Wild Law Successes - Introduction

NB TWEAKED ON POSTING

Intoduction

The proposal is to use this topic as a place to post concrete examples of Wild Law successes and discuss them.

These need not necessarily be legislation. Examples which manifest Wild Law principles outside of legal process might also be included. New ideas seem to have a habit of arising spontaneously in several places and forms at more or less the same time, so even those which do so entirely unconsciously could be useful as examples of an idea and ethic whose time has come.

The intention is that by collecting what we know individually into a rather rude database a better appreciation of where Wild Law has actually got to in terms of penetration will emerge. Networking thus should help to keep everyone in the frame at minimum effort.

It may well throw up a few surprises. In particular, it might emerge that there is a divergence in what Wild Law is considered to be and to embrace. Which is fine, and may well serve to stimulate the debate and sharpen collective thinking.

It can also act as a point of departure for those coming into Wild Law afresh, and as a reference source for journalists and academics, albeit rather makeshift.

With that in mind, it would be helpful if the subject of each post could be explicit in stating the initiative it discusses. That will make it easier to sort and access in what may well turn into a quite long list fairly quickly.

A case can be made for making a separate post for each project accordingly, but as there may be a need to discuss related projects as a group that is left to your discretion.




Just to kick things off on a provisional basis here’s a cut and paste from Simon Boyle’s excellent article in the Guardian of 08 November 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/nov/08/ethicalliving.society

‘… a body of legal opinion is proposing what are being called "wild laws", which would speak for birds and animals, and even rivers and nature. One of the first was introduced in September, when a community of about 7,000 people in Pennsylvania, in the US, adopted what is called [the]Tamaqua Borough Sewage Sludge Ordinance, 2006.

'It was hardly an event to set the world alight, except for two things: it refuses to recognise corporations' rights to apply sewage sludge to land, but it recognises natural communities and ecosystems within the borough as "legal persons" for the purposes of enforcing civil rights. According to Thomas Linzey, the lawyer from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, who helped draft it, this is historic.'

If Simon or anyone else wishes to fine tune this, I’ll be happy to either edit or withdraw this post.



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