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United Nations, 2019, December 9 to 11, Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development - Annual International Conference

8th International Annual Conference at the United Nations See detailled presentation

United Nations, 2019, December 9 to 11, Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development - Annual International Conference

8th International Annual Conference at the United Nations See detailled presentation

Home > Records > Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development > United Nations, 2019, December 9 to 11, Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development - Annual International Conference

8th Annual International Conference on Rights of Nature for Peace and Sustainable Development - 9 to 11 December 2019, United Nations
Conference organized under the aegis of the United Nations Program for Harmony with Nature
(Other continental or worldwide interested networks, please contact us)

Records 2019:

International Annual Conference on the Rights of Nature
In the frame of the 11th GENEVA FORUM, December 9-13, 2019
United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

Monday December 9 aftermoon, Tuesday 10 December whole day and Wednesday 11 december morning, 2019

from 09:00 to 18:00

Tuesday evening, de 19:00 à 23:00 : Networking Dinner of Rights of Nature Networks

FREE ENTRANCE UNDER SUBSCRIPTION (United Nations Access Pass)

Simple Contribution to the Fees (See Form Below)
Presentations will be held in english and french. Debates and questions will be organized in english and french. Thank you to use the form at the bottom of the page to subscribe including only for audience.
Leading Projects of Education to Science and Citizen Sciences since 1992, and creating 1st Participatory Researches Camps in 2004, the NGO Objective Sciences International have the Special Consultative Status to United Nations. Active in all continents, the NGO organize every year, since 2012, the International Annual Conference on Rights of Nature in United Nations, at which one participate all Governments actives in this domain or interested by these works. The objective of this Conference organized into the heart of the United Nations hemicycle is to allow all the actors and operators in these domains to exchange, meet and share directly and at the largest international level.
Interactives Dialogues of the UN and Rights of Nature

The experts who are solicited annually by the Bureau of the United Nations in charge of the initiative Harmony with Nature, exchange already at national and continental levels (Europe, North America...) following diverse groups of themes. This Conference organised in December permit to work on the results of the High Level Interactive Dialogues that was done, and to prepare the objects of thinking for the next Interactive Dialogues. The one who want to exchange and share their ideas, practices and solutions, at worldwide level, meet at the end of the year for the International Annual Conference organized in United Nations.

Protection of Nature / Legal personality of Nature / Living Beings / Sustainable Development

Several public or associative organizations, and citizens, that are active in the domain of Rights of Nature, federated or organized, at the international level. The main national actors, the federations, and the specific operators, organized presently at the international level, and are called to meet annually at the end of the civil year, at the International Annual Conference on Rights of Nature, at United Nations, in Geneva.

This annual space of sharing results and pooling of skills, allow to the actors of the domain to exchange practices, solutions, ideas, needs.

Your Annual Exchanges Resource

In the following of the national and continental meetings that are organized in each country and continent by the local federation, this International Annual Conference at United Nations allow the actors to implement in consultation, or to inform mutually, of progress and actions they lead during the year, or that they have in project.

The participants at this Conference are:

  • Local and regional actors of different countries
  • Thematic Actors by disciplines
  • Regional or national federations
  • Thematic Federations, by disciplines
  • Large Institutions of Rights of Nature
  • Associations of Defense and Protection of Nature
  • Government departments (Environment, Education, Research, Sustainable Development...) and international associations of Ministries
  • Specialized Journalists (law, science, environment, education, sustainable development ...)
  • UN agencies (UNDP, UNEP ...)

Subjects that are in the agenda of this conference are the axis topics the United Nations Program for Harmony with Nature :

  • Earth-centered Law
  • Ecological Economics
  • Education for a natural behaviour of respect of Nature
  • Holistic Science and Researches
  • Humanities for Rights of Nature
  • Philosophy and Ethics
  • The Arts, the Media, Design and Architecture
  • Theology and Spirituality front of Rights of Nature

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Detailed Program

Exchanges between stakeholders of the meeting will happen in dynamic pitches followed by sub-groups you can contribute, in round table between speakers and of course debates with the audience of the Assembly.

Organiser : NGO Objective Sciences International, Geneva
Co-Chairpersons :

Official Opening Session - Tuesday 10 December 2019 09:00

Session organised in partnership with Rights of Mother Earth, the Bureau Harmony With Nature of United Nations and Objectif Sciences International.

  • Keynotes
  • Remarks on current situation
  • Remarks from the side of the Governmental Representations represented

Presentations done in 2019

Validated Presentations

Official shedule Be aware it exists sessions morning and afternoon
Tuesday 10 Dec Morning - Room VII, Building A Starting at 09:30 am, please be at Pregny Gate of United Nations since 08:00 am
08:30 am - Hosting in the Room
08:50 - Official hosting
09:00 - Introducting key-notes, by Mr Colin ROBERTSON
09:10 am - 6m40sec - Rights of Nature Education: Training the Next Generation of Environmental Professionals REMOTE PRESENTATION
Earth Law Center and partners are working to educate the next generation of environmental professionals on the growing movement to establish legal rights for nature. This work cumulated in a contract with a leading publishing company to publish a law school textbook on the rights of nature and related topics, tentatively titled "Earth Law: A Practitioner’s Guide." The textbook will be taught in a handful of law schools next year, and, so we hope, the majority of law schools and other higher education programs many years down the road. This presentation will speak about how to build a legal movement beginning with students, learning from past legal movements that blossomed through education and student groups.
Mr Grant WILSON , United States, Earth Law Center, https://www.earthlawcenter.org
09:20 am - 6m40sec - Precautionary Approach in the Rights of Nature: A Discussion ORAL PRESENTATION
For any rights to be recognized in the legal system they must have access to judicial process.
Any claim for Rights of Nature to be successful must involve four elements: standing, substantive rights, entitlement of those rights and enforcement of those rights.
Legal proceedings are subject to compliance with procedural requirements such as standing, injury or interest and existence of a right. The first part of the judicial process is known as legal standing – that is a right to access to the court. In order to prove that one has standing, the party seeking access to the court must in particular show that the party is injured or is likely to suffer an injury, if court does not intervene. Once a court has accepted the plea for standing of the complainant the next step is to move from procedural step to substantive law.
Complainant seeking court intervention must then prove that there are substantive laws or rights to redress particular injury. Once the law/ rights have been identified then the link between complainant and complainant’s rights to entitlement need to be established. When the court has determined that the complainant is entitled to specific substantive right(s) or its derivatives then court has to identify a process to enforce these rights as remedy.
Precautionary approach exists in many international treaties and conventions, in European law and some national laws either through statutory provisions or case law. This approach appears to be a sound practical process to preserve and protect the Nature. To achieve a better protection of nature referred to here instead of simple regulation or conservation – an approach which has failed – we must adopt precautionary approach or process. However, precautionary approach should not use cost effective measures to reach its objectives.
We shall discuss the necessity of using precautionary approach, minus cost-effective measures, in advancing the Rights of Nature. This approach can be the foundation for the preservation of Nature followed by its protection.

Ms Marion CHOFFEL, president of the I.U.P.P.N, Mr Sudhir CHOPRA, founding member of I.U.P.P.N, I.U.P.P.N., France
09:30 am - 6m40sec - Private Rights of Nature ORAL PRESENTATION
The old civil codes distinguished between the law of persons and the law of things. This demarcation is however under pressure owing to the emerging movement called rights of nature or earth jurisprudence. Around the world, natural entities that long would have been regarded as things – animals, but also rivers, for example, and mountains, forests, even Mother Earth herself – are recognised as persons before the law. This means they are endowed with rights and that they get standing to defend their intrinsic interest before courts.
Legal and theoretical scholarship on this issue is growing, however not yet in the field of (European) private law. At the same time, it is often civil codes that determine which entities have legal personality. Furthermore, rights of nature are likely to affect private property rights and businesses. When nature attains rights, she is likely to invoke them against both public and private legal persons, using strategies similar to those adopted by these more traditional legal persons. Thus, earth jurisprudence not only impacts private legal relationships, it also benefits from insights gained in the field of private law.
This presentation aims to conceptualise private law dimensions of rights of nature. Thus, it does not so much ponder the question, whether animals or natural entities should be recognised as legal persons, but rather takes their legal personality as a starting point for reflection. At the same time, accounts of what such personality would mean in practice might provide relevant insights for those considering to establish more legal personalities for natural entities. As an organising principle, the presentation uses various themes that emerge in civil codes, thus delivering an impression of a hypothetical civil code for nature. Nota Bene: the author will organise a conference on this very theme in the summer of 2020 at the University of Amsterdam.

Ms Laura BURGERS, PhD Candidate, CSECL, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, https://www.uva.nl/profiel/b/u/l.e.burgers/l.e.burgers.html
09:40 am - 6m40sec - Proposal for roadmap to implementation of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature ORAL PRESENTATION
The ecological crisis can be seen as the consequences a fundamental imbalance between humans and the living systems upon which we depend. To achieve the transformation of society which is increasingly called for (IPBES 2019, Sachs et al 2019) it is time to reconciliate our relationship with the natural world. A Declaration for the Rights of Nature would balance human needs and interests with the needs and interests of other living beings. Without such a balance, it is very doubtful if the Sustainable Development Goals, which the world has agreed upon, can be achieved. The Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth was drafted in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010. It has since been presented in the General Assembly of the UN and gathered momentum all around the world, recently within the World Council of Churches.
What if the time is now? The year 2020 is for biodiversity what 2015 was for climate change, with a World Conservation Congress within IUCN in Marseille and a COP15 within the Convention for Biodiversity in Beijing, where a post2020 Global Biodiversity agenda will be adopted. Can a process for implementation of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature in 2030 begin next year?

Ms Pella THIEL ,Rights of Nature Sweden , Sweden,http://www.naturensrattigheter.se/in-english/ , www.stopecocide.earth
09:50 am - 6m40sec - Rights of Nature: Viewpoint of a Glacier ORAL PRESENTATION
What do Rights of Nature mean in practice? You generally look at Nature as an external observer, but supposing you take a moment to reflect on Nature from an internal viewpoint and imagine you are that particular being? How might the world look and feel if you are a fish, bird, animal, algae or bacterium? And if you are a composite being such as a mountain or a river or an ocean? Do you exist? Do you have feelings? Do you see or hear? Do you have imagination or understanding? Can you act or move? Do you care about others? Do you have needs or interests? Can you protect or defend yourself? What is your relationship to other beings, in particular humans? How can you take action in their world of machines? Can you be considered to have personality? Should this be accepted also as conferring legal personality?
In the human world, you defend yourself through legal action: laws, court cases, legal procedures, legal remedies. You have money. You pay persons to represent you, to promote and defend your interests. They work to make laws for you to benefit. They interpret and translate from your language into the languages of law. But to participate you need to exist in law as a subject, a person, an actor, entitled to be heard, to sue … and to be sued. Then you are a legal person. You exist. You have rights. You can defend yourself and seek remedies.
Taking account of these reflections, a brief presentation is proposed which imagines the internal viewpoint of a glacier and asks about its rights. Situated in the French Alps (les Écrins) on the high mountain shoulder of La Meije, the Glacier de la Girose looks out across the surrounding world. A grotto is dug into it each year and a visit to this grotto prompts reflections on what it means to be a glacier in an age of climate heating, caused through human action. How can it defend itself in law against a programmed death? Would it make a difference if the glacier had rights recognised in law? Would it make a difference if it was recognised as a legal person?

Mr Colin ROBERTSON, Luxembourg
09:50 am - 6m40sec - The Mirador Mine - Amazonian Ecocide
REMOTE ORAL PRESENTATION
We are looking at the potential for the world’s greatest ecological and human disaster - Ecocide of the River Amazon.
The Mirador Mine is Ecuador’s first open-pit mega-mine extracting copper, gold, silver and molybdenum from the Cordillera Del Condor mountains in South Eastern Ecuador. This is one of the most biodiverse areas on our planet.
There is an unacceptable threat coming to the whole Amazonian Ecosystem from the two tailings dams of The Mirador Mine, both of which are susceptible to collapse through seismic activity, foundation collapse, and/or interior erosion and overtopping. These dams will fail. It’s only a matter of time.
The owners of the mine, ECSA, are a Chinese consortium comprising Chinese National Railways and Tongling Construction.
The smaller of the two dams is named the Quimi Dam. It will be 63 meters high and it is being built at an angle known in engineering terms, as critical, in other words on the edge of collapse.
These dams are supposedly built to last in perpetuity. An angle created from 1 meter horizontal to 1 meter vertical is considered critical – in danger of collapse. The Quimi dam is being constructed with these criteria.
The larger of these two dams is the Tundayme Dam. This dam will be 260 meters high. It will be the highest tailings dam in the world. It is being constructed at an angle created by 1.5 meters horizontal to 1 meter vertical. The "normal" practice for a tailings dam is 2 meters horizontal to 1 meter vertical to give more thickness and support for the tailings.
These dams are constructed in an "upstream" method declared illegal in Brazil after two major disasters, Fundao in 2015 and Brunhadino earlier this year.
In upstream construction, the outer wall of the dam is composed of earth and stone. More height is achieved as needed by laying down successive layers on top of the toxic tailings inside the dam.
The Cordillera Del Condor mountains are seismically active, the land is liable to slippage and the mountains experience heavy rains. Engineering criteria indicate an inevitable collapse. It is not a question of "if". It is a question of "when”?
We need to look at the worst-case scenario in which 390 million cubic meters of toxic waste will be released from the Tundayme dam.
The Brumadindo disaster in 2019, killed 300 people and released 12 million cubic meters of tailings.
The Fundao tailings dam breach, (the largest tailings dam breach ever to have occurred in the history of mining), released 34 million tons which travelled 670 km down inland waterways and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
We are looking at the unimaginable scenario of a tidal wave of destruction exploding from a 260-meter high dam, tearing down the River Quimi into the River Zamorra, travelling the full length of the River Santiago in a kind of river super-tasunami, destroying a water retention dam under construction and on into the River Maranon and the River Amazon.
The first surge will travel 1626 kilometres. (empirical equations are taken from Larrauri and Lall, “TAILINGS DAM FAILURES”, 2018). I will have to ask you to read that figure again. One thousand six hundred and twenty-six kilometres. That’s further than New York City to St. Louis, Missouri.
This is the first surge impelled by gravitational force. When we take into account the mixture of tailings with the River Quimi, the River Zamora and the collapse of the water retention dam on the River Santiago we can estimate that a spill of 390 million cubic meters would travel 6,700 kilometres which is greater than the length of the River Amazon.
These dams will inevitably collapse. The mine is in operation producing 10,000 tons of toxic waste daily. In January 2021 more tailings will be produced eventually increasing production to a projected 60,000 tons of toxic tailings per day.
The first step toward stopping this impending disaster is to obtain an injunction to stop production at the mine until independent experts have declared that the dams are built to a standard of safety to reflect the extreme danger that the present inevitable collapse poses to humanity and the environment.

Mr David Frederick DENE, UN Harmony with Nature - expert - Earth Jurisprudence, United Kingdom
Tuesday 10 Dec Afternoon - Room VII, Building A Starting at 02:00 pm
01:30 pm - Hosting in the Room
01:50 pm - Official hosting
02:00 - Introducting key-notes, by Mr Thomas EGLI
02:10 pm - 6m40sec - Cultivation of food crops for the soil erosion prevention, the food Management in agricultural for environmentORAL PRESENTATION
The soil erosion by water and wind has active at present. The loss of topsoil, the organic matter and mineral overs of soil has downwards, both biological and physical-chemical decreased.
The fertile of topsoil has floating by the rain and flood, because there is without plant, tree, weeds or grass-covered, which has absorbed the rainwater. It’s will be borne took clay mud. Sediment into water sources, resulting in a shallow. The water cannot be used in consumer products. There is sloping areas have increasing.
By the way, the treatment to retention and recover the soil erosion in slope area have been performed in several methods. One of the methods is to plant a ground cover by step ladder to prevent the soil erosion for sloping areas.
The ground cover plants such as lemon grass and beans, which have the strong roots for soil adhesion, which can help prevent soil erosion, it also increases the soil abundant. By planting the ground cover plants by horizontal ladder parallel to the slope of the area to prevent soil erosion
Mr. Pathawit CHONGSERMSIRISAKUL, Dr Siripen IAMURAI, Thailand, Panyapiwat Institution of Management,Thailand, https://www.pim.ac.th
02:20 pm - 6m40sec - Cultivating Nature’s Right to Exist as a dynamic, Living-WholeORAL PRESENTATION
This paper approaches the question of how we cultivate an attitude of attentive listening to a nature as a dynamic, living-whole. It begins by outlining a poem written by Vergil, The Georgics, which teaches Roman society to farm for the equal benefit of its members to cultivate equitable, resilient communities, joined in common labour. I will first introduce how Vergil uses the rhythms, rhymes and figurative language of poetry to teach the listening anticipation necessary for people to nurture the complex emergence and flourishing of life that is paced by multiple natural rhythms. Thereafter, I will offer several examples of how this embodied, listening attention is vital in the present-day bioremediation of watersheds, citing two projects, based in Senegal and Nepal, in which the International Rainwater Harvesting Association is currently engaged. The main contention of this paper is that Nature’s principal right involves being listened to, so biodiversity can flourish.
Ms Rachel NISBET, Marc SYLVESTRE, Switzerland, International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance, https://www.irha-h2o.org
02:30 pm - 6m40sec - Rights of Mother Earth ORAL PRESENTATION
We are working on a global signatre campaign, asking the UN to adopt a Universal Declarataion of Rights of Mother Earth to complement the Human Rights Declaration. By doing so the UN would acknowledge Mother Earth and Nature as a living entity, which is the source of all life, rather than being treated as a resource for the economy. As a first step Nature needs to be included in all Natinal legal systems as a rights bearing entity with legal standing in court. You can find the peition here: www.RightsofMotherEarth.com. Please sign it and share it. We will also invite you to join our 2nd rassemblement on the Place des Nations on Wednesday 11 December at 12:30 - 13:00, to remember the 71st anniversary of the Human Rights Declaration. Our gathering is called #EarthToo. Please join us and sign the petition. Thank you

Mrs Doris RAGETTLI, Rights of Mother Earth , Switzerland ,www.RightsofMotherEarth.com
02:40 pm - 6m40sec - Nature´s Ambassadors Project - The discovery of life in harmony with Nature ORAL PRESENTATION
The project we intend to present covers various disciplines that establish the conversations necessary to demonstrate the interdependence of all who live in the planet and thus constitute it in its universality.
This presentation intends to demonstrate the conclusions of an ecological education project in which is prioritized the integral development of the relations between all the members of the Nature, in harmony. The project has as its objective to rescue the natural perception of life in Harmony with Nature as part of multi-and interdisciplinary studies on life on Earth.
As specifics objectives the project, executed in benefit of young students between 12 and 16 year old, we aim to introduce the concept of the philosophical principle of life in Harmony with Nature into formal education: collaborate in discussions at the United Nations on the recognition of Nature’s Rights; reach out the participants closer to the natural environment; experience the difference between observation and engagement with Nature and collaborate for the adoption of a new perspective in the community relationship.
The greatest expression of this new way of relating is in the midst of the smallest community, as the schools, which offer the basis education the transformation of the society and thus of the State.
For this purpose, artistic and workshops were programmed as activities that will be proposed to the young people chosen by the project. The backbone of practical activities was built on three guiding principles: (1) connection between human being and nature (2) awareness of the natural space to the surroundings, its importance and our responsibility of care (3) the creative (and transformer power of each of us. Through progressive and concatenated workshops, we seek to clearly address absolutely vital issues about the relationship with Nature. We will not teach art, but we will teach by art and mental reconexion practices with Nature, so that reflections transcend the rational record and enter the sensory field, playful and, if possible,the sphere of the sacred.
This proposal takes as its core the theory of autopoietic systems, gravitating around law, quantum physics, theology, philosophy of language, metaphysics and art, in the search for an element so that, being original and common to everyone, could justify the intent to contribute to a paradigm shift in law and society, abandoning the anthropocentric perspective in favor of affirmative polycentric biopolitics for a life in harmony with Nature.
The Project Nature’s Ambassadors aims to comply with these principles and the recommendations by Harmony with Nature Platform Report, published at General Assembly of the United Nations Resolution 71/266 , revisiting and strengthening the bond that each human being maintains with nature.
We also intend to demonstrate that for execution of projects like this, it is essential the promulgation of relevant public policies that foment and promote the execution of this kind of projects and activities villages and cities, could be a healthy-living sustainable environment in harmony with Nature.

Ms Vanessa HASSON, MAPAS, Brazil, www.mapas.org.br
02:50 pm - 6m40sec - Towards achieving Existential and Functional Hq ORAL PRESENTATION
In this presentation, inter alia,it is my endeavor to show that both the two contemporary approaches of the relationship between the Man and the Nature namely "anthropogenic" and "non-anthropogenic" approaches are erroneous in as much as both are based on dualism ie. that the Man and the Nature are different ; they, however, in that the former gives the Man superiority over Nature while the latter gives Nature superiority over the Man. Both are wrong if one were to take into account the Rig Vedic Philosophy dating back to 5000 BCE , or even more, which hold that the Man and the Nature are One and the Same ; one is only a microcosm of the latter. Both are made up of the same constituents and also function in the same fashion.
The presentation therefore deals with, amongst others, the following three aspects :
firstly, to realize and accept ‘Oneness’ between the Man and the Nature ;
secondly, and more importantly, to realize and accept that only harmony ‘within’ us can pave way for harmony with the Nature and, therefore, to gear up to achieve harmony within us and then to achieve Existential and Functional Harmony with the Nature ;
and lastly, but most significantly, to exhort us to apply all correctives- whether social and/or societal, national and/or international, whether punitive and/or coercive by sanction of law- uninhibitedly and unhesitatingly, even if harsh and tough, towards this end. And, accordingly, causing Pollution and Environmental Degradation be declared the most heinous “Crime against Humanity” and its Violators be punished firmly and sternly, both in the municipal law and International.

Mr Manoj GOEL, IUPP (International Union for protection and preservation) , India , http://www.uipp.org
03:00 pm - 6m40sec - Rights of Lake Vättern
ORAL PRESENTATION
Rights of Nature Sweden is currently involved in working with local communities around the second largest lake in Sweden, lake Vättern (the sixth largest lake in Europe) in order to explore how a cultural shift could look like when an ecosystem is a subject of law. Our work contains of connecting and networking with local actors, offering them workshops and lectures on the topic of rights of nature and how to relate that to lake Vättern. We base our work on the Lake Vättern Bill of Rights and are working on to create a coalition of different stakeholders to unite behind it.
The Lake Vättern Bill of Rights was a cooperation between the network Swedish Earth Right Lawyers and Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. It was then used as a basis of a tribunal during the Earth Rights Conference in Sigtuna, Sweden hosted together with Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

Ms Arci PASANEN ,Rights of Nature Sweden ,Sweden, www.naturensrattigheter.se
03:10 pm - 6m40sec - ODD n° 16 "Accès à la Justice": le Programme "Harmony with Nature", Droits des Semences et Droits des Paysans ORAL PRESENTATION
When considering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, it would seem that peasants are not human beings as violations of their rights are so numerous. They have been impoverished, despised, destroyed. Their well-being is closely linked to that of soil and seeds. Yet they have been deprived of the seeds they have been developing for 12,000 years: the majority (75%) of these seeds have vanished and have often been banned by law. Peasants have also been deprived of their land. They can no longer live in harmony with Nature.
Most people have no idea that there is such a UN programme as Harmony with Nature that is making significant progress to reimagine words and establish new rights in its effort to make it possible for human beings to live in harmony with Nature.
Rights of peasants, Rights of seeds, Rights of Nature and "Harmony with Nature" are intimately linked. How are such themes relevant to SDG 16, on access to justice?
Much remains to be done to comply with SDG 16 as far as peasants are concerned:
Target 1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates
Food violence rarely comes to mind, and yet the phenomenon is ubiquitous and devastating:
food contamination in wealthy countries (see the Report for the European Parliament, DEMENEIX et SLAMA, 2019)
food shortages in poor countries, with multiple causes and consequences attached to them.
Children are in the front line of food violence (Target 2)
Peasants have only too often been unfairly deprived of their seeds and of the related benefits due to them. They have been deprived of their land (spoliation, contamination), and the opinion of rural populations is by and large ignored when it comes to decision making. Those who strive to uphold peasants’ rights are often under attack and sometimes murdered (noncompliance with Targets 3 to 7)
The Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations 2019 on the "Harmony with Nature" Programme concludes:
129. Over the last decade, Earth jurisprudence can be seen as the fastest growing legal movement of the twenty-first century. The most significant consequence of acknowledging human interconnectedness and inextricability from the rest of the world has been casting the non-human world as a legal subject, […].
The presentation will open a new vista on agriculture, in the context of Human Rights and Nature Rights, referring to the recent UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, and building upon two previous projects, the second of which, on Rights of Seeds, is a particular case of the first, on Rights of Nature.

Mr. Michèle PERRIN-TAILLAT, France
03:20 pm - 6m40sec -Indigenous Natural Sites in Sub-Saharan Africa as Juristic Persons: Implications for the Preservation of NatureORAL PRESENTATION
Responses to environmental problems in Sub-Saharan Africa are encouraging and commendable. However, the state of the environment continues to deteriorate and the environmental challenges are escalating. The upshot of this is a sub-continent on the brink of ecological disaster. A deepening environmental crisis brings to the fore the perennial existential question of how we should live. This question requires deeper exploration into what contemporary society values, including the origins of such values and what (new) values we might wish to promote. It is in this context that this paper will explore the potentials of promoting the personhood of Nature in the subcontinent through African beliefs that promote deep ecology and its promotion of the preservation of Nature. The legal regime of juristic personhood may be an effective tactic for safeguarding enspirited sacred natural sites, because it conceptually resonates with the animistic world-view and relational ontologies of many Indigenous peoples – ontologies that combine a holistic approach to nature with a deep respect for it. Further study (and litigation) is required for such an approach to become widely recognised, but it could become an effective tool for conservation of nature within community-conserved areas and protected areas. It is against this background that this paper will examine recent legal cases elsewhere as a pretext for granting juristic personhood to enspirited sacred natural sites in Sub-saharan Africa. This paper will further recommend how various advocacy groups (local, regional and international) can be raised to help indigenous peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa secure their natural sites to ensure that they are preserved to the end of contributing to sustainable development on the sub-continent.

Ms Ngozi UNUIGBE, Nigeria, University of Benin, https://uniben.edu
03:30 pm - 6m40sec - Meetings of Excellence : an OSI programORAL PRESENTATION
Le programme Rencontres de l’Excellence existe depuis 2009. Cette année a vu l’organisation de 2 séjours d’été ; l’un dans les Pyrénées ariégeoises en France et l’autre à Londres, en anglais. Les 2 thèmes étaient bien sûr différents ; l’ours, son écosystème dans les Pyrénées et à Londres, le thème des mégapoles et des écosystèmes bien sûr les deux thèmes au regard des Droits de la Nature. L’expérience menée à démontré que les jeunes participants en moyenne âgés de 16 ans comprennent maintenant en quelques minutes les principes des Droits de la Nature qui étaient encore il y a 5 ans inconnus de cette génération. L’étude des écosystèmes apparaît comme un excellent moyen de donner des outils à cette génération qui défile pour changer le climat mais qui est assez démunie de concepts de compréhension des phénomènes de ce type. Bien sûr, interviews d’experts partenaires et compréhension des positions divergentes sur la présence de l’ours dans les Pyrénées et micro-trottoir de Londoniens ont été réalisés.
Mrs Michèle EGLI-WACHS, Objectif Sciences International , France, http://www.rencontres-excellence
03:40 pm - 6m40sec - les DAUPHINS de RANGIROA Présentation / Evolution ORAL PRESENTATION
Groupe d’étude des Dauphins de Rangiroa / Archipel des Tuamotu / Polynésie Française
retours d’expériences et informations sur l’évolution du projet et de la situation sur place.
Axes de développement possibles par rapport à la notion de tourisme durable.

Mrs Estelle GAUDIN, SAUVEGRAIN Denis, France, https://www.facebook.com/groups/gemm.dauphinsderangiroa
POSTERS
The denudation of trees POSTER PRESENTATION
Soon, nature took on an essential dimension and became a question of power. Awareness of the importance of forests and the tree.

Mr Dario MARCELLUS, Tribunal de Première Instance, haiti, http://mjsp.gouv.ht

Other potential presentations

03:10 pm - 6m40sec - Toward collective seeds : participatory plant breeding approaches ORAL PRESENTATION
If the food of tomorrow is not completely disconnected from agriculture, our bread, pasta, tomatoes, cucumbers and other salads will continue to come from seeds. But which ones? Patented seeds, certified seeds, farm seeds, peasant seeds, participatory seeds? The stakes around seeds, the first link in the food chain, are far too important to be left to a handful of multinationals. It is therefore every citizen who is called upon to mobilize in participatory approaches not only tothink but to act in the seed sector, in their ecologically sustainable grow, in economically viable artisanal processing and in the local spread of healthy, loyal and meaningful foods.

Ms Dominique DESCLAUX, INRA , France, http://www.inra.fr/Entreprises-Monde-agricole

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