Gaia Foundation News

Carine Nadal | 14 years ago

1 UKELA Wild law Education group

Cathy has been coordinating the UKELA Wild law Education Subgroup which involves members interested in promoting Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence in education and academia. The main shared goal is to encourage awareness and discussion of WL ideas and examples of their application in practice. At present, the focus is on academic institutions where students, researchers and teaching staff are engaging in subjects which link to Wild Law including law, philosophy, environmental science and related disciplines.

There are several universities already teaching Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence in the UK. These include Plymouth University, Brighton University, UCL and the University of Kent, where Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence are on the syllabuses of several undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Activities by members of the group have included:
– Guest lectures on Wild Law in universities:
– College of Law students by Carine Nadal and Ian Mason.
– BPP Law School by Ian Mason.
– Oxford Brookes University, Environmental Assessment and Management students by Nick Flynn.
– UCL Masters environmental law students by Ian Mason and Carine Nadal.
– Brighton University by Simon Boyle.
– Emerging interest from new institutions (e.g. Kingston University, Bristol Law School and Brunel University) to host guest lectures on WL/EJ

– Public Wild law talks
To reach a wider audience, the Wild law group have been organizing wild law talks for the public in London.  In January, the Wild law group organized an introductory talk on Wild Law: Post Copenhagen with speakers – Carine, Polly Higgins and Linda Siegele.   50 lawyers, students, academics and members of various Transition Towns groups attended.  Due to interest from its participants, the talk was subsequently repeated to the emerging Transition Town Hampstead for about 30 locals.  For more information please read http://www.ukela.org/content/page/1693/COP15%20article%20elawx.pdf

Feedback has been positive e.g. provoking subject and interesting to hear real examples of wild laws.

– Calendar of events and presentation materials on Wild Law
Cathy has been compiling a Calendar of past and forthcoming talks on Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence. The calendar will provide space for speakers to share experiences, record details of feedback, questions discussed, etc.

Cathy has also been gathering a collection of materials (mostly power point presentations) for educational purposes by anyone wanting to give a talk on WL. Following authorisation from authors, the resources will be hosted on the UKELA website’s Wild Law pages for free use by anyone giving a talk on WL / EJ as well as for general research purposes. There will be a general disclaimer saying that materials are authors’ own and have not necessarily been independently reviewed.

– Speaker Training Sessions
Liz Rivers has offered to run speaker training sessions in October/November for people who would like to give talks on WL / EJ but as yet have little or no experience in this.  The workshops are likely to run on a Saturday with a small group of participants who would like to receive training in both public speaking and in particular on content for talks on Wild Law. Participants, from students to members of local environmental groups, may then use this to give talks to their contacts and other networks.  In some cases, participants may subsequently join the pool of speakers within the Education subgroup, and thereby be a resource to provide guest lectures on WL. There is also the possibility of running an ‘advanced’ session subsequently, for more experienced speakers.

2 EJ study groups

In 2009 Gaia revived monthly study groups on EJ, inspired by similar sessions by international partners in Ethiopia and Kenya.  Sessions led by Ian and coordinated by Carine provided space for deeper discussions on themes including EJ principles, practice of EJ by indigenous peoples and experiential learning on Hampstead Heath.  There is growing interest to reactivate these sessions.

3 EJ library/resource centres

The Gaia Foundation is evolving an EJ Resource Centre to provide communities, grassroots lawyers and organisations, academics and policy-makers access to a library of international legal precedents, publications and case studies on Earth Jurisprudence. While the new website is being developed there is a temporary one at https://wiki.gaianet.org/groups/gaiapublic/

The UKELA’s website and Centre for Earth Jurisprudence in the U.S. also host key EJ publications and resources on EJ and WL.

4 EJ syllabus

EJ is being taught within environmental law modules in the UK in universities such as Brighton (Simon), Plymouth (Jason), Scotland (Jamie), UCL and Kent.  There is some interest in consolidating and integrating these materials into an EJ syllabus for law schools in the UK.

International partners in the EJ Network who are also teaching an EJ syllabus can offer inspiration and guidance for designing and implementing a UK syllabus e.g. Centre for Earth Jurisprudence in the U.S – since 2007 an EJ syllabus has been taught as an elective in 2 law schools.  An EJ syllabus is also being taught in Australia (Peter Burdon in all 3 law schools in South Australia), Malaysia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Kenya, Colombia, Europe – Sweden and Norway.

About the author

Carine Nadal

carine.nadal@example.com'