Application of Earth Jurisprudence

This radical and innovative approach to law and governance is guiding and inspiring a wide range of people and organisations in many different parts of the world.

• In the USA, community associations have been drafting their own ordinances in partnership with their local government to secure their constitutional rights to a healthy environment by prohibiting corporations from polluting in their boroughs. This bottom-up approach to law making has been particularly effective in recognising the rights of natural ecosystems – for the first time in modern US history.

• In Europe, communities are using ecological mapping processes to initiate consultations and dialogues with their governments over matters of biodiversity protection and access to traditional fishing areas. The EU Water Framework Directive includes elements of Earth Jurisprudence thinking. The Directive includes provisions for more public participation in decision-making processes over water environments. Its implementation through river basin management plans offers opportunities for the introduction of ecologically based systems of governance that are rooted in the historical and cultural experiences of the communities that surround the river. Several communities along the River Thames are now eager to embrace opportunities to nurture Earth Jurisprudence and Community Ecological Governance in a western urban fluvial context.

• In Africa, rural and indigenous communities are increasingly looking to their customary lores and norms as a means to govern themselves and their relationship with the environment. In Ethiopia, organisations are working with forest dwelling communities and the regional government to strengthen community involvement in ecological governance, to protect key ecosystems from the expansion of large export-oriented tea and coffee plantations. In Kenya, after years of struggle and negotiation, important water catchments are now being protected by community associations. They are being governed in a way that replenishes the natural ecosystem and benefits the local people and non-human species that depend upon them for survival.

• In Latin America, indigenous communities govern huge areas of territory according to strict culturally embedded ecological principles. In Colombia, traditional indigenous authorities are managing a territory of approximately 21 million hectares and their own education and health systems and are pioneering an ecologically based governance path. Ecuador is poised to become the first country to recognise the rights of nature in its national constitution, which will is being decided upon in July 2008.

• In Asia, through the Navdanya Movement, farmers are organising around the principles of ‘Earth Democracy’ by strengthening community governance over their lands. They are building community seed banks so that local farmers can have access to and exchange GM-free seeds in times of drought and famine. They are defending their right to produce healthy, organic, diverse and GM-free food for local markets.