Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence: What on Earth is it About? read more …
by Lucy King, TheSydneyGlobalist
The case for Rights of Nature is being explored around the world. Read as Lucy King explores the emergence of a new jurisprudence and body of laws recognizing that Nature has rights. Lucy asks the timely question: Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence: What on Earth is it About?
“The early 21st century has been marked by unprecedented global environmental destruction. We are witnessing the highest levels of biodiversity decline, species extinction, natural resource depletion, pollution and deforestation that humanity has seen. Decades of environmental regulation have failed to improve most of our environmental problems significantly. One only needs to consider the list of shortcomings of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference to realise that our current approach towards environmental protection is not working.
Humanity urgently needs to get off the destructive path that it is now on. The question is: how? To paraphrase Albert Einstein, we simply cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that we used when we created them. This article examines several recent initiatives of individuals, communities, organisations and governments in different parts of the world that have embarked on a revolutionary path. The pioneers on this path think, speak and act differently in relation to Nature, recognising it as a subject of rights, rather than an object to be regulated and controlled. The parameters of this path are set by an emerging philosophy of law called Earth Jurisprudence and an associated body of laws termed ‘Wild Law’.