Australian Wild Law Alliance

AWLA’s Roadshow Series: 1 day workshop in Sydney, 2 May 2013

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:29:51 +0000

AWLA is hosting a 1 day Wild Law Workshop in Sydney on Thursday 2^nd May 2013. This will be the third workshop in the ‘AWLA Roadshow’ series. In this exciting series of workshops, AWLA is travelling to each State and Territory during 2012 and 2013, to open up spaces for discussion and action relating to Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence. AWLA visited Melbourne in August 2012, Adelaide in November 2012 and will be visiting Darwin and Alice Springs in May 2013. Click here for more details.

AWLA’s Roadshow Series: 1 day workshop in Darwin, Friday 17th May 2013

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:26:06 +0000

AWLA is hosting a one day workshop in Darwin on Friday 17th May 2013. Click here for more details.

Wild Law Conference – 27-29 September 2013, Brisbane

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:01:40 +0000

AWLA is pleased to announce that the dates have been set for our Wild Law Conference in 2013. The conference will be a multi-disciplinary event, and will explore the theme of ‘law and governance for living within our ecological limits’. To stay up to date with conference developments, visit our conference webpage and our facebook page.

Animal Rights and the Rights of Nature – Symposium 6 October 2012, Gold Coast

admin — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:58:53 +0000

The Southern Cross University (SCU) is hosting a 1 day Symposium on 6^th October 2012, at SCU’s Gold Coast campus. For more information contact Dr Alessandro Pelizzon: alessandro.pelizzon@scu.edu.au and click here for the Earth Laws Symposium Poster

“Animal Rights and the Rights of Nature: Intersections and Tensions”

Are animal rights intrinsic to the Rights of Nature, or are they separate and distinct? You are invited to a full day symposium to explore the intersections, tensions and commonalities between the Rights of Nature and Animal Rights

Guest Speakers

Michael Anderson (Aboriginal activist and co-founder of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy)
Anne Schillmoller (Animal rights activist and theorist)
Cormac Cullinan (author of Wild Law and co-founder of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature)

Contact details:

Earth Laws Network, School of Law and Justice

Saturday 6 October 2012

Southern Cross University, Gold Coast Campus

(Access via Terminal Drive, Gold Coast Airport)

RSVP: lawevents@scu.edu.au by 1 October 2012

Symposium Poster

Rights of nature, a bridge between legal cultures and political ideals. Hopefully.

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:56:23 +0000

During a beautiful trip to Darwin a few years ago, I heard an officer from the Fire brigade lamenting the increase in spontaneous wild fires in the region, and the lack of control that human agencies, such as the Fire department, truly had over this ‘natural’ events. Intrigued and puzzled by his statement, I asked him why they did not engage with local Aboriginal people. After all, fire-stick farming – and fire control – has been a distinctive feature of Aboriginal cultures all over Australia for tens of millennia. The reply I received launched me into the most interesting intellectual journey I have ever embarked upon. The problem, he stated, was that while prior to European occupation of the area the short and thin local grasses burned rapidly, too rapidly for the earthed trunks of the trees to catch fire. But things changed with the introduction of cattle. In order to feed the ever more numerous grazing cattle introduced in the region, two non-local grasses were introduced, imported from Africa and South America. They are thicker and larger grasses that take much more time to burn, increasing the time that fire covers the land, slowly creeping through the creaks and crevasses where trees found shelter, burning down forests and slowly transforming wetlands into savannah and, eventually, deserts. A light bulb suddenly switched on in my head, I felt a ‘eureka’ moment, as Archimedes did in his bathtub. It became so clear to me that two cultural models co-existed in the same eco-system, shaping human interactions with the environment in two profoundly diverse (and quite divergent) ways. I later discovered that Daniel Quinn, in his masterpiece Ishmael, termed these two models the leavers and the takers, whereas an Aboriginal biologist defined the two models as ‘local’ and ‘global’ ecological perspectives. Of course, dividing the variety of human perspectives simply in two distinct blocks is rather simplistic, but for the sake of the argument it is indeed a good approximation. On the one side, there exists a cultural model – the Aboriginal one – that has developed over time extremely refined social mechanisms of interaction with larger eco-systems, mechanisms capable of guaranteeing social and cultural continuity across centuries, mechanisms designed to change in rhythm with environmental changes. On the other side, there exists a model – the ‘scientific’ or ‘global’ one, to use an approximate definition – perfectly designed for an extremely rapid adaptation to environmental demands at the cost of long-term sustainability. Is it cold? Turn on the heater. Is it dark? Switch on the light. Although perfect in providing immediate responses, the ‘scientific’ model has never been designed for long term sustainability but rather depends on the heavy consumption of non-renewable resources for its very existence (it is certainly possible to theorize a future technology based on renewable and sustainable energy sources, but that is not the case at present nor it has been historically). On the other hand, the long-term cultural model has been developed in accordance with rhythms of environmental change that spanned over long periods of time, whereas we are currently facing environmental changes unprecedented in human history. As a result, neither model, alone, is capable of guaranteeing that we will prevent the cultural collapse Jared Diamond warns us about. It is only through a combination of ‘scientific’ responses to unprecedentedly rapid environmental changes and long-term cultural adaptation to the specific contexts of each bioregion that will allow us to respond our present predicaments. Once this need for an articulated combined response became so clear, I also realized that this response is not possible as long as one model exerts dominance and sovereignty over the other. Until the two models can discuss issues and plan strategies as equal, no combined response can be truly envisioned. This is the space where the words of Vandana Shiva truly resonate, the space where no distinction exists between environmental sustainability and social justice. In this space issues of Aboriginal sovereignty and environmental adaptation are not, and cannot be, distinct. And so, the emerging rights of nature discourse is a truly powerful tool, indeed. But this is true only insofar as the definition of ‘nature’ is the result of a dialogue involving all perspectives, only insofar as the concepts of Pachamama (or Mother Earth) and of Nature can truly become one. And this dialogue must be one of the central pillars of a new Ecological Jurisprudence.

On species guilt and the creative power of law

admin — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:31:01 +0000

In 2003 I worked with some friends to help them get their community development organisation incorporated. They decided to create a formal legal entity for their work, because they wanted to receive grant funding and pay staff to carry out their community based activities. On the day that their Certificate of Incorporation arrived from ASIC, we were all so excited we actually celebrated with champagne: we were real! We existed! It was as if our new organisational identity had been handed to us on a neat piece of A4 paper.

Earlier today, I received an electronic copy of the Certificate of Incorporation for the Australian Wild Law Alliance. There it was, in black and white – proof of AWLA’s legal existence; proof that we are now a legal creature, of the not-for-profit kind. We are now able to access all the benefits of a legal entity in a modern western society: we can own property (theoretically of course, as we have no money); we can sue and be sued; we can open a bank account and become an economic entity; we can make money on commercial terms if we wish; we can receive grant funding from other legally ‘real’ organisations … and we can exist in the ‘information ether’ as well, by creating a ‘.org’ domain name for our website (something you can’t do in Australia without some kind of legal incorporation and recognition of your not-for-profit status).

And here I was, excited again. We’re incorporated! We exist!

But this time I was struck by the depressing irony of the situation. Here I was getting excited about AWLA receiving the ‘right’ to exist in our legal system, so that we can in turn work to advocate for rights for subjects who are not legally recognised in our legal system – our evolutionary companions, aka ‘the natural world’.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of species guilt and a heightened sense of responsibility.

I felt guilt, because as humans, we have created a legal system that benefits our species above all others. It is an artifice, a farce. It excludes so much of what’s important in our world.

And I felt a heightened sense of responsibility, because as a member of the privileged class of humans, I believe I have a responsibility to play a part in making our legal system more able to support, rather than exploit, all the non-human subjects within our earth community.

How lucky I was then, that in the mere span of ten minutes the ‘incorporation experience’ served to remind me of the responsibility we all have; of the whole reason AWLA exists. The earth is struggling under the weight of humanity’s impact. Wild Law offers those of us who are passionate about the creative power of law and governance, a way of playing our part in creating a more positive vision for the future.

As Spidey’s Uncle said in Spiderman (yes, the movie), ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Now that AWLA ‘exists’ in the eyes of the law, it’s our job to use all the powers that come with our legal existence, to transform the legal system so that it becomes a beneficial system of protection and support for our evolutionary companions (plants, animals, eco-systems and earth-systems). So I won’t break out the champagne just yet – we have a lot of work ahead of us and I can’t wait to get started.

Michelle Maloney, National Convenor, AWLA

AWLA’s Roadshow Series: 1 day workshop in Adelaide, late 2012

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:37:27 +0000

AWLA is hosting a 1 day Wild Law Workshop in Adelaide in late 2012. More details soon!

This will be the second workshop in the ‘AWLA Roadshow’ series. In this exciting series of workshops, AWLA is travelling to each State and Territory during 2012 and 2013, to open up spaces for discussion and action relating to Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence. AWLA visited Melbourne in August 2012, and will be visiting Sydney in early 2013 and the Northern Territory in mid 2013.