Just released!  United Natures -

An indepth documentary feature film on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, earth jurisprudence, philosophy, permaculture, spirituality and a neo-indigenous future for humanity released on June 1st 2013.

Directed and produced by Peter Charles Downey, United Natures stars some of the world’s most foremost environmental activists and Global Alliance members, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Cormac Cullinan,  Linda Sheehan, Prof. Judith Koons, Dr. Alessandro Pelizzon, Polly Higgins, and numerous others. Click to review the United Natures trailer or for more information at United Natures movie site.

United Natures – a United Nations of all species. Official documentary trailer 2013 from United Natures on Vimeo.

A new report launched by The Gaia Foundation, African Biodiversity Network (ABN), and allies, exposes the social and ecological atrocities and the toxic legacy of gadgets such as smartphones and laptops. From environmental destruction and contamination caused by extraction, exploitative working conditions during production, to the mountains of e-waste being shipped abroad, the report follows the birth, life and death of everyday gadgets and reveals their true cost to the planet and to future generations.

Short Circuit – The Lifecycle of our Electronic Gadgets and the True Cost to Earth is the follow-up to the 2012 report, Opening Pandora’s Box, which exposed the alarming scale and rate of growth of the extractive industries and the disastrous ecological impact that this is having across the world. Short Circuit turns our attention to a key driver of this growth – the surge in consumerism and an increasingly throw-away culture, fuelled by marketing and illusions of necessity, and supported by the built-in obsolescence of our electronic gadgets.

Among the thought provocative Stories of Creativity included in the report is Reconnecting with Earth Our Source of Life and Law by Carine Nadal which examines how we can re-connect with Earth, relearn her laws, and recognize Rights of Nature.

You can download the full report as a pdf here: SHORT CIRCUIT or read the Executive Summary.

Earth Charter International 

Cormac posed the question “Are our current governance systems appropriate for to the challenges of this 21st Century and protect the ecologoical integrity of Earth’s ecosystems?”  In addressing the question, he spoke of the critical role of Rights of Nature.

The webinar is available at Earth Charter Webinar on Global Governance.  Please note, the webinar starts at 22 minutes into the recording.  Advance your cursor to the O mark on the recording time line to start viewing at the time the session starts.  Cormac is the first speaker.

Linda Sheehan, Executive Director Earth Law Center spoke at the 3rd Interactive Dialogue of the United Nations General Assembly on Harmony with Nature on Earth Day April 22, 2013. Listen as Linda Sheehan speaks on creating Sustainable Human Communities, the necessary economic systems and the role of Rights of Nature.

Along with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and invited panelists, Ms Sheehan discussed alternative economic approaches that further a more ethical relationship with the Earth.

Read Linda’s remarks at “Caring for Home through Nature’s Rights”.

The full session is at UN General Assembly Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature.

The Law of The Seed aims to bring back biodiversity and recognition of farmers’ rights, to bring back democratic systems in society to shape laws as well as knowledge.

The Law of the Seed is put forward as a tool to be used by citizens everywhere and in every context to defend their seed freedom and seed sovereignty as well as to provide a practical guide to all future development of laws and policies on seed.

We hope that it will serve as a catalyst for citizens to spread awareness of the critical state of the seed and of biodiversity and of how science and laws are being manipulated, threatening the seed and food sovereignty of peoples in all parts of the world. We hope that citizens everywhere will use The Law of the Seed as an advocacy tool to push for local, regional and national legislation that favors and respects seed freedom and the law of the seed.

Navdanya.org and the Working Group on the The Law of the Seed.  For the full article visit, The Law of the Seed.

Thursday 6th June, Brisbane, Australia

For everyone in Brisbane/South East Queensland, you might be interested to join us for a free evening seminar at the Griffith University’s EcoCentre, Thursday 6th June titled “Should Mother Earth Have Legal Rights? An Introduction to Earth Jurisprudence and Rights of Nature“.

The rapidly growing ‘Rights of Nature’ movement seeks to weigh and balance the rights of humans against those of the whole Earth community. Ecuador have recognised Mother Nature in their constitution, Bolivia and more than a dozen municipal governments in the USA have Rights of Nature legislation and in New Zealand, the Whanganui River ecosystem has been granted ‘personhood’ rights. So where does Australia figure in this movement?

Details are provided below and on the EcoCentre’s website: http://wildlaw.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b5d06d46235932bfb4a96c966&id=41910d8b93&e=55984f85ac.

You can also visit AWLA’s facebook page for the event – http://wildlaw.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b5d06d46235932bfb4a96c966&id=8d07e544fe&e=55984f85ac

Date – Thursday 6th June 2013

Time – 5.30pm for light supper, seminar starts at 6pm Venue – EcoCentre, Griffith University Nathan Campus.

For a map please click here: http://wildlaw.us5.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b5d06d46235932bfb4a96c966&id=22e0d04518&e=55984f85ac

Speaker – Michelle Maloney, National Convenor, AWLA

This webinar is a prelude to the executive programme called: International Law, Global Governance and the Earth Charter Principles. This programme is organized by the Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development, in collaboration with IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and IUCN Academy of Environmental Law.

You can access the webinar at 3PM UTC/GMT  on May 22 through the following link (Please remember to check your local time):

http://earthcharter.wiziq.com/online-class/1247192-free-webinar-on-environmental-law-and-global-governance

And for more information, read here.

Please, pass this on to your friends, colleagues, and contacts and we hope to see you there!

Earth Charter International

Cormac Cullinan

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.

Peter Brown

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.

April 24, 2013

The Santa Barbara Public Library hosted an information session on hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “fracking,” put on by Global Exchange on Friday, April 19.

The group brought along a panel of experts consisting of University of California, Santa Barbara Professor of Geography Catherine Gautier, Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) member Ben Price, Environmental Lawyer Nathan Alley, State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, SLO Environmental activist Genie Blackwell, and Global Exchange representative Shannon Biggs.

Hydraulic fracturing is the process in which gas and oil companies drill deep into the Earth’s crust to get to the bedrock that has gas or oil trapped underneath. The company sends down pressurized water down to break up the rock and to release the natural gas for a source of clean burning energy.

However, the Global Exchange is convinced that although the gas is clean burning, the processes of retrieving it is much more detrimental to the environment than burning fossil fuels.

Read the full article at : Fracking up the Environment: Organization Urges Public to Ban Hydraulic Fracturing in California