GreenPrints Model of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance

Description

Kiran Kashyap:

"The AELA GreenPrints approach intends to move society to an ecocentric underpinning and defines bioregionalism as a core objective in actively engaging with ecological limits. Lawyer and national convenor of AELA Michelle Maloney describes GreenPrints as an alternative to an “anthropocentric, ‘top down’, pro-growth governance system [instead building] ecological governance approaches that are uniquely suitable for the Australian continent” (Maloney 2020, p. 314). Laws and governance designed through this approach could help to redirect human activity towards relocalised economies that respect and contribute towards the regenerative capacity of the ecological world (AELA 2016). GreenPrints attempts to facilitate this by building community literacy of planetary boundaries and ecological limits, analysing bioregional human activity as well as developing subsequent transition strategies and scenarios. In developing pathways to regenerative economies, the approach draws from numerous established methods including but not limited to Ecological Footprint analysis, One Planet Living tools and Doughnut Economics. The approach has a clear intent to encourage practices of reduced production and consumption in line with Earth’s regenerative capacity as well as a centring of Aboriginal laws and knowledge systems in the development of bioregional governance. The guiding framework of the eight GreenPrints steps outlines the intent of each part of this rich community-owned process, with scenario development towards the end leading to recommendations for law reform (Maloney 2020). It would be valuable to more tangibly understand how the various steps manifest in context through the GreenPrints framework, which the GreenPrints Handbook in development might go some way to elicit." (https://kirankashyap.medium.com/what-does-it-mean-for-societies-to-be-bioregionally-self-sufficient-5aad49f88b3e)