we are. We are beings of peace. And eventually, we will feel as we are. We will feel the urge to choose to live peacefully, to express compassion-for-all.
We will choose to fully express our unique selves and selfhood, while creating space for others to express themselves fully. We will choose compassionate coexistence.
The trees have been waiting patiently in peace.
We will choose harmony with others, harmony with the waters and the forests and the soil and the air, harmony with the animals of this planet.
We will choose selfhood, and we will choose harmony. But we have a ways yet before arriving there. We are departing from one shore, sailing towards another.
We are departing the shore of believing our community is dog-eat-dog, that the rules are an-eye-for-an-eye. That's the shore we're leaving.
I like it better when we ALL get along in peace.
We'll arrive at the shore of dog-celebrate-dog, dog-help-dog. That's where we'll land.
Revelation is the time to discover who we truly are as a species. This is the time to learn, not later in peace. Right now, we can learn that dog-eat-dog was never our true nature. We were living through a dog-eat-dog phase, just as people, while they're babies, are living through growing pains in a diaper phase. A child grows out of using a diaper: A child becomes a grownup. We are now growing into dog-celebrate-dog.
Higher we rise, easier to see the big picture
We get from one shore to another by learning the truth about who we are. Now, there's a lot to know. The full picture of who we are as beings is a lot to take in. The full picture of what our planet is, how it fits into the greater universe, is a lot to take in.
The full picture of what's been happening in our societies, what's been happening of which we have been unaware, is a lot to take in. A lot.
Revelation arrives in pieces. It arrives as different pieces that are in the hands of different people fall into place at different rates. Eventually, all will know all. As for now, some know some.
So when we look at our neighbor and think, "How can that [bleep] think that way?" we must understand that our confusion is natural and know that our neighbor will eventually see everything. And so will we.
All will eventually see all.
In the beginning
The light slowly began to dawn.
What does revelation look like at its beginning? It can look like deep differences between how we see the world and how our family members, partners, children, and those pesky neighbors see the world.
If we choose to walk with compassion, we will understand that the children of earth are doing the work of waking up and becoming enlightened in perfect pace, with appropriate timing for everyone, at the right rate for each individual.
Everyone has the right to choose how quickly to evolve. Some will choose to cling to the dog-eat-dog way-of-being, and some will let go of such thinking, feeling, and being.
What happens when a person sees the completed puzzle, the full image of all-that-is? That person knows and chooses peacefulness, one's own peaceful way of being in peace. And what one feels for others at that moment is compassion-without-end.
Once we understand that all who can see the full puzzle will carry peacefulness, and once we understand that the puzzle pieces are arriving into the hands and lives of most people we know, at varying rates, this era of revelation begins to make sense.
I never saw it that way! It makes sense now.
This is what revelation looks like: It looks like a few more puzzle pieces arriving into the hands of a few more individuals.
Revelation happens in stages, dependent on an individual's desire to know more. And individual who really wants to know more creates space within oneself.
If we create openness in mind, if we cultivate compassion in heart, with non-judgment and non-attachment (letting go), more puzzle pieces will begin to fall into our hands.
I'm starting to see, but my eyes are blurry.
It may take five or 10 or 20 years to have enough puzzle pieces to get a full sense of what's really going on, but we are so loved. Every human alive is so loved through this process, so loved by the divine, so loved by our ancestors, so loved in all phases of self-discovery and self-actualization. All who walk this process do it perfectly.
This summer, we might spend time with family members whose puzzle pieces imply a completely different picture than ours, and if we allow the lower mind to run the show, we are very likely experience, at best, frustration being around them, at worst, anger and hate, at very worst, expulsion of others from own compassionate heart because they're holding different pieces of the puzzle and they imagine that the shape of the puzzle is different than what we imagine it to be!
We get to choose how we walk this moment of revelation. We can do it with compassion, we can do it with grace, or... Walk in the way that builds the world you want. When you see all, you will know your own peace, and you will choose your own peacefulness.
If we choose peace now, even before we see all, we will walk through challenging times with the most possible ease. And our presence here, among those of earth, will be a living slice of grace.
"California Treeams.") Trees for Jane wants to thank everyone for their support for Trees for
Jane! As of March 2022, if anyone wants to follow Jane Goodall (RIP) on her
journey to save our forests and climate, visit
Jane’s Green Hope
a project of the Jane Goodall Institute.
Celebrate Earth Day and Dr. Jane Goodall’s birthday on April 3rd and all month long throughout April.
Let’s celebrate Earth Day and a woman who for over 60 years inspired and motivated millions of people across the world to live in greater harmony with nature and to take action on behalf of the planet we share with plants and animals.
Compelled by Dr. Goodall’s mission to live sustainably and with vegetarian compassion, we look with new hope for a brighter, greener future.
As she has shared, one of the most resilient and impressive forces on Earth is contained within the seeds of plant life, which can break through walls and always find a way. More: janegoodall.org
(CalWild.org)
LANatureForAll 📢 RSVP:
Come and attend the LA Roadless Rule Town Hall on Monday, May 18, 2026.
Come learn about the recent threats to roll back the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (also known as the Roadless Rule) and how the rule protects public lands.
Give a spoken or written public comment. Make your voice heard to help protect nearly 60 million acres of Angeles National Forest public land from private logging, mining, and other extractive industries.
Sitagu Buddha Vihara, Austin, Texas: Dhamma. 🪷 Behind every great story there’s a chainsaw-wielding Buddhist monk.
Which is to say, what I actually mean is each reporting process is populated by vibrant hidden figures like American Theravada Buddhist monkBhante Nalaka (born Steven Waite).
He walked me and my family around Sitagu Buddha Vihara in Southwest Austin.
I was at the Burmese Theravada Buddhist monastery hunting for a painting by exiled Burmese artist and activist Sitt Nyein Aye, but more on him in a moment.
American Ven. Nalaka received us at the end of a meditation retreat, his voice starting as a whisper and rising throughout our chat.
Born in Massachusetts, he grew up an “Army brat” and has flowed in and out of monastic life since 1981. Ven. Nalaka has spent about three years as a caretaker of the monastery’s 16-acre property, which is crowned by a golden pagoda, the largest in the United States.
The Buddhist complex has 40 buildings in all, including a treehouse. Ven. Nalaka is eager to discuss his humble inheritance: endless maintenance issues.
“My first year was scraping all these walls” to remove bubbling paint from leaks and humidity damage, he said. In 2023, he chainsawed 13 acres of felled tree limbs after an ice storm. “I had burn piles going everywhere,” he claimed.
Last year, the monks repainted the pagoda’s exterior using a 135-foot crane and “at least 20 gallons” of imported paint. If suffering is the path to liberation, Ven. Nalaka is making progress—and the monastery is looking sharp.
Exiled art of Myanmar in Texas
Artists are artists and will let you know it.
The one feature of the property that Ven. Nalaka didn’t seem to know about was Sitt Nyein Aye’s artwork, a fact that had my nerves running throughout our interview. But after a bit of wandering,
It starts with his tragic death in Colorado and weaves backwards through his revolutionary work in Burma (Myanmar), exile in the Southwest, and late-career artistic projects.
I sought to examine Sitt’s legacy as a member of a “hyperlocal diaspora” -- Burmese artists, including @chaweithein (Ms. Chaw Ei Thein, profile, art blog) and @artisthteinlin (RIP, Artsy), who’ve found refuge in America and craft vivid portals back home.
(wrappedrockz) (37w) Fascinating. Can’t wait to read more. 🔥
(Roberthoerlein's) Great story. I didn’t know any of this. Thanks.
AUTHOR: obscuratorial (37w) 📷 PHOTOS: 1-3 are by my dad, Mark Eddy. The rest are by me, of Sitt Nyein Aye's untitled 2012 painting at Sitagu Buddha Vihara. The piece depicts some revered Buddhist temples in India. Source
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