Welcome to the Emergence Magazine podcast. I'm Emmanuel Vaughn Lee, host of this show

recorded on the unseated lands of the Coast Mewok peoples in present-day Marin County. In each episode,

we explore the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality, with the world's leading ecological thinkers, writers,

poets, and storytellers, through in-depth conversations, author-narrated essays, poetry, and

nature connection practices.

Los Cedros Cloud Forest in Ecuador is an orchestra of toucan calls, cicada strings, and leaf chatter.

In 2022, during a field trip there, my college is Juliana Ferci, author Robert McFarlane,

legal scholar and more than human life collective

founder, Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, a musician Cosmo Sheldrick wrote and recorded Song of the Cedars,

a composition made not just in the forest, but in conscious collaboration with it. In 2024, the group attempted to push

the boundaries of the existing legal framework that acknowledges and protects the forest's

personhood by filing a legal petition to recognize the moral authorship of the Lacedros Forest as a co-creator of the song.

His petition was rejected. However, the forsome persist.

They have appealed the decision and anticipate taking it through the Ecuadorian courts.

If their efforts are successful, it will be the first time the authorship of an ecosystem,

as in recognized in the creation of art.

This week, we return to this conversation between Rob, Cesar, Cosmo, and Juliana.

It explores their time in the forest and their efforts to gain legal recognition for its role in creating the song.

Rich with field recordings of Los Cedrocape and the tracks polyphony of human and more than human melodies, this conversation invites you to listen to what true creative reciprocity with the Earth can sound like. The

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