Sign the petition to transform Australia’s legal system
This petition was shared by the Australian Centre for the Rights of Nature: An initiative of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance. Their goal is to gather 5000 signatures.
Australia’s legal system has failed to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Despite extensive efforts by First Nations Peoples, scientists and environmental protection groups, our current laws have not stopped the key known threats to our Reef – they have not stopped runaway climate change, have not stopped new coal mines and have not stopped excessive land clearing and land based marine pollution. This is not surprising, as Australia’s current laws support an economic system driven by unsustainable growth, endless resource extraction, and the idea that nature is merely human property.
The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) is part of a global movement that believes the natural world has the inherent right to exist and must have the highest form of protection our legal systems can offer. Laws recognising the rights of nature already exist in the USA, Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico, India, Colombia and New Zealand.
It’s time we got serious about transforming our legal system too. And we’re starting with the Great Barrier Reef.
We need radically different laws that protect the rights of the living world to exist, thrive and evolve. And we need laws that enable communities to defend the Reef.
We can’t just tweak our current laws and hope they’ll work. We need to create a new legal paradigm, where the rights of the living world to exist, thrive and evolve are recognised, and where people and communities can use the legal system to defend nature’s rights and defend their own right to a healthy future built on a living economy.
Sign our petition (HERE) and work with us to transform our legal system.