PLEASE NOTE—COVID-19 AND VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
The dates for our 2020 conference were set in late 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID19 virus. The Conference was originally planned to be held in Brisbane, Australia. Due to ongoing travel restrictions, this conference will now be hosted entirely online. A small conference dinner and connected art exhibition will still be hosted in Brisbane for local speakers. A draft program will be available in late August
** Call for Proposals now closed **
Proposals are invited for AELA’s biennial Earth Laws Conference, which is planned for 14-16 October 2020 (AEST/Brisbane time, Australia)
The escalating impacts of climate change are being felt around the Asia Pacific region. As Australian communities recover and rebuild from a summer of horrific bushfires, other communities are coping with sea level rise, flooding, forced transition of cities and communities to safe zones, increasing environmental deterioration and biodiversity loss. With the outbreak of COVID-19, environmental protection efforts have changed dramatically, and there is much to learn and share from our each other.
This conference invites participants to share research and project updates, and work together to progress collaborative projects. This year’s conference will bring together First Nations peoples, legal experts and legal practitioners from around the Asia Pacific region (in person and via Zoom). It will also bring ocean rights and law of the sea experts together with Earth laws experts focused on terrestrial land and biodiversity management.
The Conference invites participants to address any of the following questions:
- How are innovative Earth laws and Rights of Nature laws supporting the Earth community? How can such laws be improved to be more effective?
- How are First Nations Peoples and their legal systems influencing and leading Earth centred
governance and/or challenging colonisation in the 21st Century? - What role can Earth centred law and governance play in building biodiverse societies?
- What lessons can we share and learn from around the Asia Pacific region, that will support and
nurture diverse Earth centred cultures and legal approaches?
Proposals may cover any of the following interconnected topics:
EARTH—vegetation management, regenerative agriculture, healthy soils, animal law, biodiversity protection, innovative land management, challenging extractivism, climate change mitigation and adaptation, land use planning, consumption and production, ecological limits.
SEA—marine species, protected areas, managing fisheries, coastal zone and catchment management, climate change and sea level rise, sea bed mining, cultural connections to oceans and waterways.
FIRE—fire management, community resilience, new approaches to human settlements in response to increasingly destructive fire seasons.
SPIRIT—interconnectedness and relationship based governance approaches, restoration and healing, cultural and ethical values, ecospirituality, mental & physical health.
Proposals can include:
- Academic papers (15 minutes)
- Panels, peer-to-peer training sessions and workshops (50 minutes)
- Discussion groups and yarning circles (25 & 50 minutes)
- Performances and experiential activities (5, 10 or 20 minutes)
Questions? Please email: events@earthlaws.org.au
