How to Use

As a Trustee of Planet Earth, you have agreed to live by our human responsibilities to protect the planet, and to uphold the laws that govern the Planet Earth Trust as set out here. Thus, whatever you do and create will arise from these principles.

Simply apply the principles to any situation you are in, any community large or small, at a personal, local, national and international level. It is a participatory and experiential tool to be used creatively.

Anyone can do any of the below: children, adults, male and female. None requires previous experience or training: The Declaration can be used to apply to any situation, formal or informal, large or small.

It can be used:
  • for self contemplation, as a meditation or visualisation for self or in a group,
  • for future mapping, to co-create the future,
  • as a teaching aide, for children and adults alike,
  • as guidance for community decision making processes,
  • for decision making by setting up a local Council of All Beings
  • as a global belief system to self-govern life on this planet.

VISUALISATION

The contents of the People’s Declaration can be examined section by section, or used as a way of asking questions after taking a group through a visualisation exercise. Visualisations can be very powerful. The visualiser becomes a participant to the event by taking a different perspective through the sensory perception of what it is like to be a different being.

A visualisation can be based on a real event, past or present, or can be fictional, looking into the future.

(Note for schools: visualisations can have cross-sectoral application. Each exercise can be used to discuss geography, politics, religious education, climate change, recent events, outcomes etc)

eg. Tuvalu Grains of Sand

Close your eyes and imagine you are a grain of sand on a beautiful beach in a place called Tuvalu. It is a wonderful sunny day, feel the warmth of the water lapping gently over, smell the brine of the seaweed floating nearby, hear the water washing over the stones at the edge of the beach, sense the calmness of the early morning before the people come to the beach. Shutters open in nearby houses, people begin to arrive, children are laughing and playing, birds are singing, the sun is rising higher in the clear blue sky.

Then something changes. The animals are fleeing, the clouds are turning grey and you can feel the temperature has dropped. The fish are no-where to be seen, and the water is churning. You as a grain of sand are being thrown further out as the waves grow larger and larger. Children and people on the beach start pointing out to the sea and then turning around running. The Waves are enormous, and they come crashing in. You and your fellow grains of sand are thrown in all directions, trees are uprooted, houses are destroyed. A storm rages for hours.

Eventually the raging water dies down, and slowly all comes to rest. You are exhausted, cold, sad. You look around. Everywhere is devastation, the houses no longer exist, instead all that can be seen is destruction, with much debris and even people floating on the water, some dead some alive.

Open your eyes. Questions to ask the group: What can be done to help? How can the community be rebuilt, not just for the people but the trees, the beach, the sand. What rights has the sand got? What rights do the fish have, the sea, the trees? What are the duties and responsibilities of the people who come to help? What needs to be done to restore and heal the wider community?

The above was a true event. Tuvalu was hit by the Tsunami in December 2005. This can be an exercise that can be brought into the present by examining how Tuvalu has fayred since then.

FUTURE MAPPING

Future Mapping can be done individually or as a group. As a group, sit in a circle, with one person as the facilitator. Each person is a co-creator and is encouraged to come up with ideas for the future they want, be it for their specific community, or for the world at large. Ideas trigger more – follow them through, eg. an Eco-school: what would that include? It can help if someone writes up the suggestions onto a large piece of paper or a board which everyone can see

eg. Creating the New World; what would that look like?

Basically, get brainstorming! What is your utopia? What will it look like, smell like, feel like? Look at different sectors, examine from the position of a different being – what would the trees, the honey bees and the soils need? How does that balance with other beings needs?

The rules: nothing gets ruled out, think big and start co-creating the new world. Then go and make it happen.

DECISION MAKING

Setting up a Council of All Beings to address ecological issues provides much deeper and wider insight, resulting in holistic outcomes. The event can be used creatively in many ways, including introducing the opportunity for participants to dress up as the being that they represent (eg. as a bird, a tree etc), to move freely in response to your being’s needs (eg. water flowing), to use sound (whistling wind etc). Challenge traditional restraints, such as sitting at a table. Instead, hold the event in nature where possible.

The Council of All Beings

The Council of All Beings can be called at any time, as a device to determine a given ecological issue. This can be used to look at real or imaginary examples, such as a village threatened with drought due to the local water being syphoned off for other use, to larger scale issues such as logging the Amazon or addressing what our energy policy could be. The Council can be used to encourage groups to examine these issues in depth, and to self-discover equitable solutions.

How does it work?

Each person undertakes to represent a being who is likely to be affected by the given outcome. That person will then speak on the being’s behalf, to represent their concerns. If the group is small, you can double up on the representation.

The Council can be formed to address a perceived breach of the Rights and Freedoms of a Being, or it can be to establish whether there has been a failure to ensure the Human Responsibilities have been undertaken and what steps need to be put in place to remedy the situation.

Alternatively, The Council can be formed to examine a situation that does not yet exist, to ensure the Human Responsibilities are fully implemented, and in turn the Beings’ Rights & Freedoms are upheld.

Each person will ensure the duties and obligations of the humans are carried out with regard to that being, and to ensure the Rights and Freedoms of the Being they represent are honoured within the decision making process.

Further guidelines in various languages for a Council of All Beings can be found at John Seed’s website: Rainforestinfo.org

Who?

The Council is composed of Human Beings. They can be children, elders, a mix of ages and sex. Experience is immaterial. One person will act as the facilitator, guiding the proceedings, ensuring each being is heard, but not imposing judgement.

Which Beings are to be represented?

Whichever ones are relevant. It may be that a human will need to represent more than one Being if there are not enough persons present. This does not matter so long as each Being is given sufficient time to speak, to say what concerns that Being has and what breaches of their Rights & Freedoms there have been/could be.

How many?

The number who sit as the Council will be dependent on the situation that needs addressing. It can be a self-selecting group, or one that has been facilitated by an overseer. The right size is often the number who turn up. Even an individual can hold a Council and represent many beings, but where possible two or more is always more productive.

How long should a Council session last?

As long as is required. Ensure enough time is put aside, to explore all issues throughly, and if more time is required, schedule in a time to adjourn to that all can attend. This is not a process to rush.

Who determines the outcome?

The Council as a whole. By following through the matrix the potential outcomes will usually naturally present themselves. Decision making is by consensus.

What will be the outcome?

As each situation is community and geographically specific, pertinent to that specific area, place and group, each outcome will differ. The outcome is not known in advance, and each situation and group will present different solutions.

Are penalties imposed for breaches?

No. The emphasis is on Restorative and Ecological Justice, What will be sought is the implementation of practises that will ensure the Human Duties and Obligations are upheld so the the Rights & Freedoms are not breached.

Suggested guidance for holding a Council of All Beings

PRIOR TO THE HEARING

Identify the issue (eg. Should the local park be dug up to make way for a new car park?) Arrange a time, place and date for your Council to convene. Present the issue and decide which Beings are to be represented. Choose persons to represent the various Beings (the fish in the pond, the trees etc), including one to represent Human Beings (this may be more than one. A person can represent a company, another the consumers, another the ancestors, another the future generations etc).

AT THE HEARING

Using the Declaration: Where to start?

Where you start depends on the starting point of the Council’s issue to be examined.

Is the issue one that already exists? -> Examine the Rights & Freedoms first.

If the issue is the examination of a current situation (eg. the nearby river fish are dying), then the Fish and Waters’ Rights & Freedoms will be examined first to establish what breaches have occurred. Once a breach to the Being(s) in question has been identified, then the issue of which of the Human Responsibilities has been abrogated, and which need to be implemented to remedy the situation.

Is the issue one that is being proposed? -> Examine the Human Responsibilities first.

If the issue is the examination of a future situation (eg. should the local park be dug up to make way for a car park?), then the Human Responsibilities will be examined first to examine what steps need putting in place to ensure the Rights & Freedoms of the various Beings are guaranteed.

The Values are the bedrock that has determined the Human Responsibilities and the Rights and Freedoms of All. They are there to serve as reminders, and can be used at the beginning and end of the process. If all Human Responsibilities and the Rights and Freedoms are upheld, then the values will have remained intact.

CONCLUDING THE HEARING

After all aspects have been examined and all beings have spoken, then steps can be determined by consensus to remedy the situation. The breaches of Rights & Freedoms will identify what needs to be remedied, the human responsibilities set out the obligations that are required, and the duties set out the approach to take to provide remedy. Note that sometimes it is the absence of intervention that can in itself be the remedy (healing by leaving alone eg allowing fish stocks to fully replenish by no longer polluting, fishing etc). Each outcome will be situation specific. Where the declaration is followed, the solutions that arise out of the application of the Declaration will ensure that life will flourish.