Understorey: Juukan Gorge, Earth Laws, and Rights of Nature

One of the worst obliterations of an archaeological site anywhere in the world: that’s Rio Tinto blowing up two 46,000 year old Aboriginal cultural sites in the Pilbara.  The mining company was within the law, unrestrained by state or federal intervention, and well motivated to maximise profit interests of its shareholders, including the 65%  ownership held by American investors.

Michelle Maloney is working through various creative and inclusive vehicles such as Australian Earth Laws Alliance (ALEA), the New Economy Network Australia (NENA), and GreenPrints, to shift the defunct default goverance models to something more earth-centred, and more socially inclusive.  If an intangible organisation known as a mining company has legal personality, to advance the interests of the profit-seekers, why can’t places in the natural world also have legal personality, to take legal action to avoid harm?  Could new ecological Earth Laws framework replace underperforming present-day environment and heritage laws ?

This follows Understorey’s earlier episode on Western Australia’s innovative Rights of Nature and Future Generations Bill, presented to the Upper House by Greens MLC Dianne Evers.

(Photo: Google Maps)