Earth Law Principles
While specific Earth Laws are contextual, there are common principles which underlie the health and wellbeing of the whole Earth Community. These principles help to re-member - that is, restore the memory we have lost - and serve as a code of ethics or 'moral compass' to guide our personal, professional and collective practices.
To return to a mutually enhancing presence on Earth, these principles need to be embedded in all aspects of our lives and in the institutions we have developed - law, education, health, economy and religion.
It is our responsibility to make these principles the foundation of the new legal system all over the world. The time has come when human laws and Earth laws must be brought together.Thomas Berry, Rights of the Earth, 2002
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The following principles are some of the core ones distilled from the practice of indigenous communities and discussions with allies over the past 20 years, including an international retreat for practitioners of the Global Alliance of Community Ecological Governance (CEG) in 2009.
Wholeness - Earth is a Living Being, a single community webbed together through interdependent relationships. No Living Being nourishes itself. The well-being of each member of the Earth Community is dependent on the well-being of Earth. This requires that we act in the interest of the whole, and of future generations, over the interests of the individual.