Between the base and the peak, tacit agreements of detail, silent contract of the whole. Who climbs the route? Neither you, nor me, nor them: us. But how to name this ‘we’ of the rope party, how to say or describe what is done without words? Us: welded, linked, under the contract of the rope’ (Récits d’Humanisme, page 82). 

Serres learnt a lot about the underlying contracts of nature through the experience of mountain climbing. There were individual risks and dangers, but also a complete reliance on the movements of the rest of the group, all roped together. 

In The Natural Contract first published in 1990, Serres wrote about the overall legal necessity to rethink our contract with all nature.  Since then, under the umbrella of the ‘rights of nature’, local groups and Indigenous communities have sought to embed the legal status of rivers, seas, forests and many other areas of nature. Various countries have also rewritten their constitutions to recognise and defend the earth and life beyond the human population.

Serres recognised the importance of these legal steps, but his proposal goes further.  The discourse of rights does not reach ‘the quick and quivering of things’ (2015b: 121). Serres’ proposal for a natural contract, like the social contract, is not a specific law. It is an overall ethical agreement to live in a certain way.  Peter Burdon runs close to Serres in proposing that ‘Earth rights can be seen first and foremost as articulating an ethical demand’. What is more ‘they are not principally legal or proto legal and even though they have inspired legislation, this is a further fact, rather than their constitutive character’.

Critics have asked: who will sign this contract – mountains!? Serres answers firstly that nobody signs the social contract, but more significantly he refers to the Common Story and how we are discovering the intimate bonds and contracts of all nature whether we refer to atoms, cells, plants or animals. He even refers to gravity as the most universal bond. In other words, the contract already exists. Interestingly, James Lovelock, who with Lynn Margulis, invented the Gaia hypothesis, refers to an underlying contract of nature. He writes:

‘The precedent in Nature for enduring contracts is so strong that as an intelligent species we already have the map of the way ahead’ (Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine, page 154).

Like Lovelock, Serres embeds his idea of a contract by referring to processes of symbiosis that were at the heart of Lynn Margulis’s research. We need to stop acting like parasites. We need a pact of symbiosis and peace. Some have said that such an idea does not match the urgency and complexity of the current ecological crisis. Serres replies that the depth and the breadth of the crisis is profound and needs a fundamental change in how we respond to the rest of nature if we are to avoid the drive to increasing barbarity in relation to the earth and each other. 

Finally, the proposal for a natural contract should not be seen in isolation. It is integral to Serres’ overall ecological philosophy and politics.

Starting points

The Natural Contract (English edition 1995) and the website The Global Alliance of the Rights of Nature (GARN).

Blog

The blog offers an opportunity to explore those who have recognised and researched the intimate bonds and contracts of nature. Those that spring to mind include:

Lynn Margulis’s Symbiotic Planet (1998) – the story of the evolution of bacteria.

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss (2021) – a natural and cultural history of moss.

Melvin Sheldrake’s Tangled Life (2020) – how fungi make our worlds.

Sam Kean’s Caesar’s Last Breath (2017) – the story of the air around us.

David Quammen’s The Tangled Tree (2018) – a history of life.

In terms of the rights of nature, The Global Network for the Rights of Nature (GARN) is an essential resource – see Links