Conference Speakers

Chapter one:
- How Islam views the environment;
- The components of the environment (Human, earth, water, air, plants and animals); and their
- Protection in the light of the five objectives of Islamic Divine Law;
- Islam's approach to Protect the environment;
- Anti-pollution efforts and plans from Islamic viewpoint;
- Positivism and negativity of the renewable energy ;
- Muslims countries efforts to protect the environment.

This seminar will explore how the pursuit of growth at all cost is at the root of so many environmental crises, and without addressing this the environmental movement risks perpetually putting out spot fires, which are symptoms of a larger problem . That is, our entire economic and social paradigms are completely anthropocentric and require an ever growing number of human consumers on a planet that is already at breaking point.

The seminar will explore case examples of countries that are transitioning away from the GDP growth paradigm, such as Costa Rica. Their successes and ongoing challenges will be discussed. There will also be an open discussion around how to start conversations with people to counter ingrained beliefs, including conversations around difficult issues such as voluntary simplicity, earth centered town planning policies, reversing anthropocentric social structures and how to account for population growth.

A self-sustaining ecosystem of living beings is not built from fear.
Through our programs, park and people, CERES is asking people to "fall in love with the Earth again" as the path to dealing with the root cause of the multiple crises humanity is facing... Now we are asking people to simply do this more urgently, to love more. In the face of war-rhetoric and panic, how do we keep engaging, connecting and loving each other and the Earth? In a way, the declaration is asking us to actually live that wonderful-sounding theory we have, that love is the source of all power and transformation.

In his recent essay The Language of the Master, writer and "recovering environmentalist" Paul Kingsnorth asks, "If you cannot solve a problem with the mindset, or the tools, which created it, what does this mean for those whose tools are words? If this language has become a tool of control, what kind of language could be a tool to undo it? Another way of framing that question: what languages does the Machine not speak?"

One language the Machine does not speak is love.

This somatic understanding that makes present 'otherness' through the overlap of aesthetics and affectivity is described as eco-somaesthetics. The prefix 'eco' signifies a non-anthropocentric, or ecocentric, disposition in this inquiry. It is an engagement with the world and otherness that pays attention to the subtle inclines underfoot as well as the gaps in between each step, the unknown. This sensitivity of walking and engagement not only acknowledges the place and presence of others, but contributes to, and allows space for, their flourishing. In general, the revaluing of environmental ethics and ecopolitics in education are important steps.

The aim of this paper is threefold: to discuss the failings of free market environmentalism that informs current water law and policy; to describe the unworkability of the mainstream alternative; and to offer, in its place, a radical alternative. I have deliberately set out to engage with the analyses of academics and thinkers who, although they have rightly identified both the extent of environmental degradation in Australia and the problems that attend current policy and legislative responses, nonetheless remain constrained by the hope that reform will be enough.

Whatever good and bad fortune may come our way, we can give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” Siddhatha, Hermen Hesse

The natural world is my preferred medium. I operate where the human mind and natural world transcend. Co creating adventures both physical and metaphorical so at the end students will look back and say, “we did this ourselves and I am so fucking proud of myself.” Education is my craft. I believe in trust and expectation. Creating environments and cultures that place the student in the pilot’s chair. Enabling them to wrestle with their situation, creating their own meaning and memories. My career started as a student of legends in the field. Through my education I gradually emerged as a professional now with twenty-five years of experience in the field. My greatest buzz comes from those whom I have worked who overtake and inspire me.

Now, in the face of catastrophic bio-diversity loss, stretched and breached planetary boundaries, and destructive climate change, the ability of the currently-constructed legal order to adequately regulate human behaviour in order to ensure human survival (much less the survival of other species) is under unprecedented challenge.

These ecological exigencies present us with an identity choice: either humanity continues to project a cosmological role in the world, as Anthropos -- standing detached from the world, while bending it to our will; or we (re)turn to an empirically faithful understanding of ourselves as Adam -- embedded in, integrated with, and dependent upon the Earth. Only such a collective shift in our self-image as a species might provide the ethical imperative needed to reverse the dominant and destructive modes of consumption that are devastating those with whom we share this planet, and endangering our own species' survival.

This workshop illustrates how people without economic power can have a voice. In the workshop, we will take a suburban water catchment and design an ethical economic system that gives the catchment a voice.

But despite all our words, embrace of earth-based spirituality, activism, legislative reforms and the growth of land-care groups, is environmental policy development in retreat? Is short-term pragmatism unduly shaping our relationship with the world around us, implicitly encouraging us to be primarily anthropocentric in our environmental goals? In my research into the mining of Coal Seam Gas, for example, I found little in the public debate that championed the intrinsic interests of the Land.

This presentation, drawing on the Christian tradition, will explore a world view that embraces "serving the Land", arguing that the implementation of the Rights of Nature into legislation provides an effective and practical way to find the right ethical balance between anthropocentric and earth-centred interests.

Over five decades, Buddhism scholar, activist and educator Joanna Macy developed her sets of experiential immersions known as the 'Work that Reconnects' to help people rise through feelings such as grief, burnout, apathy and despair by remembering our interconnectedness with each other and all life.

In 2011, she and Chris Johnstone condensed these ideas into a framework called "Active Hope", in which they set the case that no matter how bad things may seem, we can nurture hope by consciously connecting to the larger-than-self world and engaging in actions that inspire us. They describe ways to transform our perception so that we can empower our values and work towards actualising our visions of a sustainable world for future generations.

This session will introduce the power of the Work that Reconnects and Active Hope with a brief presentation of the core principles and an experiential taste of the work, followed by a group sharing and discussion.

I came up with an idea to create a traveling art installation in collaboration with other women artists that could be used to support, promote and raise funds in aid of TreeSisters by funding the planting of trees in the tropics. The art work is a two by two and a half meter canvas painting that is laid out on the floor as I talk about TreeSisters and the installation invites audiences to engage by creating their own personal message on a leaf to add to the overall work during the event. There are elements including little ceramic green hearts from 'The Flowering Heart Project' that participants can purchase and each twenty dollar heart funds forty trees. We can track how many trees will be funded through the event. There is any number of ways this could be present and happy to discuss further what is possible.

Set in the future, Tourmaline is a once prosperous gold mining town in an arid region of north-west Western Australia but is now in decline. The natural environment is figured as a malevolent living entity: beyond the safety of the town lies certain death. They have not learnt to live with their environment, but remain in a colonial fantasy of a European verdant landscape. They dream of a return of the wealth of the gold mining era that built the town and its once lush parks and gardens and grand buildings, which perpetuates Tourmaline's decline. The Law writes of events that led to the shattering of this dream, opening up an embrace of the environment as it is. In this embrace, renewal and true wealth is located.

It would be based on my book, International Environmental Law, Policy and Ethics (Oxford UP, 2nd Edn, 2014).

I have written 20 books (two are currently in press). Over 50 academic articles. I have had six international awards/fellowships, with my most latest being the Francqui fellowship in Belgium (2018-2019). I did ten years work for the NZ government in international environmental law, and are a former Rapporteur for the World Heritage Convention.

We argue that the ‘bottom line’ regulatory approach of the Government's freshwater reforms is fundamentally flawed.

Te Awaroa aims to build a national movement of Kiwis working to care for waterways, returning them to a state of ora. Te Awaroa draws from mātauranga Māori – Māori knowledge, culture, values and world view as well as science and technology.

We ask, what would the river say/what is it saying? We were buoyed by the Te Awa Tupua Act 2017 which granted the Whanganui River a legal personality and recognition as an ancestor, an integrated living whole, encompassing the bio-physical and meta-physical, that flows from mountains to sea.

We will present findings from this project and postulate how a Te Awaroa – Voice of the River approach might be implemented to achieve 1000 rivers in a state of ora by 2050, and how this approach might contribute to environmental rights and Earth laws.

The Faith Ecology Network (FEN), first convened in 2003, has brought together people from many faith traditions and philosophies to engage with those differences and willingly step into a neutral space. By adopting a more contemplative stance we hold that diversity both consciously and loosely, enabling transformative change.

This discussion will share the vision of FEN, some of the progress made and some barriers that have come up. It will listen to the wisdom of the group for new ideas and directions and engage participants in the possibilities of this "network of networks".

These ethics confirm agroecological influences on farm design and management in uncertain global times of climate, energy availability and farm inputs. The presentation outlines our small-scale, case-study, of 20-year journey developing an ethical multi-enterprise system utilising agroecological principles. It describes the transformation from a barren sheep property into a diverse ecological system supplying food to the local community through Farmers' Markets.

It also discusses the importance of developing a comprehensive vision. Our generational vision currently spans centuries and obligates us to plan and design extensively.

This presentation highlights how we strive to achieve this vision by utilizing our 16 farm ethics. Applying our Eaglerise Farm ethics forms our ultimate decision-making tool. There are ecological consequences if we ignore these ethics and we must take responsibility for that.
We measure success and adherence to our ethics with Ecological Performance Indicators (EPI). These form important quantifiable measures of our agroecological achievement.

This is what I do and what I teach and how I live.

A new model to understand the human-ecological relationship will be demonstrated. It is proposed that the human-ecological relationship be viewed as an ego-social-ecological determinant of health model that inverts previous perspectives of social-ecological models away from the individual to the earth being the core. Previous research on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island groups and Australian religious groups will be used, with outer layers representing the individual, community, ecosystem and the planet at the centre. It is hoped to prompt discussion on merging language in this field to move away from human-centric perspectives of the Earth.

Within the traditions and origins of common law jurisprudence, as well as almost all legal traditions, this original raw law does exists. However, it has been subject to what Robert Cover calls the jurispathic tendency of judges and legal agents of the state to kill, via interpretation, the diverse legal traditions and concepts that are antithetical to the underpinnings of Western nation state. This includes the foundational symbiotic relationship between humanity and its habitat. The anchoring of law solely within the social contract to the exclusion of the non-human has allowed dominant law to permit material violence without sanctions, redress or even judgement. Material violence, similar to social violence, is defined as the abusive forced breakage of mutually co-constitutive relations between materials and humans, and between matter itself for the purposes of anthropocentric control or domination.
In the last ten years, in response to ecological destruction and violence there is a disparate but global resurgence/emergence of legal perspectives that recognize the foundational legal relationship between humanity and it's habitat. My research looks at this emergent juris materiarum, which is defined as a family of diverse legal perspectives, practices and knowedges, both contemporary and ancient, that acknowledge and recognize a relational jurisprudence where the human, the material and matter itself, are co-constitutive and interdependent within the process of materiality. This resurgence could enable a clearer capacity for legal judgement upon material (ecological) violence as well as build upon a necessary legal treaty between humanity and earth.

1-2 hour Citizen Storytelling Workshop/Q and A for up to 20 people covering:

• Stakeholder storytelling for environment NGOs to encourage deeper connection, 'brand loyalty' and enhance engagement in both local and democratic action
• How to easily and effectively conceptualise and run a citizen storytelling website such as https://landcareaustralia.org.au/rescue/
• The value of communicating global issues from personal perspectives
• Expanding your impact through multidisciplinary approaches

This presentation will explore the concept behind the online project, present some audio extracts and discuss the value of enabling environmental stakeholders (farmers, activists, members of NGOs, rescue organisations and those who simply care) to share their unique stories. It will explore the the subjective and emotive impact of stories told in and from 'place' or home ground, and the power of sound to connect us viscerally and empathically to environments we may not be able to attend to in person.

So Gene Scene multi-media modules are designed to equip students to explore the personal, social and ecological contexts of diverse GM uses - environmental, human and animal reproduction, medicine, industrial materials, farms, food, and more.

New GM CRISPR techniques dubbed 'gene-editing', only invented in 2012, are now ubiquitous in laboratories world-wide. Entrepreneurs, scientists and technologists seek to deploy living GM products into many facets of our lives and some are already deregulated despite off-target impacts and scant history of safe use.

The Gene Scene will present engaging, innovative, web-based programs through narrative templates that facilitate self-generated animations, videos, podcasts, games, stories, simulations, hypothetical's and debates. These will assist students to conceive, create and convey personal and shared values and visions.

Informing and empowering young citizens and future policy-makers to see new CRISPR biotech innovations and products through ethical and value-based lenses will equip them to participate in setting their own goals and influencing society's priorities.

We encourage the Senate to disallow the Regulations. If they decline, from October 8 2019 the OGTR and public will not be notified of SDN1 research or commercial use. We are also seeking advice on whether the GT Act required prior amendment to validate the Regulatory changes.
Without regulation GM organisms - animals (e.g. farm, fish, insects) plants (e.g. grass, grains, trees) and micro-organisms (e.g. rumen bacteria, lactobacillus, yeasts, fungi) made using SDN1 processes - could enter our environment, food supplies and materials without assessment, monitoring, or public notice.

GM deregulation is part of CropLife International's GM deregulation campaign in 91 countries. In June Donald Trump ordered several US federal agencies to deregulate GM, Boris Johnson's first speech as PM called for CRISPR deregulation in the UK and Europe, and Japan is reviewing its laws.

Storytelling only functions at its optimal best when we allow new stories with new ideas to be told by new tellers. Anything less and storytelling can become oppressive in its own right as a means to hold our ideas captive and propagandise the ideas of the powerful. We have been told that many people can imagine the end of the world before they can imagine the end of capitalism. And yet, someone once imagined we could make it to the moon and we did.

I will be speaking about my own creative practice as a storyteller within multiple media. In particular I will cover how a willingness to explore beautiful, strange, outrageous, and, what some consider, dangerous ideas has been critical in being able to represent environmental and social issues. I will also speak about the importance of supporting new and independent voices as a means to protect the future.

While some forms of Christianity have been implicated in the Anthropocene, a shift from an Earth degrading to a more benign form of Anthropocentrism is possible. A kenotic ethic reflects the altruistic, sacrificial example of Jesus of Nazareth, which in turn reflects the character of God and the ideal for humanity.

A kenotic ethic can be used to challenge human parochialism and privilege. In particular, the Anthropocene understood as the Capitalocene, a western colonial phenomena, needs to be challenged. Kenosis therefore implies justice for Indigenous peoples, together with a recognition of land ownership and practices. It also implies a reconsideration of western consumptive practices and our relationship to both the domestic and wild other-than-human.

This panel discussion will contest two dialectic poles of urban sustainability: that of the archetypal neoliberal metropolis based on private consumption, severed from any relationship with its constituent ecological networks, and the idea of earth-centred community building, based on utopian principles of radical communality and interconnectedness.

A central tenet of urban sustainability is "resilience," preserving methods of production, settlement and consumption. Though we may need to protect cities from the impacts of climate change, it is cities themselves that need to transform the most - physically, socially and culturally. Through the lens of multi-disciplinary case studies, the panel will present and explore two other necessary transformations: Relinquishment and Restoration. These complementary processes will establish genuine urban resilience by combining sustainable systems, cultural diversity and the re-integration of natural and man-made ecologies, remaking our cities and the ways in which we choose to live in them, together.

This type of spring cleaning can be difficult if we only approach the task only from a theoretical, theological or philosophical perspective. Our current modalities of ethics and philosophy often remain trapped in a dualistically partitioned world where purpose, subjectivity and value are rooted in the mind rather than in nature. It seems improbable that you could develop a cogent Earth ethics from this space, let alone comprehend what it is to operate on human time while being in relationship with an Earth operating on deep time.

This is where direct experience, art, music and ritual provides us with the capacity to express the inexpressible. If we approach the development of Earth ethics by embracing its potential to be a system of experiential ethics, then we can harness the existing wisdom of our collective experience of connecting with the Earth to guide us on the path forward.

This facilitated workshop will bring together conference participants to draw out wisdom inherent in their own experiences of connecting with Earth. Participants will be asked to recall meaningful experiences from which they learnt about something about themselves, the Earth, or their connection to the web of life. We will then work together to extract ethics principles from their sharing and explore how this individual experience can be expressed to have universal application.

Humans are however, adept at over-complicating simple things. This impacts modern Earth-centrism and explains the chasm between its intention and influence. We suggest this tendency to over-complicate relates to a cognitive difficulty in harmonising seemingly polarised perspectives. An example is the difficulty reconciling an Earth-centric perspective with the modern human experience in which our lives are so fundamentally shaped by our success in utilising, transforming and exploiting the natural world. To harmonise these seemingly polarised aspects of modern life conjures the metaphorical challenge of fitting a square peg into a round hole. To wit, much Earth-centric discourse focuses on the impact that Cartesian dualism, the scientific revolution and the elevation of rationalism has had on our abilities to nurture a harmonious relationship with nature. Somewhat perversely this type of thinking further accentuates dualism.

On the other hand, by deploying holistic quantum mechanics we can bolster the foundations of earth-centrism, thereby unifying polarised aspects of our modern experience. Quantum holism offers a scientifically-informed ontological foundation that reshapes both peg and hole.

In Australia we encroach more and more on the wild places that are the homes of native animals. We remove the big trees which house and nourish them. We have brought exotic species who kill and displace the natives and hard hoofed herds who trample our delicate topsoils. We take land for housing and agriculture.

In this presentation I will provide an overview of some of the challenges and successes in managing conservation areas and sanctuaries and discuss the way that ethics guide the work of staff and volunteers in these precious properties.

I have been coordinating Potoroo Palace Native Animal Sanctuary since it began in 2006. We are a not for profit business/charity with nearly 30 employees and about 30 volunteers. Our foci are Conservation, Community and Education. Cowsnest Community Farm and Wildlife Sanctuary (which began in 1975) works alongside PP. We compliment each other’s needs and activities. Panboola (Pambula Wetlands and Heritage Project) which I began in 1996, has taken off in a magnificent way and I do not work there at all. Batty Towers Flying Fox Hospital and Conservation Area began in 2001.

Nearly all the people who work in these places are motivated by very strong Earth Centred Ethics. At PP everyone starts as a volunteer and, when there is a job available, we can choose from amongst the volunteers.

We are as ethical as we can possibly be, even if it involves spending more. The wages at PP are our main expense. We train and employ many people who have experienced incredible trauma and who often are able to flourish with a little support. The other sanctuaries have only one paid person in total (at Panboola). PP has five departments: Café, Feedshed, Maintenance, Grounds and Administration. Welfare of the Animals is our first priority; second is Education; all the bureaucratic rigmarole comes last. We have a huge loss each year so we grapple with grants and donations and bequests.

But we love our work!

Founded on offering practical listening skills, Andrew's presentations invite audiences into the rich communicative world of nature; birdsong, frog choruses, animal calls, summer cicadas, plus the micro-vibrational worlds of aquatic life and tiny insects. Tuning in to these sounds lets us interpret what nature is saying, and the living processes of whole ecologies.

Not only does sound give us a measure of the health of ecosystems, it also allows us to quantify the impact of our technologies on both nature and ourselves.

Through a sharing of ideas, supported by spectacular recordings and visual spectrogram analysis, Andrew seeks to address the fundamental question of our human relationship with the living biosphere.

"Listening is such a personal way of being present in nature. Sound brings things together; we can hear relationships between creatures and their environment. We can sense an animal's aliveness, interpret its biology and life story. In listening, we find a sense of belonging with our surroundings."

The session ends with a facilitated de-brief to draw out insights, experiences and awareness of what it is like to be part of a highly functioning collective. Feedback often includes awe at the subtlety of inter-connected webs, delight and closeness with others and pleasure in completing their own tasks with so much hive support.

No knowledge of bee keeping or bees is required to attend this workshop -- it is an immersive experience to gain an insects perspective in the world. This is a noisy, chaotic, cohesive, somatic discussion that can inform our own earth practices.

In answering this question, we recognised the need for an overarching vision. So, the group outlined a Vision for the Future, covering many areas of human behaviour, including politics, economics, law, education, the arts, and our interactions with nature. We also listed some inter-connected foundational principles or value systems to underpin our discussions.
We have concluded that it is not possible to contemplate improving the health of the natural world without examining the big picture. We have to interrogate our actions in other areas of human endeavour and the underlying values and principles that are driving this behaviour. An objective of this process would be for all humans to develop a connectedness with each other and the natural world.

We also believe there are many ideas embedded within Aboriginal culture that could help put our heads in a very different and better, but much more sustainable, place for moving towards the future.

Our presenters represent seniors who have been passionate, and sometimes active, about causes in their earlier life and are revisiting many of the same issues with the extra dimension of life experiences.

In this presentation Mary TInney will consider how Earth Link enhanced its original set of ecospiritual principles by dialoguing with contemporary Christian ecotheology. The outcome is a framework for a Christian ecospiritual praxis which grounds the ethical behaviour that is so urgently needed in our times. While this presentation is Christian in its orientation, its approach is located within a wide range of understandings of spirituality and the science-religion debate.

• Connecting to Country appropriately,
• Connecting to Community through the Common-Unity of shared heritage & culture,
• Connecting to Spirit through Right Work & the Response-Ability that comes with it,
• Leading ultimately to a Connection to Self through one's relationship with the other aspects, the process called 'Finding Your Way Home'.

The aim being that once one has a Connection to Country wherever that may be, then no longer can one willingly damage the Mother, because through Connection to Country one has an understanding of one's relationship as Child of that Mother, & the role of Guardian not just of the sacred places of the Mother but of the Mother herself, as all is sacred.

Once one establishes a Connection to Community through the recognition of Common-Unity then no longer can one damage one-another as in damaging another one damages oneself.

Once one connects to the Spirit of the Old Ones one learns the Responsibility (Response-Ability) of Right Work, & in the process becomes happy through the fulfillment of that Connection.
Then you have found your way home.

I use the world of story in a traditional way to teach the Connection processes.