A couple of months ago, courtesy of the Gaia Foundation, I had an opportunity to see something of Earth jurisprudence in practice. A critical aspect of EJ is community ecological governance – the idea that local indigenous people are most likely to know best how to manage their local environment. We went as part of […]
‘Industrial agriculture is threatening the food security of our planet’ according to Indian scientist and activist, Dr Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, the Indian seed collection and preservation network, speaking at a meeting of the Gaia Foundation in London. While over a billion people suffer starvation or severe malnutrition a small number of international corporations […]
The UKELA conference was extraordinary. More than forty practical lawyers, academics and students met together at the Magdalen Project, an educational organic farm in Somerset, to deepen their sense of connection with nature and discuss how that connection might influence formal law. Dr Stephan Harding, holistic scientist and author Animate Earth led the discussions with […]
The UK Environmental Law Association holds its annual Wild Law weekend just after the September equinox and it was useful to review the developments of the past year. When we were in Derbyshire last September the people of Ecuador were voting in a referendum for their new Constitution and they shortly afterwards became the first […]
All over the world, for countless centuries, people who we now call indigenous have lived in intimate communion with the world they inhabit. Lacking any sense of separation they found in sun, moon and stars, in river and forest, lake and mountain huge populations of close relatives; of brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, ancestors. The Earth […]
In east Africa, where steps are being taken to protect terrain with spiritual significance, local discussions have global significance. ‘The trees are alive and we are alive. It is the same life. When we injure the forests we injure ourselves. That is why we must protect and preserve them.’ On the shores of Lake Victoria […]
Under the new legal and social perspective called for by supporters of Earth Jurisprudence, the language of rights would become a code of respect as humans discover and honour their responsibility for the natural environment. According to the Isha Upanishad, ‘The man who can see all beings in himself, himself in all beings, knows no […]
Hello. I’m Ian Mason and this is my blog. I am writing for Eric because a deep interest in Earth Jurisprudence and a long background in the law have led to my abiding interest in the developing possibilities of environmental law. Not many lawyers are philosophers, but I believe that there is a real responsibility […]
