The Fable of the Tree and the Branch

A person sits on a branch, eagerly sawing away at the very branch they are sitting on. A bird flies past and warns them: "If you keep doing that, you're going to fall." But the person laughs and replies: "It's my branch. I decide what happens to it." They keep sawing—until the branch breaks, and they fall to the ground with it.

Law is not a law of nature, but a human invention—a delicate fabric of norms and concepts that we cast over the world. A fabric that can protect. But also one that enables us to dominate the world around us. While forests burn, oceans fill with pollution, and millions of animals disappear, we behave as though nature itself must appear before our tribunal to be judged worthy by us. As though its survival depended on our generosity. As though it were nature that would perish without us. As though it were not nature that will outlive us—one way or another.

We are the ones who decide whether animals, fungi, plants, or even nature itself may become legal entities with a voice in the concert of our legal order. And we are left with no alternative but to recognize rights that belong to nature and to all living beings.

Not out of generosity, but out of necessity. Not for nature's sake, but for our own. Because without this recognition, the world that sustains us will not continue for us—it will continue without us, and perhaps against us.

The concept of a person is not a biological fact but a cultural construct—a mask, a symbol that we create and to which we grant rights. The eLk being is at once a person, an animal, and nature itself. Therefore, we hereby officially amend Article 3 of the eLk Charter as follows:

§ 3 Equality:
Every eLk being is equal to every other.

This applies in particular to the dignity, personality, and freedom of all human and non-human persons, every human and non-human language, and every human and non-human literature.

Let us take care of our world—and now, of eLk 2025.