What's Happening

February 2, 2022, Adrian, Michigan – Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, was noted in a recent article in National Catholic Reporter’s Earthbeat for her work in the worldwide movement to secure legal rights of non-human life and ecological systems to exist and flourish for their own sake. 

Sister Patricia Siemen, OP

Before being elected Prioress in 2016, Sister Patricia, an attorney, founded and directed the Center for Earth Jurisprudence at Barry University Law School in Orlando, Florida. The Center’s goal is to “advance laws and policies designed to protect the natural systems, species, and entities that sustain life on Earth.”

Read the article on the rights of nature by Barbara Fraser.

December 7, 2015, Paris, France – A key study by Earth Law Center – released during the Civil Society side activities taking place during the UN Climate Summit – reveals a strong connection between the abuse of human rights and abuse of the rights of nature. In many cases, industries that violated the rights of nature through extraction of oil or minerals were also implicated in the deaths of people who tried to oppose these abuses. Read the full report by Sister Elise García, OP, Communication Director of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, in her December 5-6, 2015, report for Global Sisters Report.

Feature photo: From left: Liz Hosken, Osprey Orielle Lake, Linda Sheehan, and Natalia Greene at a Dec. 3 COP21 civil-society presentation. Photo by Elise D. Garcia, OP.