Wild Law Special Interest Group
Convenor
Simon Boyle of Argyll Environmental convenes UKELA's Wild Law Group.
simon.boyle@argyllenviro.com. Phone: 0845 458 5250
Lee Valley Country Park
Wild Law Workshop, Lee Valley YHA, 24-26 September 2010
"Wild Law and Our Habitat: from Resource to Relationship". Join us to discuss how Wild Law and Earth Jurisprudence can reframe our legal and governance regimes and lead us from an era of ‘resource use’ to one of ‘relationship’ with the land. You’ll meet like-minded people and gain an insight into the challenges facing our habitat, from legal, ethical and holistic perspectives. Confirned speakers include Colin Tudge, biologist, broadcaster and author of The Secret Life of Trees; Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute and author of How We Can Save The Planet; David Hart QC, a leading environmental lawyer; and others...
This workshop takes place in the unique and beautiful setting of the Lee Valley Country Park, one of the last remaining semi-natural habitats in Greater London. It will offer participants the opportunity to learn directly from nature, feed back on current initiatives and be inspired to plan together for the future. This event is suitable for anyone with an interest in environmental law and governance, philosophy and ethics, food and farming, Earth sciences, new economics, and more.
Booking link to Wild Law Workshop 2010
Latest News!
It’s great to see that we have had so many Wild Law initiatives in the last year. Media exposure, development of the recommendations of the research report, publications, wilderness events, wild law education and much more. Things are really getting wild!
There was a Wild Law session at the UKELA conference in Exeter in June 2010 and Satish Kumar - one of Wild Law's influential thinkers - gave the after dinner speech.
The Wild Law Group is now working on a research project to find out whether we need more measures to protect the very few areas of true wilderness that we have left in Europe. The idea originated at the Wild Law Scottish event and Louise Waddell is working on the project from Fife, the John Muir Trust are very much involved as are Simon Boyle and Sir Crispin.
If you are interested in this project, have other initiatives in mind or any ideas you want to discuss please email Begonia Filgueira begonia@eric-group.co.uk or Simon Boyle.
Wild Law Around the World
Wild Law spreads like wildfire to Australia
Peoples' World Conference proclaims Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth
Wild Law Worldwide
Wild Law in the Wilds of Scotland
Over twenty people enjoyed the long May bank holiday weekend at Loch Ossian in Scotland, discussing Wild Law. Environmental lawyers, including from Scotland, Sir Crispin Agnew Bt QC, Richard Leslie and Sarah Cudworth of Tods Murray, Jamie Whittle of R & R Urquhart, Walter Semple of Walter Semple, Solicitors, and others with a strong environmental interest came to the weekend from all over the UK and Belgium. The programme included discussions on how to promote “wild law” in Scotland led by Simon Boyle of Argyll Environmental, convenor of the Group and on the environmental ethos of the great environmentalist John Muir led by Professor Denis Mollison of Heriot Watt University and a trustee of the John Muir Trust. The Corrour Estate, by courtesy of the owners, hosted the group with a talk on how the estate is managed with a strong environmental ethos. UKELA is also grateful to Steve Perry (who walked to Corrour from South East England) for helping design the weekend.
Background reading material and law from Wild Law Scotland (Adobe Acrobat)
Sir Crispin Agnew
Steve Perry
Jamie Whittle
Red deer
Wild Law Workshop 2009
The 2009 Wild Law workshop was held at the Magdalen Project on the Somerset/Dorset border. Over 40 people attended and most people camped in the beautiful surroundings of this organic farm and education project. A report by David Waterston, who attended the workshop, is below.
Gaia, Resilience and Biodiversity at Wild Law Workshop, by David Waterston (Adobe Acrobat)
Wild Law: post-Copenhagen Discussion January 2010
Members of the Wild Law Group organised an event at the Richard Steele pub in Chalk Farm, with talks by Polly Higgins, Linda Siegele and Carine Nadal. The event, entitled “Wild Law: post-Copenhagen”, was well-attended by around 50 lawyers, students, academics and members of various Transition Towns groups. Those interested in Wild Law principles discussed, shared ideas and learnt about the relevance of such principles to tackling international environmental problems.
Report on Copenhagen discussion by Louise Kulbicki (Adobe Acrobat)
The Wild Law Special Interest Group
The UKELA Wild Law Group (WLG) was set up after in response to demands for co-ordinated action. The group's convenor is Simon Boyle. The Wild Law section of this website gives for more information generally on wild law resources and papers from previous conferences and workshops.
A strategy meeting of the WLG was held in February 2009. The group agreed that UKELA's remit would be to continue to support work in three main areas:
• Education, including publication of articles
• Conference planning and running
• Research paper
UKELA will continue to work with other organisations in these areas. Currently this is principally Gaia in all of the above areas and going forwards on the Gaia Earth Jurisprudence Resource Centre. It is likely that other organisations or individuals will wish to campaign for wild law principles or get involved in taking Wild Law concepts before the courts. For example bringing legal cases arguing for the recognition of rights of other species. Of course individuals who are members of UKELA may wish to get involved in such campaigning but this would not be under a UKELA banner.
Next Steps
Next steps include planning more talks to academic institutions, producing a report from the Australian Wild Law workshop and examining practical steps for making existing institutions take Wild Law more into account. A full report will appear here in due course.
Wild Law Reading List
Wild Law reading list updated 2009 (Adobe Acrobat)
Schumacher College Earth Juridprudence reading list
Wild Law Newsletters
Read the latest Wild Law news in the e-newsletter for May (Adobe Acrobat)
Other resources on this website
Visit the Wild Law page for a summary of Wild Law
Visit the Workshop Papers Page to find out more about previous Wild Law events