This event on the Rights of Nature took place on Thursday 3 December 2020 – here is a recording of the discussion. See below for the promotional information and speaker profiles.
Rights of Nature (recognition that all life has equal right to exist, thrive and evolve) is the fastest-growing legal and ethical movement in the world. So how can it practically help mining-affected human & Natural communities in their struggles for ecological justice?
Join us for an online conversation with Ecuadorean activist Carlos Zorrilla and lawyer Sue Willman of Kings College Legal Clinic, who will share frontline and legal experiences of using Rights of Nature ethics, tools and approaches to stop and disrupt destructive mining projects
This is the first in a series of conversations that will showcase and help develop practical tools to support communities resisting extractive ecocides. The series is organised as part of the Rights of Nature and Mining project of Earth Thrive and London Mining Network.
About our speakers
Carlos Zorrilla
Carlos’s community has successfully resisted copper and gold mining in Ecuador’s biodiverse northwestern Intag cloud forest region for over 26 years, using a variety of tactics. He and his colleagues recently won a historic victory, successfully arguing that advanced mining exploration would push two endemic frog species and many other endangered species to extinction. To-date this is the first and only successful Rights of Nature against mining in Ecuador.
Sue Wilman
Sue Wilman, a London-based lawyer who has been involved in the UK Wild Law/ rights of nature movement for the last decade. She will discuss arguments she has made/is making in legal interventions in cases involving indigenous and other land-based communities in Colombia and east Africa.
Zoe Lujic
Lifelong deep environmentalist, founder of Earth Thrive, small but highly dedicated Rights of Nature organization, currently concerned for rivers of her native Balkans as well looming mining ecocides but also working on pesticides and animal welfare issues.
After the successful collaboration with London Mining Network on the project to include Rights of Nature in the LMN’s Mission statement, she now works on showcasing and developing practical uses and tools of rights of Nature in prevention of mining & extractive ecocides.