Written By Jojo Mehta

Ecocide: a global conversation 

Because our work is strongly focused around the Assembly of the International Criminal Court in December each year, winter is a time for taking stock and preparing next steps. 

A global conversation

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This year there is broader change in the air.  The word  "ecocide" is becoming a household term.  This is profoundly tragic given it comes with the knowledge that up to a billion animals have perished in Australia's horrific bushfires - but sadly it seems necessary in order for the public to understand the terrible absence of legal protection for our planet, and to demand action of our governments. 

The extremes of this expanding conversation are particularly starkly shown in the Amazon, where in Brazil the assassination of indigenous activists and Bolsonaro's  recent bill to support expansion of mining and agri-business come against a backdrop of indigenous accusations of genocide, ethnocide and ecocide and impassioned pleas from indigenous leaders. Extreme ecocides waiting to happen, such as these terrifyingly unsafe tailings dams in Ecuador, do not hit the headlines.  And at the same time, Pope Francis, leader of the 1.3 billion-strong global Catholic community, has just reinforced his  November statement  calling for ecocide crime with a powerful Vatican bulletin on environmental and social justice: "The businesses, national or international, which harm the Amazon and fail to respect the right of the original peoples to the land and its boundaries, and to self-determination and prior consent, should be called for what they are: injustice and crime.”

The clash of mindsets is clear, and remarkable – indigenous and Catholic spiritual leaders calling attention to reality (our interdependence with the natural living world) while industry-focused politicians cling to blind faith (in an economic model which is as incompatible with the facts as believing the earth is flat).

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Since Vanuatu and the Maldives stepped up  to call for serious consideration of ecocide crime at the International Criminal Court last December, the ecocide conversation is now taking place at state level. France may have failed to legislate nationally for it last year but last month President Macron went on record HERE (see question at 20h04) saying that ecocide crime "makes sense if you do it internationally. I hope that we go in this direction. I am sceptical about the useful effect if we only do it in French law, I am in favour of having it go forward internationally." Let's hold him to that.

Catching up with ourselves

We find ourselves in a curious position. Simply put, we've already travelled further than people realise towards a goal most people don't know is possible.  While many people intuitively feel mass destruction of ecosystems to be criminal, they don't realise that:

     a)     in most of the world, it is not actually a crime

     b)    it could be

     c)     they could help it to become so

Even lawyers writing about criminalising ecocide – see barrister Kirsty Brimelow's great piece in The Times – talk about it hypothetically, apparently not realising that the work to take it forward is alive and kicking.

Our task is to make this visible.  We don't need to convert anyone.  We simply need to reach those who care and let them know.  For starters, we've already translated the Stop Ecocide website into Dutch [www.stopecocide.nl] and Spanish [www.protectoresdelatierra.org].

Every single environmental campaign – and every ecosystem – on the planet will benefit when ecocide becomes an international crime, so it should be an easy pitch. 

Support now!

So... if you can afford a monthly donation to help us expand, however modest, please set this up HERE. 

And for a wee musical alert to your networks, supported by acclaimed UK dub band Zion Train please watch and share the video below, made during our first international team workshop recently – this one's on YouTube but you can also share directly from Facebook - @EcocideLaw.

We are all influencers

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We all have networks. They might be 40 people, they might be 40,000.  But don't they all deserve to know that there is a way of stopping the harm by changing the rules?  Just sharing the weblink www.stopECOCIDE.earth every now and again will keep the awareness moving. 

You could also share this link to our latest brochure: http://bit.ly/EDIBrochure – it's a great introduction (or update) to our work. 

Dare to be Great - pre-order now!

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Our co-founder the late Polly Higgins' inspiring personal-journey book Dare to be Great, out of print since 2015, is about to be republished as the launch title for a new imprint of The History Press called Flint books ("books to spark conversations").  With a foreword by Marianne Williamson and afterwords by Dame Jane Goodall and Michael Mansfield QC as well as a new introduction about Polly and Ecocide Law timeline, we hope this book will bring Polly's work and the continuing campaign for Ecocide Law to a broader mainstream audience.  You can already pre-order your copy from Waterstones or from Wordery.

 

Earth Protector Communities

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Things are developing fast - the movement building aspect of the campaign now has its very own website.  We already have a growing number of schools/colleges, businesses and towns in the UK lining up to join the scheme (and international enquiries arriving already) to work together to protect land, wildlife, air, soil and water, as well as endorsing the Stop Ecocide campaign. Our Regenerative Community Toolkit, a powerful conceptual and practical resource for Earth Protector Communities of all types and sizes, will launch later this year. 

And so the story continues... with us, and with you.

Thanks for standing with us.

The Stop Ecocide team.

PS – Podcasts...

Our co-founder Jojo Mehta keeps popping up on the web lately!  Here are two recent podcasts:

The Sapience Project - half an hour around the digital campfire: an informal but densely informative video interview on the power of ecocide law.

Wyse Women – a longer, intensely personal audio interview originally recorded in October last year, about Jojo's close friendship and work with Polly Higgins, what Polly was like, her illness and passing and what happened after.

Climate change and Ecocide Survey - finally, Earth Protector and PhD researcher at the Western Sydney University Jolanda Kramers is conducting a survey about attitudes to climate change and ecocide. The survey is available in 7 languages, links below, and results will form part of her doctoral thesis. Thanks for participating!

These are the different links to all surveys:

Jojo Mehta
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