Earth jurisprudence and Wild Law
April 9th 2009 00:06
Earth Jurisprudence seeks to revolutionise our legal systems to enable all life, ecosystems, habitats to have rights within the court of law. The staggering scale and enormity of such a concept is beyond my comprehension. The implications of a legal system that gives rights to the natural world are far reaching and if possible seem to able to change all that is bad in our present system. The land that so many people rely on in life can be protected not for profit, not for ownership but for the very essence of life that entitles it to rights it should already have.
To understand the whole concept of Wild Law a grasp of environmental law is needed. This is beyond the scope of the present post, however I plan to create more posts on this in the future. The basics are that the environment has no rights par say. The law is based on ownership and protection. If someone pollutes or causes damage to land that you owe you can start legal procedures against the person who caused the pollution. However a direct link must be established to an act that that person has done. Earth Jurisprudence aims to give legal rights to the land and the eco systems itself. The same rights that we take for granted and have fought for over generations can be established for the earth. Now clearly there are several levels that you can take this to. The pragmatic, sustainable development approach, I dislike this term but what else to use?, would suggest that some habitat destruction, modification and fragmentation is unavoidable in feeding and providing for the billions of humans on the planet.
Another take on the theory would be the complete cessation on the exploitation of the environment. However where do you draw the line? Producing any food, even using perma-culture practices will in some way effect biodiversity, habitat health, damage or destroy life, i.e. unwanted weeds that cant be used as mulch, pest controls etc. Can truly earth friendly farming methods feed billions of people? I for one am dubious that it can although I detest large scale mono-culture agriculture. One solution is provided by a certain Mr Lovelock who suggests that synthetic food should be used to feed the world and large areas of the world should be given back to nature so that succession can occur leading to natural climax species. Many would despair at the idea of synthetic food but it must be said the idea of leaving all the farming fields to nature is appealing to me. However it is not a popular choice or one that is going to happen.
So clearly just the subject of feeding the worlds population has massive implications for trying to bring wild law in to practice. Is the concept viable? Well greater minds than I with greater understanding of Law are working on this. However the concept is simple enough, that all life of all forms not just Humans have rights. Land owner ship would be completely changed. How many reports in popular science journals, magazines, documentaries report on the unfair removal of people from their land due to the pressures of giant cooperation's using the land to generate wealth? If the land itself has rights then the courts have to take this into consideration when considering land rights, permissions to dig, drill, mine, clear, evacuate, burn whatever other destruction is occurring in the name of development.
There is a huge problem with the concept and one that the present system faces. How do we enable the worlds poor to live at the same standard that we take for granted? We can not deny the rest of the world the same living standards. How ever the world can not provide for the whole planet if the everyone lives like the average American or European.
A digression away for Wild Law but it is therefore obvious that we as the west need to decrease our energy consumption and waste, both of resources such as water, and of refuse, and aim for a model and standard of life that is attainable for everyone. There is one snag though and that is energy. In attaining the same level of technological and system provision throughout the planet will increase our energy consumption by a magnitude that I would hate to have to estimate. Needless to say that it is out side of our ability to produce without destroying huge areas of land, even with sustainable fuels,that's a lot of wind turbines!
At present I have far too much work to do for my masters dissertation on deforestation monitoring in Sumatra. However I plan to write a much more in depth post on this subject in the not so distant future. I therefore plead the reader to investigate into earth jurisprudence and wild law, an amazing,audacious and simple idea that could just change our whole outlook and approach to the natural world.
To understand the whole concept of Wild Law a grasp of environmental law is needed. This is beyond the scope of the present post, however I plan to create more posts on this in the future. The basics are that the environment has no rights par say. The law is based on ownership and protection. If someone pollutes or causes damage to land that you owe you can start legal procedures against the person who caused the pollution. However a direct link must be established to an act that that person has done. Earth Jurisprudence aims to give legal rights to the land and the eco systems itself. The same rights that we take for granted and have fought for over generations can be established for the earth. Now clearly there are several levels that you can take this to. The pragmatic, sustainable development approach, I dislike this term but what else to use?, would suggest that some habitat destruction, modification and fragmentation is unavoidable in feeding and providing for the billions of humans on the planet.
Another take on the theory would be the complete cessation on the exploitation of the environment. However where do you draw the line? Producing any food, even using perma-culture practices will in some way effect biodiversity, habitat health, damage or destroy life, i.e. unwanted weeds that cant be used as mulch, pest controls etc. Can truly earth friendly farming methods feed billions of people? I for one am dubious that it can although I detest large scale mono-culture agriculture. One solution is provided by a certain Mr Lovelock who suggests that synthetic food should be used to feed the world and large areas of the world should be given back to nature so that succession can occur leading to natural climax species. Many would despair at the idea of synthetic food but it must be said the idea of leaving all the farming fields to nature is appealing to me. However it is not a popular choice or one that is going to happen.
So clearly just the subject of feeding the worlds population has massive implications for trying to bring wild law in to practice. Is the concept viable? Well greater minds than I with greater understanding of Law are working on this. However the concept is simple enough, that all life of all forms not just Humans have rights. Land owner ship would be completely changed. How many reports in popular science journals, magazines, documentaries report on the unfair removal of people from their land due to the pressures of giant cooperation's using the land to generate wealth? If the land itself has rights then the courts have to take this into consideration when considering land rights, permissions to dig, drill, mine, clear, evacuate, burn whatever other destruction is occurring in the name of development.
There is a huge problem with the concept and one that the present system faces. How do we enable the worlds poor to live at the same standard that we take for granted? We can not deny the rest of the world the same living standards. How ever the world can not provide for the whole planet if the everyone lives like the average American or European.
A digression away for Wild Law but it is therefore obvious that we as the west need to decrease our energy consumption and waste, both of resources such as water, and of refuse, and aim for a model and standard of life that is attainable for everyone. There is one snag though and that is energy. In attaining the same level of technological and system provision throughout the planet will increase our energy consumption by a magnitude that I would hate to have to estimate. Needless to say that it is out side of our ability to produce without destroying huge areas of land, even with sustainable fuels,that's a lot of wind turbines!
At present I have far too much work to do for my masters dissertation on deforestation monitoring in Sumatra. However I plan to write a much more in depth post on this subject in the not so distant future. I therefore plead the reader to investigate into earth jurisprudence and wild law, an amazing,audacious and simple idea that could just change our whole outlook and approach to the natural world.
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