60 people participated in the public seminar held at the Canning River Environmental Centre, Perth, on Saturday 9th February. AELA would like to thank John Gherardi, Sheryl Carmody and Jaime Yallup for their invaluable help in organising the seminar and flying AELA’s National Convenor, Michelle Maloney, from Brisbane to Perth for the event.
For a copy of the seminar flyer please click here.
For a copy of the presentation given by Michelle Maloney/AELA, please click here.
To see photos from the day, please visit our facebook page – click here.
OVERVIEW OF THE SEMINAR
The three hour seminar began with AELA’s National Convenor, Michelle Maloney, giving a 40 minute presentation which introduced Earth Jurisprudence, wild law and Rights of Nature and gave an overview of the international and national movements advocating these ideas. Participants included lawyers, PhD students, representatives from a range of environmental organisations and interested citizens. After Michelle’s presentation, participants were invited to identify issues they wanted to discuss further, in the context of Earth jurisprudence and rights of nature. All groups had 30 minutes to discuss issues and identify a range of ‘next steps’. The groups self-organised into 7 discussion groups and topics included: indigenous knowledge and legal rights; water and environmental flows; deep ecology; educating the next generation about wild law and earth governance; biodiversity protection and the role of local governments in supporting rights of nature.
OUTCOMES FROM THE SEMINAR
- An exciting outcome is that a group of people agreed to create a Western Australian chapter of AELA. The key contact for the WA AELA Chapter is Amanda Joseph, who can be emailed on - amanda.joseph86@gmail.com
- Another group expressed interest in working with AELA to explore how ‘Rights of Nature’ can be incorporated into local government laws
- Several participants who are interested in water law and water rights, will be joining AELA’s ‘wild law and water’ working group, which is aiming to facilitate eco-centred discussions at the 2013 AELA Conference in September. For information about AELA’s September Conference, please visit our webpage: http://www.earthlaws.org.au/wildlaw-conference-2013-brisbane/
SOME FEEDBACK WE RECEIVED ABOUT THE SEMINAR
- THANKS Michelle for such a fabulous and inspiring talk at CREEC yesterday, it was a brilliant way to start the weekend. Keep up the good work 🙂 - Simon
- The presentation in Perth yesterday by AELA was simply brilliant. Many thanks - Lynes
- Fantastic presentation yesterday- thanks Michelle! And what a great group of people in that room 🙂 - Kat
