It begins:

The following milestones chart the evolution of Earth Jurisprudence or Earth Law, which recognises the Earth as the primary source of law and the need to comply with these laws to restore the health and integrity of the whole Earth Community and future generations. Key dates include the practice and development of Earth Law principles, intercultural exchanges, legal precedents, events, publications and emergence of alliances.

Deep roots – Time immemorial

For millennia indigenous peoples have been living according to the laws of Earth and developed Earth-centred customs, lores and way of life to ensure they maintain the health and integrity of the whole Earth Community, for present and future generations.

Beginning 20th Century

The writings of philosophers such as Jung and Einstein confirmed that for most of human history we have understood that the Earth is the source of law. The industrial belief that law is made by humans is very recent and dangerous – as they and others warned.

1945

Following the Atomic bomb, Einstein warned that: ‘With the splitting of the atom, everything has changed, save our mode of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled disaster.’ Einstein reminded us that our Earth is finite.

It continues at www.gaiafoundation.org/history-earth-law

11th April, 2013 – Posted by Shannon Biggs
Reprinted from Global Exchange Media Release
First-in-California law seeks to make sustainability legal

On April 9, the City Council of Santa Monica voted 7-0 to adopt the state’s first ever Bill of Rights for Sustainability, directing the city to “recognize the rights of people, natural communities and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish.” Santa Monica joins dozens of U.S. communities, the nations of Ecuador, Bolivia, and New Zealand in the fast-growing movement for Nature’s Rights.

With the passage of this ordinance, Santa Monica challenges the legal status of nature as merely property, and empowers the City or residents to bring suit on behalf of local ecosystems. While not eliminating property ownership, these new laws seek to eliminate the authority of a property owner to destroy entire ecosystems that exist and depend upon that property. The ordinance also mandates the City to follow the Sustainable City Plan as a guide for decision-making to maximize environmental benefits and reduce or eliminate negative environmental impacts.

“As a city with very little green space or fresh local water, becoming a model for sustainability and moving toward self-reliance is important for our community’s long term well-being,” says Cris Guttierez, organizer for Santa Monica Neighbors Unite!, a group that organized and mobilized residents to support the law. “We’re proud to be on the cutting edge of environmental protection.”

more https://therightsofnature.org/tag/celdf/

From Carine Nadal

Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre Coordinator and legal researcher
The Gaia Foundation
6 Heathgate Place
Agincourt Road
London NW3 2NU
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 74280053
Fax: +44 20 74280056
https://www.gaiafoundation.org

Dear All,

Good news to share – a report on rights of Nature by Global Exchange,
Council of Canadians and Fundacion Pachamama which highlights how we
are breaking the laws of Nature, offers positive legal precedents and
calls for a movement to practice a mutually enhancing presence on Earth.

For more information please see press release below…..

Do continue sharing your stories and materials which contribute to the
growing philosophy and practice of governance systems which complies
with the laws of the Earth for the benefit of the whole Earth
Community (aka Earth Jurisprudence/Earth law/Wild law/Community
Ecological Governance).

Happy reading, and warm wishes,
Carine
 

 
 For Immediate Release
 Contact: Jeff Conant, 998 165 7349 (UK phone number)
 
 We Fail to Respect Nature’s Rights at Our Own Peril, New Report Warns
 Report released at COP 16 offers paradigm shifting climate solutions
 
 December 6, 2010, Cancun, Mexico – As the COP16 climate talks
 entered their second week, three civil society groups released a
 report entitled, “Does Nature Have Rights: Transforming Grassroots
 Organizing to Protect the People and the Planet.” The report,
 compiled by Global Exchange, the Council of Canadians and Fundacion
 Pachamama, sheds light on “the Rights of Nature,” a paradigm-
 shifting approach to legislating resource use. Illuminating essays
 by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, social and environmental
 activists Maude Barlow, Shannon Biggs, and others demonstrate the
 need to broaden legal frameworks to recognize ecological limits,
 natural laws, and the interdependency of all life.
 
 Out of a landmark gathering of social movements in Bolivia last
 April emerged the Cochabamba People’s Agreement, honoring the Rights
 of Nature; this document was later merged into the UNFCCC
 negotiating text. When the text was released to delegates at COP 16,
 however, all reference to Cochabamba had been removed.
 
 Shannon Biggs, Community Rights Director with Global Exchange,
 states, “The Rights of Nature offers a platform for action to
 challenge the market-based approach that dominates the UN COP
 process.”
  
  As the report outlines, “Entire human societies, our global economic
  system and indeed our structures of law, place humans not just apart
  from, but actually above nature. But what is climate change but
  Nature telling us we have lived beyond the limits of nature’s law?”
  
  This report calls for action from the community-level to the U.N.,
  and offers case studies of legal changes already underway in favor
  of the Rights of Nature. Last month, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became
  the first major U.S. city to ban natural gas drilling while
  elevating community decision-making and the rights of nature over
  corporate ‘rights.’”
  
  While the number of communities taking this approach to ecosystem
  protection is growing, it is also being actively pursued at the
  national level. In 2008, Ecuador became the first nation to include
  the Rights of Nature in its Constitution.
  
  “As a country devastated by oil exploitation, industrial agriculture
  and international debt, Ecuador needs a bulwark against the
  corporate plunder of our natural riches. Recognizing the Rights of
  Nature in our national laws begins to provide that protection,” said
  Belen Paez of Fundacion Pachamama.
  
  “In order to survive, we need a change in the human relationship
  with the natural world from one of exploitation to one of democracy
  with other beings,” says Maude Barlow, national chairperson with the
  Council of Canadians, “If we are members of the earth’s community,
  then our rights must be balanced against those of plants, animals,
  rivers and ecosystems.”
  
  Copies of the report in English, “Does Nature Have Rights:
  Transforming Grassroots Organizing to Protect the People and the
  Planet” and a summarized version in Spanish, can be downloaded at:
https://www.globalexchange.org/doesnaturehaverights
  
  

  
  “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river
has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then
will you find that money cannot be eaten.”  – As said by Chief White Cloud, USA, 1900

The Gaia Foundation is very pleased to be able to share "Reviving Our
Culture, Mapping Our Future", a short film produced in collaboration
with our partners the Mupo Foundation and the African Biodiversity
Network. Please visit https://vimeo.com/channels/gaia to watch.
  
  

The difference between someone with merely an ecological environmental view of the world versus one with a cosmological view is this:

• The person with an ecological environmental view wants to clean-up the river so that his children and grandchildren will be able to swim and fish in it.
  
• The person with a cosmological view wants to clean-up the river because the river should be clean. For itself. If humans benefit from that, then all the better.
  

This is a simple way of explaining an anthropocentric versus a biocentric world view. Is our motivation to solve problems for the benefit of humans alone, as if humans are primary and Earth derivative, or, do we want to solve problems so that members of the Earth community are returned their sovereignty, with Earth as the primary category of reality and humans a subset?

It is certainly something to ponder. Too help with your pondering you might want to check out the "Earth Jurisprudence" page (under "Reinventing the Human") https://ecozoictimes.com/reinventing-the-human/earth-jurisprudence/

Dr. Linda Gibler, O.P., is the author of the 2010 book From the Beginning to Baptism: Scientific and Sacred Stories of Water, Oil, and Fire. https://www.houstonop.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=295:gibler-book-released&catid=36:recent-events&Itemid=61