What
is Future Generation Guardianship?
People
who live today have the sacred right and obligation to protect the
commonwealth of the Earth and the common health of people and all our
relations for many generations to come.
Future
Generation Guardianship is one way to do that. It is a new twist on
an ancient idea.
It's
the Seventh Generation Principle of the Iroquois linked to the active
role of guardianship.
Read
the Bemidji Statement on Seventh Generation Guardianship to see how this idea
was expressed in 2006, based on a collaboration with Indigenous
people.
Guardians
of future generations take specific responsibility for our common
future.
Future
Generation Guardianship can become law and personal practice.
Communities, religious groups, and organizations can take specific
responsibilities for the wellbeing of future generations. We can all
become guardians in our own backyards.
Developing
this idea calls for everyone's help, wisdom, and experience.
Click
Here to
access the Guardians of the Future library of laws, stories, and
projects—including a Handbook
for starting a Future Guardians project.
Law
for Future Generations—SEHN/Harvard Project
Two
reports by SEHN and the International
Human Rights Clinic
of Harvard Law School show how we can use old and new law to protect
future generations. The product of two-and-a-half years of research,
these reports address three questions:
1.
How do we formally assert that future generations have a right to a
habitable planet?
2.
What legal and social relationships can embody our duty to preserve
our children's only home, the Earth?
3.
What institutions can we create to make those relationships real and
effective?
Models
for Protecting the Environment for Future Generations
October 2008 describes how ombudsmen, guardians, and other
legal instruments could help guarantee a habitable planet for future
humans.
Model
State Constitutional Provisions & Model Statute
November 2008 provides actual blueprint laws that states and
tribes can use to implement these instruments and fulfill the ethical
mandate to guarantee a livable world for future generations.
Read
Tim Montague’s review and summary of these groundbreaking
reports, How
to Protect the Future.
Supplemental
Reading
Legal
Guardians of Future Generations: A Roadmap
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