“I have a choice: to protect our Earth or to let it be destroyed. For me it is unconscionable to walk away.” – Polly Higgins
Dear Reader,
Our way is increasingly clear. For a long time, many of us struggled in confusion. We were not aware of the impacts our choices have on the Earth. Our social conditioning was deep and we did not understand how the most vulnerable human beings, living low-carbon lives far ‘away’, are affected hardest by climate change and our extractive, wasteful economies. And we turned a blind eye to ecocide, the loss of species and ecosystems, and failed to see how our treatment of animals and other beings is a continuation of our societies’ legacy of exploitation.
But the tide has turned. Now, many millions of people are stepping into their true calling – to be stewards of our precious Earth and all beings, defending and restoring the places where we live, and educating, facilitating, and funding those efforts. We are now committed to self-transformation, co-creative organizing, and building just relationships in our communities and on Earth. It is not too late. There is so much beauty still available to love, protect and restore.
Our Summer edition of Kosmos Quarterly will explore these efforts in greater depth. All My Relations | Plants, Animals and Minerals offers insights from many Earth defenders: Pachamama leaders Bill Twist and Belén Páez, Martin Winiecki of Tamera, Mark Wallace, John Bell, Pamela Boyce-Simms, and many more.
We are fortunate to be working on the edition in collaboration with Tamera Peace Research & Education Center in Portugal. Tamera is providing editorial support as they prepare for their Defend the Sacred: Global Conference for Change-Makers, August 16-19. Learn also about a wonderful new book they have published, below.
Only Subscribers will receive the Kosmos Summer Quarterly, our flagship e-journal. We dedicate this edition of the Quarterly with great joy to beloved Earth-defender, Polly Higgins.
Continuation | Polly Higgins
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The campaign to protect the Earth by criminalising ecocide was the life’s work of UK barrister and visionary Polly Higgins. She spent the last decade making the word “ecocide” globally understood by giving talks, making documentaries and advising governments. Along the way she inspired thousands, from parliamentarians to ecologists and from lawyers to artists. She devoted all her time and unquenchable spirit to one client – the Earth.
At the time of the launch of Earth Protectors, Polly was seriously ill with a fast-spreading cancer, as related in George Monbiot’s article of 28th March 2019. She passed away peacefully on Easter Sunday 21st April 2019. Her warmth, determination and positivity remained undimmed to the end, and she lived to see her call for ecocide law being taken up by the growing climate activist movements. Her final wish is for a million or more people sign up to be Earth Protectors. With a million Earth Protectors standing with them, the climate-vulnerable states brave enough to take forward ecocide law will feel safe, and visible, and supported.
Her legal and campaign teams are fully committed to carrying her work forward – with your help and that of many thousands of Earth Protectors across the world. Polly’s spirit will live on in all who know it is time for serious harm to the Earth to be named – and prevented.
Tamera’s New Book Release: “Defend the Sacred”
(image) On the 1st of March, Tamera’s new book: “Defend the Sacred: If Life Wins, There Will Be No Losers” was published (in German and English) by Verlag Meiga.
The book is a testament to courage in the face of hostility, to life that does not give up, to boundless compassion and to that which is the same in us all. It was created after the two “Defend the Sacred” gatherings in Tamera in 2017 and 2018. Activists for peace and human rights, and protectors of water and the future of life came together to form a movement for global transformation, in a common planetary alliance to protect life. In both years, the participants also carried out aerial art actions against the oil drilling off the Portuguese coast – with success. The book contains reports, witness narratives and thoughts from the great diversity of this movement.
The book includes contributions from:
Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, USA; Sami Awad, Palestine; Saad Dagher, Palestine; Salim Dara, Benin; Charles Eisenstein, USA; ScillaElworthy, UK; TiokasinGhosthorse, USA; Brigida Gonzales, Colombia; Dave Hakkens, Netherlands; Hovan Ibrahim, Rojava/Syria; Joshua Konkankoh, Cameroon; Sabine Lichtenfels, Portugal/Gemany; Rabbi Michael Lerner, USA; Claudio Miranda, Brazil; Philip Munyasia, Kenya; AtiQuigua, Colombia; Rajendra Singh, India; Heini Staudinger, Austria; Monique Wilson, Philippines; Vlado Zaujec, Slovakia, and more.
The book is edited by the Grace Foundation, sponsored by the Sankalpa Foundation and published by Verlag Meiga. You can get it in bookstores or order it directly at Verlag Meiga