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African Earth Jurisprudence Collective
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Story of Origin
Stories of origin are shared orally. They have a spirit that comes alive through the telling, in relationship with those listening. This written version may be frozen in time but we hope it can still give a sense of the energy that has always accompanied its telling.
It is a story of how the African Earth Jurisprudence Collective has unfolded, touching on potent people and places who have contributed to decades of work.
In the Beginning
During the 1980s, shamans and knowledgeable elders in the Colombian Amazon gathered to reflect on the demise of Indigenous traditions, as a result of the colonial impact on their communities. They agreed to revive their lifeways and called on a few trusted allies from the dominant world to walk with them on this path, including The Gaia Foundation (Gaia).
The journey began with regular dialogues to unearth memories of life before colonialism: of their large communal houses called malocas, the seasonal and sacred natural sites, rites of passage ceremonies, hunting and fishing practices, the chagras or forest gardens, and the customary laws which are derived from a deep relationship with the rainforest. As the dialogues deepened, the memory came back.
After nearly two decades, by the year 2000, Indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon had returned to their ancestral lands, established their malocas and chagras, and developed their own education and health systems. Their land had been demarcated as theirs, and they were on the path to being recognised as the local government of the 18 million hectares of their forest homes, which they still steward today.
Gaia were privileged to accompany the Indigenous communities in Colombia, alongside Gaia Amazonas, shaman Ricardo Marin, and others including Rondón Tanimuca, Jairo Cubeo, Robertico Marin, Boa Miraña and Jose Chivo.
The Emergence of Earth Jurisprudence
In the mid 1990s Gaia was part of a gathering in Ireland, where an elder was asked to talk about the challenges of our time. In a booming voice with piercing eyes he said, “the industrial process is now in its terminal phase. This is the inevitable consequence of civilizations that destroy their life support system. The difference this time is that the dominant civilization has colonized the farthest reaches of the Earth.”
The elder was Thomas Berry, cultural historian and geologian. His book, The Great Work, was published in 1999 and called for a radical transformation of dominant law and governance systems. To explore how we could instead recognise Earth as the primary source of law, Gaia facilitated a series of dialogues with Thomas Berry and visionaries from the Amazon, Europe and Africa. We began embodying Earth Jurisprudence in our own lives, and searching for Indigenous communities who might want to revive the cosmologies that had been grounded in Earth-centred governance for millennia.
During this period, shaman Ricardo reconnected with his African ancestors during a dream and found they were unable to connect to their descendants. And so Amazon exchange visits were organised between Gaia and partners Gaia Amazonas, enabling African civil society leaders to learn from all that their Colombian counterparts had achieved.
This inspired the formation of a network across Africa, committed to reviving customary governance systems rooted in Earth Jurisprudence. We were centred by profound retreats held by Siama at the home of Colin and Niall Campbell in Botswana. Ripples began to reach Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Benin, and Gaia began to support the growth of an African Earth Jurisprudence movement.
Earth Jurisprudence names and recognises the Earth as the source of laws that govern and sustain life. It’s so resonant with our work because Indigenous communities derive their customary governance systems from the laws of the Earth. What does this mean? Indigenous people don’t look to constitutions or court judgements to find the law – instead, by being embedded in an ecosystem, communities understand their place and therefore how they should govern themselves in such a way as to maintain the integrity and health of the whole. This has enabled them to sustain themselves for generations, as coherent biocultural systems. Conceived by Thomas Berry at the turn of this century, he was clear that Earth Jurisprudence, whilst a new term, is not a new way of seeing the world. Often described as a legal philosophy, among the Collective we really understand it as a way of being in the world.
Gertrude Psawarayi-Jabson, Earth Jurisprudence Practitioner
Trainings for Transformation
Around this time, sparks of interest were swirling for training in both Earth Jurisprudence and the Amazon-inspired methodology for reviving Indigenous traditions. Based on Gaia’s experience and affectionate alliances, they developed such a course together with Roger Chennells, a South African human rights lawyer. Others fed in including Joanna Macy, Colin and Niall Campbell, Jules Cashford, Silvia Gómez, Stephan Harding and Mellese Damtie.
The vision for the training was to weave together a range of experiences, materials and practices for participants to explore and embody. The beautiful fynbos landscape of Towerland in South Africa became the home for regular retreats thanks to custodians, Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff of Proteus Initiative.
Since 2014, three cohorts have undergone the Trainings for Transformation to become Earth Jurisprudence Practitioners, with the support of Gaia and Siama. Graduates go on to mentor trainees, inspired by Indigenous approaches to intergenerational learning.
The Collective Takes Root
The long-term vision for what could emerge as a result of this training was inspired by Ricardo and other Amazon shamans, who saw one or two strong communities in a number of African countries, linked within a network. When communities remember their ancestral lineage and the spirits of the land, they are vibrant, and this sparks the interest of others. The work cannot be imposed because it is spirit-led; when it catches fire in people’s hearts and minds, then it takes root.
Inspired by this wisdom, Earth Jurisprudence Practitioners – graduates and facilitators of the course – returned to their own roots, drew on their personal transformation to support community-wide transformation, and began to create islands of biocultural coherence across a continent in crisis. This process is ongoing, and expanding as we welcome new graduates. Today, we work directly with 2,000 people, the ripples of which reaches 7,000 more, plus a greater number of beings who crawl, fly, slither and swim than we can count.
One of our our questions has been how to sustain the potency and rigour of the work, knowing that the deeper we go, the wider the impact and possibility of landscape-level change. By 2021 we had decided to name our community of practice the African Earth Jurisprudence Collective, and this is now our home.
A guiding Council sits at our heart-centre, inspired by Indigenous governance systems and following Nature’s principle of ‘emergence’. This means we develop through deepening our connections, creating conditions for ‘systems’ to retore coherence by trusting life’s innate capacity to heal and grow. Working with emergence as an orientation requires presence, deep listening, humility, responsiveness, and tracking: all qualities that we continually cultivate when connecting with Nature, working with communities, running our respective organisations, and in our community of practice.