The Global Peace Initiative of Women announces the recent release of Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, a collection of essays edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and presented as a spiritual response to our present ecological crisis.
“Our present ecological crisis is the greatest man-made disaster this planet has ever faced. Its accelerating climate change, species depletion, pollution and acidification of the oceans. A central but rarely addressed aspect of this crisis is our forgetfulness of the sacred nature of creation, and how this affects our relationship to the environment. There is a pressing need to articulate a spiritual response to this ecological crisis. This is vital and necessary if we are to help bring the world as a living whole back into balance.” – from Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
Today, at a time of multiple crises, we need to move away from thinking of nature as dead matter to valuing her biodiversity, clean water, and seeds. For this, nature herself will be the best teacher. When nature is a teacher, we co-create with her—we recognize her agency and her rights. Dr Vandana Shiva, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest
Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth is edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, with contributions from many individuals GPIW has had the honor to work with over the years — contributions from Chief Oren Lyons, Vandana Shiva, Thomas Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh,Chief Tamale Bwoya, John Stanley, David R. Loy, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Brian Swimme, Sister Miriam MacGillis, Wendell Berry, Winona LaDuke, Dr. Susan Murphy Roshi, Satish Kumar, Joanna Macy, Geneen Marie Haugen, Jules Cashford, Bill Plotkin, Sandra Ingerman, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, Fr. Richard Rohr, and Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.
The book is available through the Spiritual Ecology website where you will also find additional articles, magnificent photos of our natural world and fascinating video interviews on this important theme. We have found this website to be a tremendous learning resource and encourage everyone to visit and share the link, particularly with young people who are feeling deep concern for our planet and for their future – these wise voices provide a welcome insight.
Earth Charter International hosted international environmental law and global governance experts Cormac Cullinan and Peter Brown for a webinar on Environmental Law and Global Governance. Cullinan and Brown offered a critical analysis of the current global governance system for sustainability and the role of ethics and the Earth Charter in the needed paradigm shift.
On Wednesday, May 22nd at 3PM UTC/GMT, Earth Charter International and the EC Center for Education for Sustainable Development will be hosting a one and half hour webinar on international and environmental law and global governance with experts Peter Brown and Cormac Cullinan. These two leaders in their respective fields will put their work into context as well as relate the importance of the Earth Charter to their fields. Attendance is free for all and participation will be available through the chat function on our platform.
Cormac Cullinan is a senior environmental lawyer and adviser on institutional, policy and regulatory reform in the fields of environment and natural resource management. His work in pioneering a legal philosophy that restores an ecological perspective to governance systems (Earth jurisprudence) is internationally recognised and in 2008 led to his inclusion in “Planet Savers: 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists”. He was admitted as an attorney in March 1989 and has specialised in environmental law since 1992 when he completed a Masters degree in environmental law at the University of London. With talents that include strong creative communication, writing, drafting and leadership skills, Cormac is known for developing practical and innovative approaches. He is an expert on international and South African environmental law and policy and acts for a wide range of public sector, private sector and NGO clients. Cormac is also a director of EnAct International, an honorary research associate of the Universtity of Cape Town, and a member of the IUCN Environmental Law Commission. Wide-ranging experience in policy formulation has given Cormac particular expertise in drafting legislation and international treaties as well as in designing and strengthening governance systems (including laws, policies and institutions). He has worked on these issues in more than 20 countries, including 10 in sub-Saharan Africa. In the academic field he has lectured and written widely on governance issues related to human interactions with the environment and is the author of Wild Law as well as of several works commissioned and published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He led the drafting of the 2010 Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.
Professor Brown’s teaching, research, and service are concerned with ethics, governance, and the protection of the environment. His appointments at McGill are in the School of Environment, the Department of Geography, and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences. Before coming to McGill he was Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland’s graduate School of Public Affairs. While at the University of Maryland he founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, as well as the School of Public Policy itself. Professor Brown established the School’s Environmental Policy Programs to operate not only at the University’s College Park campus, but also at Maryland’s Department of the Environment, and at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He has held numerous administrative positions within the University of Maryland System. He has taught at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Washington, and at St. John’s College in Annapolis. In the early 1970s, he was Visiting Fellow at Battelle Seattle Research Center and Assistant Vice President for Research Operations at The Urban Institute. He is currently a Research Scholar at the Center for Humans and Nature. Professor Brown is the author of Restoring the Public Trust: A Fresh Vision for Progressive Government in America (Beacon Press, 1994), and Ethics, Economics, and International Relations: Transparent Sovereignty in the Commonwealth of Life (Edinburgh University Press, 2000); re-published in Canada by Black Rose Press (2001) as The Commonwealth of Life: A Treatise on Stewardship Economics. He is currently working on three new books. One is tentatively entitled Reverence for Life: A Philosophy for Civilization which is intended as a sequel to Albert Schweitzer’s Philosophy of Civilization published in the 1920s. He is also a co-author of a book on macro-economics entitled Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy. With Jeremy Schmidt he is co-editing and authoring sections of a volume tentatively entitled Water Ethics: The Moral Foundations of Natural Resource Policy.
