Local and traditional communities across the world share multiple forms of environmental vulnerability. Indigenous peoples in the critically endangered forests; communities suffering from the effects of irresponsible mining or hazardous wastes; subsistence farmers whose resources are degraded or appropriated without fair recompense. A wide range of human communities suffer from forms of deep environmental injustice in the name of 'business as usual'. Meanwhile, innumerable predations affect animal populations and the fragile ecosystems upon which all life on earth depends.
Those who depend most intimately and directly upon the living world for their physical and cultural existence tend to suffer most from environmental destruction and degradation. While all of human life depends upon the living world, communities vulnerable to the socio-cultural effects of environmental degradation suffer particular and well-documented forms of environmental injustice, exclusion and marginalisation. This IUCN Academy Colloquium invites participants to address this challenge and the various ways in which law could more effectively 'speak truth to power'.
Our hope, as organisers, is that members of the Academy will contribute to a critique of environmental injustice and offer 'sacred footsteps' into new frontiers of environmental justice. We hope for fresh jurisprudential, doctrinal, institutional and tactical insights, and practical mechanisms for the delivery of resilience to vulnerable communities, animals and ecosystems.
For further details, please visit the website of the University of Waikato. Once we have further information on the Colloquium, we will update our website accordingly.