Bottlenose dolphins living off the coast of South Korea’s Jeju Island are threatened by boats, discarded fishing gear, construction noise, pollution and runoff from fish farms. But a group of the country’s environmentalists and experts are campaigning for the dolphins to be given “legal personhood” status to better protect them.
It is the first attempt by Korea to give an animal the status, and is part of an expanding movement to recognize the legal rights of nonhuman species.
“Since 2023, Jeju island’s government has been working to introduce Korea’s first-ever ‘eco legal personhood’ system to protect Jeju’s environmental and ecological values and ‘set a new standard’ for domestic ecological and environmental policies. In order to introduce the environmental personhood system, Jeju has been operating a working group composed of academics, lawyers, and experts to come up with a proposal,” a press release from Eco Jurisprudence Monitor said.
The proposed amendment to an existing law would recognize the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin as “eco-legal entities, granting them certain rights and legal protections to ensure long-term ecological sustainability.”
The amendment would also require the formation of a committee to advocate for and protect the dolphins’ rights, as well as establish funding mechanisms to support the protections.
An estimated 120 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins make their home in the waters off Jeju Island, according to a press release from Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Many of them have visible scars from being entangled in fishing gear or from being struck by boats and jet skis that speed through the waters surrounding the island.
“Because the dolphins cannot cut the fishing lines themselves, we decided to cut them for them,” said Jeongjoon Lee, a Korean director known as “Dolphin Man,” as The Guardian reported. Lee is known for his work helping and documenting Jeju’s bottlenose dolphin population.
“In one case, we had to cut wire from two different places, one was going in through the dolphin’s face to its body, and another from around its tail where it had become tangled,” Lee said.
Jeongjoon Lee, known as “Dolphin Man.” Young Nam Kim / Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation
Miyeon Kim, who works with local NGO Marine Animal Research and Conservation (MARC), said the purpose of giving the dolphins legal personhood status is for advocates to be able to take action on their behalf if a company or individual threatens their livelihood.
“The endangered Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, which has lived harmoniously with the haenyeo (female sea divers) in Jeju waters, is an important species that requires protection,” said Governor of Jeju Oh Young-hoon in the press release from the ministry. “With supporters, the Jeju government will do its best to pass a revision to the Special Act on the Establishment of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the Development of the Free International City to designate Korea’s first eco-legal person.”
Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List of Threatened Species, reported The Guardian. However, IUCN said lack of data on the species makes it hard to determine if the status is accurate.
Kim said one of the strategies MARC uses to protect the dolphins is to personalize them, so that local people can better relate to them. The group produced a booklet displaying a photograph of each dolphin’s dorsal fin with their name.
“It’s important for us to be able to identify individual dolphins to be able to record scientific facts but it’s also important for the islanders. People have to understand and really relate to endangered species in order for these [kinds] of things [establishing legal personhood] to work,” Kim said, as The Guardian reported.
In April, a marine protected area was designated on the west side of Jeju island to safeguard the dolphins.
Kim said current rules governing the area, like preventing arbitrary development, need to be strengthened.
“The law bans more than two recreation boats coming within a 100-metre radius of the dolphins but there are a lot of different boats in that area including fishing boats, and at the moment we can’t do anything about those,” Kim explained.
Lee has spent a lot of time with the dolphins, swimming alongside them, providing help when needed and filming them. He said additional conservation measures couldn’t come fast enough.
“Sometimes I see so many boats surrounding the dolphins all watching them and chasing them around,” Lee said. “It is good that we now have a small space to begin to protect them more, but really we need to designate that whole side of the island as a protected area in order to keep them safe for the future.”
The post South Korea Could Grant Bottlenose Dolphins off Jeju Island ‘Legal Personhood’ Status to Better Protect Them appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/bottlenose-dolphins-south-korea-legal-personhood-protection.html
As humanity grows in its understanding of the complexity of living systems, we will encounter many opportunities to restore nature. Taoist author Deng Ming-Dao wrote in his daily meditations, 365 Tao, that “Life is one endless equation of darkness, brilliance, fragrance, color, sound, and sensation.”
Imagine the joys of nature, live them fiercely and gently in your daily life, and the world can grow anew.
Earth911 inspirations. Post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click the poster to get a larger image.
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https://earth911.com/inspire/earth911-inspiration-life-is-an-endless-equation/
Green Living
Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Author Topher McDougal Asks If Earth Is Evolving A Planetary Consciousness
Would you like to read a transcript of this episode? Introducing Sustainability In Your Ear transcripts: Learn more.
What if Earth is developing a planetary collective intelligence emerging from the convergence of ecological crisis, new global information systems, and the data-crunching capabilities of artificial intelligence? This provocative question drives economist Topher McDougal’s book, Gaia Wakes: Earth’s Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation. On this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear, we explore McDougal’s sweeping theory that our planet may be in the early stages of developing what he calls a “Gaiacephalos”—a planetary consciousness that could fundamentally reshape humanity’s role in the global ecosystem. McDougal opens his book with a striking metaphor from Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the Enterprise’s computer systems flicker into sentience, its emerging “personality” acting out disagreements in the holodeck that nearly destroy the ship. That episode, McDougal argues, mirrors our current moment. As environmental devastation accelerates and technologies become increasingly networked, we may be witnessing the birth pangs of a planetary intelligence that could guide us toward survival or react chaotically to the damage humans have caused.
Building on James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which views Earth as a self-regulating living system, McDougal explores the profound and unsettling implications of Gaiacephalos. What is humanity’s role? Noting a paradox in human development, that societies have become increasingly peaceful at the expense of massive environmental degradation, McDougal discusses how concepts like “progress” and “free will” might change in a world governed by an emergent planetary intelligence. Drawing on ancient myths—from Hopi legends to the Tower of Babel—McDougal uses traditional stories as lenses for understanding global transformation. Throughout our conversation, he repeatedly references the work of René Descartes and how his mind-body split has defined Western thinking since the Enlightenment. He argues that this mechanistic view prevents us from understanding emerging systems holistically—whether we’re talking about AI, collective intelligence, or planetary consciousness. We keep separating the physical system that performs calculations from the experience of thought itself, missing the integrated whole. Consequently, becoming “indigenous to our times” offers a path forward. Rather than appropriating Indigenous ways of life, he suggests we need to learn how to live fully in relationship with our current systems and places. True indigeneity means understanding our role within larger systems and, as the apex predator currently destroying the ecosystem we depend on, being thoughtful about our interactions within that system.
What if Earth is developing a planetary collective intelligence emerging from the convergence of ecological crisis, new global information systems, and the data-crunching capabilities of artificial intelligence? This provocative question drives economist Topher McDougal’s book, Gaia Wakes: Earth’s Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation. On this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear, explore McDougal’s sweeping theory that our planet may be in the early stages of developing what he calls a “Gaiacephalos”—a planetary consciousness that could fundamentally reshape humanity’s role in the global ecosystem. McDougal opens his book with a striking metaphor from Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the Enterprise’s computer systems flicker into sentience, its emerging “personality” acting out disagreements in the holodeck that nearly destroy the ship. That episode, McDougal argues, mirrors our current moment. As environmental devastation accelerates and technologies become increasingly networked, we may be witnessing the birth pangs of a planetary intelligence that could guide us toward survival or react chaotically to the damage humans have caused.
Building on James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which views Earth as a self-regulating living system, McDougal explores the profound and unsettling implications of Gaiacephalos. What is humanity’s role? Noting a paradox in human development, that societies have become increasingly peaceful at the expense of massive environmental degradation, McDougal discusses how concepts like “progress” and “free will” might change in a world governed by an emergent planetary intelligence. Drawing on ancient myths—from Hopi legends to the Tower of Babel—McDougal uses traditional stories as lenses for understanding global transformation. Throughout our conversation, McDougal repeatedly references the work of René Descartes and how his mind-body split has defined Western thinking since the Enlightenment. He argues that this mechanistic view prevents us from understanding emerging systems holistically—whether we’re talking about AI, collective intelligence, or planetary consciousness. We keep separating the physical system that performs calculations from the experience of thought itself, missing the integrated whole. McDougal’s concept of becoming “indigenous to our times” offers a path forward. Rather than appropriating Indigenous ways of life, he suggests we need to learn how to live fully in relationship with our current systems and places. True indigeneity means understanding our role within larger systems and, as the apex predator currently destroying the ecosystem we depend on, being thoughtful about our interactions within that system.
Gaia Wakes poses challenging questions about whether we’re building toward a benign planetary intelligence or heading toward dystopian risks. McDougal doesn’t offer easy answers, but he provides a framework for thinking about how technological trends—from AI and smart infrastructure to global information networks—might be assembling the components of a planetary brain. The book is part speculative theory, part analytical deep dive. It challenges readers to think beyond traditional boundaries between nature and technology, individual and collective intelligence, human agency and planetary systems. You can learn more about Topher McDougal and his work at https://tophermcdougal.com/. Gaia Wakes is available on Amazon, Powell’s Books, and at local bookstores.
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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on August 25, 2025.
The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Author Topher McDougal Asks If Earth Is Evolving A Planetary Consciousness appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/podcast/sustainability-in-your-ear-author-topher-mcdougal-asks-if-earth-is-evolving-a-planetary-consciousness/
Yes, we resorted to a Britney Spears reference, but this isn’t cute anymore. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2025 was the second-hottest year on record, with average global temperatures reaching 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels. Only 2024’s record-breaking heat was worse.
The past 11 years are now the warmest 11 years in the 176-year history of temperature records.
What is especially concerning about 2025 is that it occurred during La Niña, a natural Pacific cooling pattern that usually brings lower temperatures. This time, it did not help. Climate scientist James Hansen reportsthat global warming is now speeding up by 0.31°C per decade, and he predicts we will pass the +1.7°C mark by 2027.
For the first time, the average temperature from 2023 to 2025 was higher than the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Agreement. Scientists say this threshold is crucial to prevent severe and lasting climate impacts for people alive today. In 2024, atmospheric CO₂ reached 423.9 parts per million, which is 53% higher than pre-industrial levels.
Meanwhile, the cascade of extreme weather continues: heat waves are now 10 times more likely than a decade ago, Arctic sea ice hit its lowest winter maximum on record, wildfires are devastating Greece and Turkey, and typhoons are forcing mass evacuations across Southeast Asia.
“Each year above 1.5 degrees will hammer economies, deepen inequalities and inflict irreversible damage,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
The measurements are undeniable. The data cannot be denied. Still, the United States government under the Trump administration is suppressing climate information and reversing clean energy policies to support coal, oil, and gas. COP30 ended without a clear promise to phase out fossil fuels.
As the planet cooks in industrial era pollution, playing politics with climate science is beyond irresponsible. It’s dangerous.
The post Oops, We Did It Again: 2025 Second Hottest Year On Record appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/earth-watch/oops-we-did-it-again-2025-second-hottest-year-on-record/
This Won’t End Well for the Minnesota Shooter
DeBriefed 9 January 2026: US to exit global climate treaty; Venezuelan oil ‘uncertainty’; ‘Hardest truth’ for Africa’s energy transition
DeBriefed 9 January 2026: US to exit global climate treaty; Venezuelan oil ‘uncertainty’; ‘Hardest truth’ for Africa’s energy transition
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