Ecocide: calling a crime a crime
This is a unique moment, when those of us accustomed to “first-world” living have had to slow down, and millions in the developing world and indigenous communities are experiencing increased hardship and risk. Many around the world are grieving those they have lost. It’s a moment we hope to live through consciously and with compassion.
It’s also a moment when changing the ground rules is becoming a household conversation. While some unscrupulous political players are taking advantage of this moment to plough ahead with ecocidal projects (Canadian oil pipelines, Amazon deforestation), many voices, including millions of health professionals, are now highlighting the links between the human health crisis and the ECOCIDES suffered by the Earth.
Making ECOCIDE a crime can therefore make a profound difference, creating a legal foundation for all life on Earth to thrive, a foundation for ALL of this:
protecting biodiversity
slowing climate change
supporting indigenous rights
promoting green infrastructure
enabling sustainable development
safeguarding future generations
This is why we are now reaching out to many other interest groups, campaigns and NGOs, from youth strikers to conservation charities, from indigenous peoples to faith groups and from workers unions to green business leaders: let’s all start naming ECOCIDE as the crime that it should be.
Already the workers movement in Sweden has publicly done this: see guest blog from our partner association End Ecocide Sweden.
Image: Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, chairman of The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, and Anna Sundström, secretary general of Olof Palme International Center “We stand behind the growing global opinion demanding that large-scale destruction of ecosystems should be a crime.”
Just last week, model and actress Cara Delevingne contributed the video below to Artists for Amazonia’s online fundraiser also featuring Sting, Morgan Freeman, Peter Gabriel, Carlos Santana, Jane Fonda and many more - specifically encouraging folk to sign up to Stop Ecocide!
Cara is also co-founder (with Advaya) of the fabulous climate action platform EcoResolution.
The legal possibility is there; the conversation has already been begun at state level … and as more - and more diverse - voices join the conversation, so the political possibility grows too. Let’s do this together.
Be an ambassador for Stop Ecocide.
World Environment Day, Friday 5th June
We’re going to be marking WED in Spain with a high-profile online debate on 5th June, (6pm CET) as part of the Despierta Festival featuring world-renowned former judge and highly esteemed member of our advisory board Baltasar Garzón, one of Spain's best known environmentalists Joaquín Araujo and our own Spanish campaign manager Maite Mompó. In the run-up, ticket-holders can view Spanish versions of the 3 films on Ecocide which premiered in The Hague last December: Big Sun (Vanuatu), From Harm to Harmony (Ecuadorean Amazon) and an excerpt of The Code (International Criminal Law).
For English speakers, our co-founder Jojo Mehta will be in conversation with renowned veteran environmentalist and author Jonathon Porritt (whose new book Hope in Hell comes out this month) on our YouTube and Facebook channels at 4pm BST on Friday 5th June. Facebook event
Change the law, protect the Earth
with love and unshakeable persistence,
The Stop Ecocide Team
Earth Protector Communities News
How do we act ‘as if’ ECOCIDE law were already in place, right across communities? Earth Protector Communities, the sister charity initiative of the Stop Ecocide campaign, is co-creating models at grassroots level to do just that.
Image: 'Joseph in Nigeria: 'We cannot leave the Earth as we met it'.
Last month the Covid-19 crisis meant our Earth Protector Schools projects went on hold, but our online creativity ramped up to produce Earth Week interviews from Brazil to Ecuador via the Cotswolds (England), covering subjects from permaculture to plastic with pioneers spiritual and ecological. Check out the collection on Facebook.
More recently we supported emerging “Youth Voices”, produced by and for young people in our hometown of Stroud. Participation grows confidence, well-being (a particular Earth Protector focus) and active hope, as well as the building blocks of an Earth Protector Youth Community. Enjoy on Instagram and Facebook whatever your age
First do no harm
with warmth and resilience