♪ ♪ NATALIA GREENE: What if our children were to ask us, how was it to live in a world where nature didn't have rights?

What if everybody lived with the understanding that if we harm nature, we're harming ourselves?

That would be an amazing world.

In Ecuador, we're already doing that.

Ecuador is still the only country in the world that has recognized nature as a subject of rights in its constitution.

We have places that are maybe the most biodiverse places in the world.

However, our authorities always justify extractivism.

They justify mining.

They justify oil.

We need to change our relationship with nature.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Ecuador, a country about the size of Nevada, has, by some counts, twice as many times the number of plants and animal species as the U.S. and Canada combined.

This biodiversity hotspot in South America has a stunning variety of habitats-- coastlines with deserts and mangroves, snow-capped mountains, and the iconic Galapagos Islands.

But it's the rainforests where much of the biodiversity thrives.

And much of it remains unknown.

NATALIA: We only know a little bit of what we have in our country in biodiversity terms, so many, many species are still being discovered in the rainforest.

Unfortunately, Ecuador is a developing country.

It faces a lot of threats of activities that will definitely destroy its biodiversity, and, of course, will lead to the extinction of many species.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Extractive industries like oil, mining, and timber, unsustainable agriculture, and climate change are all endangering this biodiverse land.

NATALIA: All these things coming together are going to cause a catastrophe.

NARRATOR: Between 1990 and 2008, Ecuador lost over a million acres of rainforest.

Faced with such overpowering forces, Ecuadorian environmentalists turned to a radical idea.

NATALIA: The rights of nature was an idea that was very new.

It was only in 1972 that Christopher Stone wrote about the rights of nature.

NARRATOR: Stone was a law professor whose book "Should Trees Have Standing?"

argued that nature itself deserves legal rights.

The concept is the opposite of how most legal systems around the world view environmental laws.

NATALIA: Environmental law is just telling us how much we can harm nature.

It's not telling us to protect nature.

NARRATOR: In 2008, when Ecuador rewrote its constitution, Natalia Greene and other environmental activists pressed to ensure the rights of nature were enshrined into the law of the land.

Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognize that nature has a legal right to exist.

NARRATOR: The statute gave conservationists a powerful new tool in their fight to preserve wild spaces, a tool that is currently being put to the test in Ecuador's species-rich cloud forests.

♪ ♪ These high-altitude rainforests are persistently covered in clouds and are a major source of water for animals, plants, and people in the region.

♪ ♪ LOU JOST: In order to study a cloud forest carefully, you need to focus on a particular group of organisms.

Over the 25 years that I've lived in Ecuador, I've investigated the distributions of orchids, and I discovered many new species that no one knew existed.

So I had discovered these hotspots of local biodiversity that I knew were special but nobody else knew.

Most people know orchids from the hardware store or the supermarket, but most orchids are tiny, I mean, really tiny, the size of my fingernail sometimes.

NARRATOR: Lou has mastered the hunt.

He even discovered one of the world's smallest orchids, just two millimeters across.

LOU: Very, very good, very complex.

These are pollinated by little tiny flies usually.

This is an epidendrum.

Over 1,000 species of epidendrum exist, and Ecuador has 400 species of these.

NARRATOR: Lou realized that these miniature flowers offer not only a tasty drink for hummingbirds, but also a banquet of data on the health of the ecosystem.

LOU: Orchids are so particular about where they grow that we can use them as bio-indicators of differences between forests.

One mountain has one set of orchids, and a neighboring mountain has a different set of orchids.

Those orchids are indicating that there's something different about the climate of those two mountains.

And so we can use them to guide us towards a logical conservation strategy that will protect all the biodiversity.

NARRATOR: The first step of his conservation strategy was to protect some of the most biodiverse hotspots.

LOU: My friends and I got together and formed this foundation called EcoMinga.

We began a campaign of international and national fundraising to purchase these most special areas and create protected gradients along slopes of mountains so that plants and animals could move up and down them as climate changed.

NARRATOR: 14 years ago, Lou brought in Javier Robayo, an Ecuadorian environmentalist, to manage the project.

[speaking Spanish] LOU: We're trying to protect the whole landscape biodiversity, not just a few parts.

It's all one system with animals and plants traveling between them.

It's important to catch all of the diversity that's there.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Some of the land in these cloud forests is farmed, and the only source of income for the local owners.

A few grow cash crops like naranjilla, a popular local fruit that is lucrative but requires extensive land clearing.

After just a few harvests, the soil becomes so degraded, it can no longer support the crops, so many farmers simply move on and cut down another tract of forest.

To help the farmers break that cycle, Lou and EcoMinga are helping them shift production to environmentally friendly crops.

[speaking Spanish] ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: For generations, Laura Elena Yépez Plaga and her family have farmed naranjilla.

But now, EcoMinga has helped Laura grow another crop that can earn her as much money on a lot less land.

It's a kind of orchid prized for its fragrant spice-- vanilla.

[Laura speaking Spanish] NARRATOR: This is a pilot program, and Laura is EcoMinga's first farmer trained to grow vanilla.

Javier Robayo and orchid expert Marco Monteros check in often to offer support.

[Javier speaking Spanish] [Laura speaking] NARRATOR: These vanilla orchids are ripe for pollination.

[speaking Spanish] ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: The temperature and humidity are optimal.

In Mexico, where vanilla grows wild, it's pollinated by a species of bee found only there.

Here, it's up to Laura to perform the delicate procedure.

[Laura speaking] [Javier speaking] NARRATOR: The project benefits the environment, and because it requires much less of Laura's time, it also affects her personally.

[Laura speaking] [Javier speaking] NARRATOR: Solutions like these will help EcoMinga protect local biodiversity without invoking the constitution's right of nature.

When they can, they also purchase land, which is how they created the Dracula Reserve.

Named after a group of orchids with fang-like petals, this 5,400-acre refuge is nestled between two large protected areas.

[Javier speaking] ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: EcoMinga discovered that many species here are found nowhere else on earth.

But beneath the cloud forests lies another kind of treasure, a mother lode of mineral resources coveted by mining companies.

[Javier speaking] NARRATOR: So Javier makes it a priority to connect with locals and let them know EcoMinga wants to purchase and protect their land.

Today he is visiting a region called Esperanza, which means hope.

♪ ♪ The residents own a tract of undeveloped forest.

They'd like to profit from this holding.

But the local leader has qualms about selling it to a mining company.

[man speaking Spanish] NARRATOR: EcoMinga would offer a fair price for the land.

But mining companies often pay higher than market value and pay more quickly.

For the community, safety must also be considered.

♪ ♪ [Javier speaking] NARRATOR: Esperanza learned about the risks of landslides after a neighboring community allowed mining there.

[Fausto speaking] NARRATOR: Many in Esperanza would prefer to sell to EcoMinga if the foundation can drum up the cash.

♪ ♪ Javier has connected with other organizations to help raise money.

♪ ♪ One new partner with a fresh approach is Reserva: The Youth Land Trust.

CALLIE BROADDUS: We are youth-led and passionate about the environment and biodiversity conservation.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have nature in their life from an early age, but every young person now is growing up with the reality of climate change and the reality of nature and biodiversity loss.

NARRATOR: Callie Broaddus started Reserva after a family tragedy.

CALLIE: Finley Broaddus was my sister, and she was six years younger than me.

When she was 17 years old, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressively fatal cancer.

She moved into a hospital and was really frustrated by her lack of ability to continue the climate change advocacy that she had been doing for years.

So she thought, "Maybe I could start a fund," so she set a goal of raising $18,000 by her 18th birthday.

This ability to do something was so empowering for her that it alleviated a lot of the pain of her situation.

By the time she passed away, she had raised over $100,000 to fight climate change.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Finley's passion ignited a new calling for Callie and set her on her current path.

CALLIE: I realized that a young person who's just turned 18 has incredible financial power to make an impact on these crises that we're facing.

NARRATOR: Callie quit her job in 2019 and founded Reserva.

The organization has mobilized and partnered with youth in over 25 countries.

Expanding Dracula was their first project.

CALLIE: Reserva is working with EcoMinga to protect all of the wildlife that depend on this region.

In 2019, we began a flagship project to create the world's first entirely youth-funded nature reserve.

NARRATOR: These additions to Dracula will be called the Dracula Youth Reserve.

[conversing in Spanish] NARRATOR: Fundraising takes time.

Fortunately, some landowners willing to sell to Reserva allow access for research before the purchases are complete.

But one such foray led to a disturbing discovery.

CALLIE: In August of 2021, some of the EcoMinga team were surveying for a new species.

NARRATOR: This forest land, adjacent to Dracula Reserve, belongs to local farmers Fermin and Leonor.

Their family has owned this plot for over 60 years, and they are hoping to sell it to EcoMinga to make sure it stays protected and intact.

CALLIE: Marco went out on a hike looking for orchids, and he came back with some devastating news.

He found 400 meters of destruction of a pristine canyon made by mining companies.

[Javier speaking] NARRATOR: To track down the miners, Callie and Javier took to the skies.

[drone whirring] CALLIE: We put a drone up into the air.

JAVIER: Underneath in there.

CALLIE: Yeah, ooh, there.

We located their camp.

And the next morning, we hiked in at about 5 A.M. to confront them and find out who they were working for.

♪ ♪ [conversing in Spanish] NARRATOR: They learned that the miners worked with a large international company with a government concession.

But they were surveying on land they didn't have a right to be on.

[speaking Spanish] NARRATOR: Javier and EcoMinga prevented the miners from doing any more damage to Fermin and Leonor's land.

But they realized that persuasion alone would not protect the entire region, so Javier meets with Natalia Greene for advice on how to build a case for the rights of nature statute.

[Natalia speaking] [Javier speaking] NARRATOR: To build their case, the EcoMinga team is documenting biological riches that could be lost if mining isn't stopped.

[Javier speaking] [Natalia speaking] NARRATOR: The law states that any action that could lead to extinction, either by eradicating a species or destroying its critical habitat, is prohibited.

Even though the new article came into effect in 2008, mining on ecologically vulnerable land continues.

One local community recently went to battle over the fate of a cloud forest reserve called Los Cedros, another biodiversity hotspot with endemic species.

NATALIA: Los Cedros is a protected forest.

And in Ecuador, within a protected forest, you cannot do agriculture, you cannot do cattling, but you can do mining, which is completely absurd.

NARRATOR: In 2018, several indigenous tribes in Los Cedros sued the national government after it granted mining concessions to almost three-quarters of the reserve's land without consulting the tribes.

Their legal team made the rights of nature central to their argument.

The fight took three years and was ultimately decided by the highest legal power in the country-- the constitutional court.

Its resounding verdict upheld the law of the land.

Nature's rights prevailed.

[Natalia speaking] Experts on orchids, on monkeys, on frogs, on different plants, came to the judge and told him how important this space was.

The constitutional court ruled in favor of nature and banned mining as an activity that can happen in such a biodiverse place.

NARRATOR: The court also issued another major ruling-- the rights of nature pertain not only to protected areas and reserves.

They apply to any land throughout the country.

[Natalia speaking] NARRATOR: To strengthen their rights of nature case, the team wants a list of all the animals and plants in the reserve, so Javier and the others don't waste any time getting back into the cloud forest for a species survey.

JAVIER: Hey, it's my favorite people.

So nice to see you!

You survived.

I'm sorry to just leave you alone in the forest.

MAN: No.

♪ ♪ CALLIE: Finding new species is actually relatively common.

Every expedition I've been on, we've come home with a list of potential new species to science.

This plot is almost entirely unexplored by scientists.

That means that we have a lot of work to do very quickly.

NARRATOR: This expedition will strengthen their rights of nature case and deepen their understanding of this complex ecosystem.

ZANE LIBKE: So, here we have a beautiful Anolis dracula, also referred to as South American chameleons.

With this animal, we'll just be taking pictures and taking a small little tail clip for DNA sampling, and then we'll let him on his way.

[speaking Spanish] ♪ ♪ CALLIE: Part of the experience is seeing the look on the expert's face when they see something that they have never seen in their course of study.

Just lights up.

SCIENTIST: I can't identify it.

CALLIE: We only know of about two million species on the planet, out of an estimated eight to nine million, so we've only scratched the surface of what lives here.

JAVIER: Here we have a salamander.

This is gonna be a new species for the science, and it's the second time that I'm watching this.

We only have pictures the first time, but now we can have a sample.

Different levels of creatures live from the very, very bottom of each tree to the canopy.

Every level have different plants, different shapes, different species.

This small species... ...have one chance to be recognized not only as an object.

They are subjects of rights.

These creatures give us a chance to save these places.

This is the reason why I'm working here.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Every new species they find now has a fighting chance and a revolutionary legal right to exist.

CALLIE: Finley's legacy is very much alive in Reserva.

I remember that she's not here to take action, so I have to, and that helps me keep going.

♪ ♪ [Javier speaking] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪