Mother Earth Day Webinar

Mother Earth Day 2025 - Rights of Nature Webinar

To celebrate Mother Earth Day 2025, TEC hosted a free introductory webinar on the Rights of Nature, providing an overview of Earth Laws and the Rights of Nature; Indigenous First Laws and the relationist ethos, and covering some of the international and domestic progress towards recognising the Rights of Nature.

The webinar included presentations from Dr Michelle Maloney (Earth lawyer, Co-Founder and National Convenor of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) and Director, Future Dreaming); Dr Mary Graham (Kombumerri person, Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland and Director of Future Dreaming) and Dr Erin O’Donnell (Senior Lecturer and ARC Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School, and member of the Birrarung Council (the voice of the Yarra River in Melbourne)).

Key takeaways:

1. Western laws historically have defined nature in terms of “property” rather than as potential rights bearing entities; Accordingly this system of laws has not recognised the moral rights of nature to exist, regenerate or flourish.
   
2. Earth laws and the Rights of Nature movement are a reaction to the anthropocentric and extractivist mindsets associated with Western law.
   
3. The rights of nature movement often justifies legal rights for nature on ecocentric or nature centered principles. Some groups, like the Australian Earth Laws Alliance, use the broad terms of Earth Jurisprudence, or Earth Laws, as an umbrella term to capture all nature centered laws, including rights of nature, expanding legal personhood, and criminalising the deliberate destruction of the natural environment (ecocide).
   
4. Around the world there are more than 400 initiatives in over 40 countries that have recognised the rights of nature in laws, regulations or practices. These include; 
   • Constitutional recognition in countries such as in Equador
   • Granting rivers and geographical areas legal personhood in New Zealand
   • Recognising rivers or geographic areas as "living entities" with established bodies to monitor and advocate on behalf of the river (without legal standing)
     
   • Via declaration or treaty, like the recent Pacific Indigenous Leaders treaty to recognise Whales and dolphins as “legal persons”
5. Land is the first source of indigenous law and lore in Australia. The bioregion inhabited by the community shapes the law and lore of that community, over time developing a deeply set identity, and a Sacrilised, ecological, collaborative and self regulating stewardship system. As a result, different Indigenous groups in Australia have different laws/lore and practices. These first laws continue today. Any exploration into  place based recognition of the rights of nature should be developed in tandem with local Indigenous groups.
   
6. The Yarra River in Victoria has been formally recognised as a single living entity. The Birrarung Council is a statutory body created by the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017 to oversea protection of the river. While these laws do not afford the river legal personhood, and the Council does not have legal standing to enforce rights in Courts or Tribunals, the Council monitors the river and provides transparent and public advice to government.
   

Links for further reading:

• The Australian Earth Laws Alliance
• Future Dreaming
• Eco Jurisprudence Monitor
• Anima Mundi Law Initiative

Stay tuned for the results of our participant survey.