Ecuador becomes first country to give legal rights to wild animals: What does this mean for conservation?

The historic decision came as the country’s highest court heard the case of a woolly monkey named Estrellita, who was taken from the wild when she was only one-month-old and was raised as a pet but died within a month after it was shifted to a zoo At a time when the world is battling climate change and exploitation of animals, Ecuador, in South America, has made history by becoming the first country to recognise the legal rights of individual wild animals. The 7-2 ruling by the top court in the country, handed down last month, is believed to be the first time a court has applied the rights of nature — laws that recognise the legal rights of ecosystems to exist and regenerate — to an animal, a woolly monkey named Estrellita. In a landmark judgement the Court in Ecuador ruled that the legal status of animals should fall under the country’s constitutional rights of nature, thus establishing the country’s animal legal rights.https://t.co/QTcj2dk6U5 — Supriya Sahu IAS April 5, 2022 Here’s a look at what the case was all about, what the court said about the ruling and why it is significant development across the world. The court order and its effect on Ecuador’s wild animals Delivering its judgment in the case, the apex court of Ecuador said that wild animals have the right “not to be hunted, fished, captured, collected, extracted, kept, retained, trafficked, marketed or exchanged” and the right to the “free development of their animal behaviour, which includes the guarantee of not being domesticated and not forced to assimilate human characteristics or appearances.” Those rights emanate from animals’ innate and individual value, and not because they are useful to human beings, the court further added.