As never before, we are being called upon to face monumental change and find inner strength. Polly Higgins, world-renowned Earth Lawyer and figurehead of the environmental justice movement, saw this as ‘the Great Work of our times.’ In Dare To Be Great, Polly offers tools and insight to emerge from crisis. Best known for her work on Ecocide Law and co-founder of the Stop Ecocide campaign, Polly was named one of the World’s Top 10 Visionary Thinkers by the Ecologist and celebrated as The Planet’s Lawyer by the 2010 Change Awards. Her first book, Eradicating Ecocide, won the People’s Book Prize in 2011.
Polly tragically died of cancer a year ago, aged 50, but her mission to make ecocide a crime is very much alive and gathering momentum. In December 2019, not long after her death, two sovereign states called for the crime of ecocide on the global stage*. So, the future Polly imagined is now becoming visible on the horizon.
In her third book, Dare To Be Great, Polly outlines the quest we must embark upon if we are to unlock our innate and collective greatness in service of a better world. She highlights the connection between what holds us back internally and the hurdles we perceive outside ourselves. She offers tools of earth-care – the Law of Ecocide and Creating a Legal Duty of Care – accompanied by tools of self-care: the language of care, nourishment, self- authorising, setting intent, from intent to manifestation, planning your demise and the power of story.
These tools to help us meet the planetary emergency could not be more relevant during the unprecedented, and related, health crisis we are living through. As the UN’s environment chief, Inger Anderson, has pointed out: nature has issued a warning. Pandemics could become more frequent if we return to the destructive practices of business-as-usual, because as we are now experiencing, commercial exploitation and the destruction of natural habitats are upsetting nature’s balance and directly affecting our health.
“Change, when it comes, comes fast – but whether it serves the health and wellbeing of humanity and the Earth is debatable… So, let’s change the story – and let’s change the laws to support our new story; a new story based on the greatness of humanity and the greatness of each and every single one of us to stand up and speak out for what our hearts yearn for, to live life in greater freedom.”
The book is a ‘rallying cry for a changing world’ the Publisher, Flint Books, said. Dare To Be Great has been republished not only to further Polly’s life work but to show how far a legacy of greatness can go. In one sense, this is an important conversation with one of history’s truly big thinkers, who is our guide to a better world, because of her uncompromising knowledge of the basis and rule of law. And in another way, Polly is our friend and companion, as we ourselves dare to be great, taking on the quest of inner reflection, imagination, resilience, regeneration and courageousness that could not be more pertinent.
“In Polly’s work we have a gift” says Jojo Mehta, Polly’s closest friend and colleague, who with Polly co-founded Stop Ecocide and Ecological Defence Integrity, the only NGO in the world dedicated solely to establishing the international Law of Ecocide. “Ecocide is the missing piece of law to assist in reframing the system so that we don’t return to destructive business-as-usual. Just imagine how much easier it would be to protect what we love and what supports life – if it were a crime to destroy ecosystems. It would make all the difference. It’s why Polly wrote this book: to invite each and every one of us to step up and do something great.”
The book is published on Good Friday, 10th April. There will be an online launch featuring contributors from the book, including: Author and spiritual leader Marianne Williamson, who wrote the Foreword ; Jojo Mehta, who wrote the introduction; Dr Jane Goodall DBE and Michael Mansfield QC, who wrote Afterwords. Other endorsers of the book include: Caroline Lucas, Charles Eisenstein, George Monbiot, Gail Bradbrook, Roz Savage and Simon McBurney. There will also be a live Twitter chat on the day after Earth Day, on 23 rd April, to mark Polly’s anniversary and discuss key themes arising from the book.
If you would like any further details, please contact: press@stopecocide.earth.
*Vanuatu and the Maldives called for the crime of ecocide to be seriously considered at the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, December 2019.
