Decades of legal protection for the living world haven’t stopped it being progressively destroyed. So what do we need to do, and what’s currently being done, to regenerate the law of the land and better protect and restore the living world?

Thinking about all this again in recent weeks prompted me to go back to a recording of a live panel event I produced on the topic at Melbourne’s Federation Square back in 2015 (billed Preventing Crimes Against Nature at the time). I was moved all over again by the conversation that night, featuring some of the major system changes at play, and the cultural changes so intertwined with them.

You’ll hear:

• Nicola Rivers, co-CEO of Environmental Justice Australia, who came to this event directly from the first national conference of the Panel of Experts on Environmental Law deliberating on the 'next generation' of legislative frameworks for the protection of nature
•  Dr Alessandro Pelizzon is now Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and Justice at Southern Cross University, one of the founding members of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, and supported the drafting of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Professor Kate Auty, brilliant community figurehead, former Victorian and ACT Commissioner of Sustainability and Environment, and now Chair of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria
• Michael Leunig, National Living Treasure, cartoonist & esteemed elder of the Understandascope, generating a wellspring of commentary on political, cultural and emotional life spanning more than forty years. 

Each guest speaks for 10 minutes, before our all-in conversation.

Note: Ellen Sandell, MP for the seat of Melbourne where this event was held, sent a brief message in, which is why you’ll hear her referred to. 

Title slide: Gantheaume Point, near Broome in the Kimberley region of WA (pic: Anthony James).

Thanks Carly, James & the Understandascope team for co-creating this event, Chris Grose from Scout Films, & the National Sustainable Living Festival.

Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae - watch the wonderful film clip.

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation with audience Q&A in an extra to this episode.

Sign this petition ahead of the federal government’s current bill reaching the Senate shortly.

With the growing movement asserting ‘First Law’, support this petition from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council.

David Mowalj

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