Legal bid for Ecuador forest to be recognised as song co-creator

A groundbreaking petition is set to be submitted to Ecuador’s copyright office, aiming to recognize the Los Cedros cloud forest as a co-creator of the composition “Song of the Cedars.” This initiative, led by the More Than Human Life (Moth) project, marks the first legal attempt to acknowledge an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art.

The song features a unique blend of sounds, incorporating melodies from echo-locating bats, howler monkeys, rustling leaves, and even an underground recording of the soil taken from the location where a new species of fungus was discovered. It was composed during a field trip to Ecuador by musician Cosmo Sheldrake, author Robert Macfarlane, field mycologist Giuliana Furci from the NGO Fungi Foundation, and legal scholar César Rodríguez-Garavito.

The group created the song while camping in the high forest, as part of Macfarlane’s research for his upcoming book, “Is a River Alive?” set to publish in May 2025. Macfarlane expressed the collaborative nature of the work, stating, “It wasn’t written within the forest, it was written with the forest. This was absolutely and inextricably an act of co-authorship with the set of processes, relations, and beings that that forest and its rivers comprise.”

The songwriting process unfolded one evening around the campfire when Macfarlane began sharing verse. Sheldrake utilized a mobile app to layer recorded forest sounds and create melodies that complemented the lyrics. Furci reflected on the experience: “Night came, the fire was lit, and we were all tuning in to make some sounds and record others… That’s how the song emerged. It was very much shaped by the time we’d left that high camp.”

In a pivotal 2021 ruling, Ecuador’s constitutional court recognized the legal personhood of the Los Cedros biological reserve, which led to the cancellation of mining permits in the area. Rodríguez-Garavito noted the importance of this ruling, saying, “It gives us confidence and a firm legal foundation that we can make this claim in Ecuador. The copyright agency will have to consider the constitutional court’s decision.”

Should the copyright office decline the request, Rodríguez-Garavito indicated they would pursue the matter through Ecuador’s courts. If the office grants moral authorship to the forest alongside the human co-creators, it could set a precedent that would influence copyright authorities in other countries.

It’s important to clarify that moral authorship does not equate to economic rights, meaning the forest will not earn royalties. However, all profits from streaming will be redirected to a fund for its protection. The song will be freely available for download, with Sheldrake set to perform it at Cop16 during an event focused on recognizing fungi alongside plants and animals.

Furci articulated the significance of launching the song at this event, stating, “We will be looking at new ways to measure, diagnose, treat, and protect the living world, incorporating a kingdom of life that has never been recognized in those legal frameworks.”

Macfarlane emphasized the need to acknowledge the creative contributions of the natural world, arguing that, “So much art, arguably all art, is made collaboratively with the living world, but the law doesn’t recognize this.” He expressed optimism about the potential outcome, asserting, “If successful, this will be the first time in any jurisdiction that a more-than-human being— a river-forest in this case— has been recognized as a moral author in a work of art. That feels to us both incredibly exciting and drastically overdue.”

Rodríguez-Garavito added, “This is an experiment and an invitation. We undertake this project very much in the mode of inviting other artists, lawyers, and creatives to think about the confines of property and authorship and take action along similar lines in their own professional niches.”