Song of the Cedars

I have been reading lovely stories and news about nature and came across something really interesting:

Could a forest be credited as a co-creator of music?

That’s the groundbreaking aim of the MOTH Project, (The More Than Human Life (MOTH) Project is an interdisciplinary initiative advancing rights and well-being for humans, non-humans, and the web of life that sustains us all) which seeks to have Ecuador’s Los Cedros cloud forest recognized as a moral author of Song of the Cedars.

Composed around a campfire, the song blends the talents of writer Robert Macfarlane, musician Cosmo Sheldrake, mycologist Giuliana Furci, and MOTH founder César Rodríguez-Garavito—alongside the forest itself. They incorporated natural sounds like howler monkeys, rustling leaves, and bats into the composition.

If the petition to Ecuador’s copyright office succeeds, it would be the first time an ecosystem is legally recognized as a co-creator, with streaming proceeds supporting the forest’s protection. Macfarlane called it “drastically overdue,” adding, “The forest wrote it with us.”