We are building an exciting, ambitious campaign to create laws to protect our Earth — focussing on putting in place a law of Ecocide to prevent major destruction and loss of the environment.  Making Ecocide a crime will put a stop to some of the most harmful practices in the world that affect people and our planet.  Recognising the rights of the Earth will be a transformative step forward, as the recognition of human rights was in the 20th century.

The time is now.  The Earth Summit taking place in Rio in June 2012 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to persuade world leaders to put in place laws that protect the Earth.  Our campaign reaches out across business, artists, politicians, faith and peace leaders, environment and human rights groups, women and young people.  We need someone amazing at digital and social media to help us reach them, show them how important this issue is, and get them to act.

We need someone who is:

• Very focussed and targeted — we have relatively small resources and big ambition
• Able to hit the ground running — we are a fast-moving campaign with a lot happening
• Experienced and passionate about social media, crowd-sourcing, open-sourcing and other forms of online interaction and collaboration
• Creative and innovative — finding solutions to any challenge, working with small budgets and suggesting new ways of campaigning
• A team worker — collaborating closely with our core team (currently 4 people, will soon be 7-8), and the ‘bigger team’ of enthusiastic supporters around the world
• Practical and driven by results — making things happen and hitting deadlines

Some of the most valuable ways you will contribute to the campaign include:

• Taking the campaign to the next level with amazing digital and social media strategies to get many more people to spread the campaign
• Putting these strategies into practice in collaboration with the team and our networks of supporters — for projects including Love Letters to the Earth, International Women’s Day, our search for Charles Grant, sentencing of CEOs charged with Ecocide and more
• Moving us from a largely UK and USA/Australia/NZ supporter base to have a much more international reach
• Developing our Facebook presence and our website to be more engaging and more action/collaboration-oriented
• Crowdsourcing and spreading new ways to communicate the campaign — e.g. reaching out to online networks to get others to make brilliant films about Ecocide
• Helping reach thought leaders and influencing debate — including working with our campaign’s founder and Lawyer for the Earth, Polly Higgins to develop her use of Twitter
• Writing/editing and basic design for our social media channels and website

Location: London
Full-time
6-month contract initially (with the possibility this may become a permanent post)
Starting as soon as possible
Salary: £24,000 p.a. (we aim to increase this salary over time if possible)

To apply please send a CV and covering letter telling us why you’re the right person for this exciting challenge, to joe@eradicatingecocide.com by 9am on Thursday 23 February.

Could Warren Buffet or Bill Gates be the next Charles Grant?

“William Wilberforce is popularly credited with the abolition of slavery. But the campaigners – far ahead of their time in their methods – had recognised the need for a major business figure to stand beside them and declare his (it was two centuries ago) support. That man was Charles Grant, chairman of the East India Company, which then controlled over half of world trade.

The British lawyer Polly Higgins often draws parallels between the campaign to outlaw slavery and her initiative – to abolish ecocide – the destruction of the natural world. Think poisoning a river, tropical deforestation, or the havoc wreaked by climate change. The comparison is not original but it is valid, concerning the protection of powerful business interests, the damage that they cause but often do not see, and the prevailing ideology that some people can have dominion over others or their environment without consequences.

Higgins’s solution is also as simple as the outright outlawing of slavery: the campaign wants environmental destruction to be declared illegal by making it a fifth crime against peace in the international criminal court.”

Read more…

On the 30th of September 2011, in the UK Supreme Court it took just 50 minutes for the jury to return with two unanimous guilty convictions of ecocide against the CEO’s of the oil companies operating in the Athabasca Tar Sands.

See pics from the day here, read what some of the papers had to say here: Independent, Deutsche Welle, Guardian, Financial Times, CNBC.

Read more here

You can follow Polly’s journey from the 30th Aug – 18th Sept on facebook and twitter. Polly is now in Cairns – here are her latest gigs. Please come along!

Ecocide, 5th Crime Against Peace, James Cook University, Monday 12th September, 4 – 5pm and 6 – 9pm

Recharge Kuranda Community Hub: Wednesday 14th September 2011, 2:30 – 4:30 pm

Transition Enabling, Candlenut Steiner School, Wednesday 14th September, 2011, 6.30 – 9pm

Making Ecocide a Crime, Redlynch State College, Thursday 15th September, 2011, 6.30 – 9 pm

Here is what you the people said:

Preserving the earth for future generations of all living things is vital. This book focuses on how to do this legally, how to wake the public to possible solutions. I vote for Ending Ecocide by Polly Higgins.

***

A fantastic piece of persuasive argument. This should be read by everyone in No.10 and the White House.

I vote for Eradicating Ecocide

***

This is the book that legal systems around the world are waiting for = drawing on its ideas to overturn 500 years of denying nature a legal voice. This should be book of the century.

***

This book is one of the most important books for solving our most vital problem…it is literally about the survival of life as we know it on our planet! Polly brings us what we so desperately need: finally, an elegant, inspiring, ambitious yet totally possible solution to save ourselves!

go polly! xxx

***

This book is important

If anyone can help save the planet, Polly’s book can

Not the most optimistic book, but *crucial* for our future well being, or even survival!

If this book fails to win the prize, humanity deserves what it’s got in store…

Important ideas and practical application!

Essential reading!

***

A must read for anyone who cares about having a socially just and liveable tomorrow – Jim

***

An essential book that can help us create a better world.

***

Polly’s book is essential reading to anyone interested in looking after the world and not interested in green wash. Gareth

***

Excellent job Polly! Best read in 2011 so far!

***

Simply excellent.

***

Inspirational

***

This is a major new approach towards understanding what we are doing to the planet. Corporate business – and others in society – only seem to understand the “law” and act accordingly to minimise their obligations. Hence we have labour laws, and social laws (although these are often under threat), so to introduce the the term of “ecocide” is a fantastic development and one we should all welcome and the book has to be considered as a mainstream issue and to win the Peoples Book Prize would give this more consideration. Thanks Polly

***

This is by far the most important and world-changing book on the list. It is factual and careful, but also very moving. Making ecocide an international crime against peace would go so far towards arresting the destruction and pollution of our only planet.

***

Best read 2011 for me.

***

MetLawyer loves this book!

***

Not only a brilliant book but a guide! Thank you Polly.

***

Important stuff.

Probably the most important book in all history…

Hurrah for Polly.

***

Ecocide as a UN amendment could transform the face of the planet – as did the abolition of slavery in the C19

***

I totally support and agree with Polly’s goal for international legislation against ecocide and hope that winning this award will stir more public support.

***

I vote for Polly Higgins’ ‘Eradicating Ecocide‘

This is an important, inspirational and visionary book which should be read by all world leaders!

***

Polly gets my vote. Our planet needs to be heard.

***

excellent read

***

No more deserving and inspirational book and author could win this prize.

***

Enlightening and frightening – and essential reading. We need to think differently and faster

***

This book needs to get out there

***

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo

***

Polly Higgins is an inspiration. An international lawyer, she has focused her talents towards the creation of a new international law, Ecocide. Higgins is petitioning the UN to add a Fifth Crime Against Peace, following Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Crimes of Aggression. If successful this would allow for the prosecution of major polluters at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. This includes Heads of State as well as CEO’s. This will be an incredibly difficult task but, having met her and realised the depth of her research and extent of her networking in Southern nations, if anyone can pull it off Higgins can. The next couple of years might be very interesting.

***

This book should be compulsory reading for all people, business and change-makers to inspire us all to lobby our leaders to ACT now and much much faster than they are.

***

This is the most serious issue facing us; we must not deny it and Polly Higgins helps us face reality

***

We need to stop the destruction of natural habitat around the world and the current anthropogenic mass extinction. The proposals in this book will help in this goal.

***

This book will help create a new foundation for a new humanity!

***

A book of universal influence and initiative that will stimulate the changes the planet needs.

***

fabulous user friendly legal book which manages to be easy and interesting to read, while being packed full of information. It’s also a refreshing positive climate change book.

***

Making ecocide a crime is SO important that everything else pales into insignificance. If the human race continues to wreak havoc on the Earth’s ecosystems there will soon be no more books, no more people, no more life as we know it.

***

best book this decade

***

It’s about time it was made a serious crime to cause ecocide, and this book says it all. Fantastic!

***

An amazing idea! I hope this book leads to a healthier future for generations to come. I vote for a scientific approach to responsible management of the Earth’s resources and for the outcome of such studies to write the rule book for what companies can and cannot do when impacting on the Earth in any way.

***

WOOT!

Brilliantly written

***

This is an important book and important legislation! The Earth is a Living and Intelligent Being, as we are. If we don’t stop raping her and killing her, bit by bit; there will be no place for us to live.

***

Great cause!

I guess the survival life on planet earth is a concept to get behind, eh?

***

A heroic and visionary book!

***

Maybe the most important book for the 21st century!

***

An important book!

***

An inspiring read to shake us out of complacency. A call to a new practical way of saving our trees and our planet at the 11th hour.

***

This book proposes a method to bring to justice those who create wanton destruction to our environment and who, up to now have, been able to hide behind a cloak of corporate invisibility. It removes a huge roadblock to environmental sustainability. Bravo!

***

a planet saving read!

***

Polly Higgins pioneering visionary work is inspiring and this book is essential reading for us all to act on; this is just the start!

***

A significant book for the new era. Gives hope to all that care about the future. Will inform the environmental activism of millions. Well written and presented.

***

Eradicating Ecocide sets out how we can ‘pull up the tracks’ on our unjust legal system and put in place radical new laws which will criminalise behaviours which have a deadening effect on life. Polly Higgins is an activist lawyer and a true inspiration to all young lawyers.

***

This book is wonderful and deserves to win!

***

Most needed book in these times…Thanks Polly

***

Recyle, renew & reuse the laws that are in place. Eco-LOGICal

***

Fantastic that this book is being considered, brilliant

***

Great book a must read

***

Essential reading. Ecocide must be eradicated or it will destroy us all.

***

The simple facts and the simple solution to guarantee a sustainable future for our children – a true call to action for every one of us.

***

A book for our times and a chance for real quality of life.

***

A must-read for anyone looking for a real and practical solution to the global environmental and cultural crisis.

***

Surely, this accessible yet comprehensive book counts among the most timely currently available on crucial theme of our times.

***

A great contribution to a critically important subject area

***

Beyond important-we cannot carry on as if there is no tomorrow, as there will be no tomorrow.

***

This is a major contribution to high-efficacy strategy; to ignore it could be interpreted as a form of sui-genocide.

***

Polly knows law inside out. She also understands what matters in life. When these two come together, you have an explosive combination generating invaluable insights inspiring for action that counts.

***

Quite simply the best book on the most important topic of all time. Of course I recommend it. )

***

In you own words Polly “Trim tabs each and every one of us.” We can all trim direction with our purchases or investments. When CEO’s can be prosecuted , they will have to either change direction… or suffer a personal loss. (rather than shareholders “picking up the Tab!”) The Global Law of Ecocide will trigger that change of direction.

***

Polly Higgins is woman with a huge heart and great vision. She’s waking up people all over the world to the need to protect our planet, and hence ourselves. She’s right – we have to change the rules so that governments and corporations can no longer see ecocide as an option.

***

The nuclear tests in the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s and so on were deliberate and ignorant We cannot learn, despite this wonderful book..

***

This is an important book. The simple fact of defining Ecocide as a crime could give pause to thinking members of some companies’ boards, and hold back destructive projects.

***

Truly inspiring – how laws could save the planet. This is insightful and proactive – it is as the forefront of a new wave of thought that offers real solutions to tackling global problems.

Destruction, damage or loss of ecosystems is happening on a mass scale everyday.

This is ecocide.

This is the campaign to make ecocide a crime.

You can help us close the door to the ecocide and open a new one to a clean green world. The more of us that stand up and call for ecocide to be made a crime the sooner our world will change for the better.

We demand:

• Ecocide be made a criminal offence
• Ecocide be made the 5th UN Crime Against Peace
• Ecocide be eradicated

The cases are likely to take years to be resolved, but if successful they could have huge implications for carbon intensive businesses by effectively forcing the government to impose more stringent emissions regulations.

Read this article from businessGreen for more information on the case.

Young activists who are part of the iMatter movement are part of the group suing the government – read their manifesto which demands the government to protect the atmosphere for future generations.

This was in reaction to the increasing amount of arson taking place in the forests of the Dominican Republic.

To find out more read the article in the Dominican Today newspaper.

The Environment Minsiter, Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal stated: “I’ve never seen an exemplary sentence against the authors of criminal fire, but I have seen it against invaders that cut down trees and depredate without a conscious, for which the creation of ecocide is necessary, as homicide exists for those who take a person’s life, it must exist also against those who kill nature.”

We have to ask whether a small act that breaks the law in a peaceful manner can be justified if it brings to light the hugely damaging injustices of our current system.

To follow the story and to show your support go to the Peaceful Uprising website. And check out the article in the Guardian.

Tim after the auction

A brilliant cartoon from Citizens United. The Story of Stuff charts the rise of the corporation. Today, 53 of the 100 largest economies are corporations! Corporations can be great because they provide jobs but they can also be hugely destructive to society and the environment. So, Citizens United suggest that we put a few careful laws in place to control what the corporation can do.

To find out more watch this great video and check out their website, http://storyofstuff.org/citizensunited/.