Specific Rights in Nonhuman Animal Rights Declarations (Part 5)

Due to the growth of human populations and the steady spread of humans, the habitats of more and more nonhuman animals living in the wilderness are threatened. Consequently, nature conservationists, environmentalists and animal rights activists—despite differing in their ethical positions and values—can join forces against disruptive human interventions or the (total) destruction of habitats. A right to life must also imply a right to suitable habitat; where there is no habitat, there is no life, or as Bradshaw (2020, 32) puts it: “[C]learing a forest to make a field has the same effect on wildlife that a slaughterhouse has for livestock.” Nonhuman animals also defend their territories in various ways; there are sometimes bitter territorial fights between individual nonhuman animals or between groups of them. Donaldson and Kymlicka (2013, 394; my emphasis) explain, with regard to nonhuman animals living in the wild: “What they need is not (or not only) a property right to their special nest or to their own den, but they need protection of their right to continue to live their own lives in their own territory. In short, what they need is sovereignty.” Donaldson and Kymlicka (ibid., 374) further suggest that injustices between humans and nonhuman animals living in the wild should be addressed “by setting fair terms for interactions between sovereign communities.” Nussbaum (2010, 538) states that the human right to property corresponds to a nonhuman animal right to habitat. It follows that humans should respect the territorial integrity of the habitat of nonhuman animals.