Project Summary: Describe your contribution in one sentence

Wild & Legal is committed to the recognition of the rights of Nature through its role as a school and incubator for a society in harmony with Life.

What are the additional countries or territories of impact?

Challenge Focus: What topic does your project most directly relate to?

Website URL(s) or social media handles

Website : https://www.wildlegal.eu/ Facebook : Wild Legal Instagram : @wildlegalfrance Twitter : @wildlegalfrance

The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve?

The association is committed to the development of new rights for Nature. This movement is developing and bringing new solutions to the ecological crisis because harming nature leads to harming the survival of humanity in decent conditions. WL responds to this problem by disseminating and teaching these ideas in order to create a national dynamic, to elaborate innovative legal solutions and to accompany the actors in the field who are committed to the living.  

Giving Nature a legal personality would make it possible to defend its fundamental rights and in particular its rights to life, health and integrity in the face of human consequences. This development of the law responds to the urgent need to act on behalf of the Living and offers resources to fight against the threats to Nature. 
A relevant international example is Ecuador, where the rights of nature have been recognised since 2008. Thanks to this recognition, many mining and oil projects have been prevented. This movement is now spreading to Europe. Spain is the first country to have passed a law for the rights of the Mar Menor lagoon in order to turn the page on intensive agriculture and aquatic pollution.

Our training programmes allow us to disseminate to tomorrow's lawyers and to a wider public, what the rights of nature are and their role in the transition of our society towards a model in harmony with the Living.

Your connection and commitment: How close are you to the problem and/or the community impacted?

The association raises awareness and trains tomorrow's lawyers in the Rights of Nature. The simulated trial allows for a deeper understanding of these concepts by applying the theory to concrete cases. Thus, the proximity to the problem is due to the fact that the trials deal with real cases. The students are supervised, trained and accompanied by real judges, scientific experts and lawyers. It ends with a public pleading event .

The partner associations also benefit from these simulated trials thanks to the resources produced. We respond concretely to the problem presented because we participate in enriching the advocacy of the associations to facilitate their actions. Legal and technical support is provided in order to obtain concrete advances for the protection of nature.

WL also works with public administrations and elected officials. We are often heard at the National Assembly and the Senate, and invited to ministries to present our work. Here is an example of a file presented on the crime of ecocide: the amendment was tabled by three political groups during the Climate Law. To do this, we use our support network within the different political groups of the National Assembly and the Senate to raise awareness among both the collaborators of the ministries and the parliamentarians.

The general public is also made aware of these legal issues thanks to the distribution of simple and accessible online educational materials. The association is interested in the animation of these social networks and hosts many conferences to promote the Rights of Nature movement in France and in the world. In addition, the association works to make its actions and proposals known to the public, decision-makers and the media in order to activate all available levers to advance its advocacy.

Your approach: How are you enabling other people to identify as green changemakers? How are you influencing them to get involved in your initiative or care about the issue you are addressing?

We enable various groups of actors to identify themselves as green changemakers

• 70 student lawyers have been trained through these simulated trials. WL enables them to see themselves as green changemakers, because these lawyers of tomorrow have mastered both the theory and the practice. In addition to theoretical university training, the simulated trial allows them to acquire the basics for writing their thesis and for the lawyer's profession.
• The training programme is also aimed at the general public who, having been made aware of these issues, can consider themselves green changemakers. In 2022, the association was invited to nearly forty conferences, webinars, meetings and debates throughout France by various institutions. Our Little Handbook of the Rights of Nature is accessible to a wide audience and not restricted to legal profiles
• More broadly, we have made the empowerment of our partners part of the association's philosophy: far from wanting to centralise our "expertise" and remain unavoidable, we have wanted to transmit our knowledge from the outset, through a pedagogy aimed at making key legal concepts accessible 

We encourage our audiences to join our actions by various means

• Students: these mock trials represent a real challenge for them thanks to the valorization of their involvement that they will be able to put forward to their future employers. Also, the mock trials are broadcast online to create emulation with more applications each year
• Partner associations: by offering them legal and technical support to strengthen their actions, as well as access to a network and better visibility. We fill a real gap
• The general public: our campaigns to raise awareness of the rights of nature are promoted through our social networks, which allow us to popularise our content

Community involvement: How is your approach involving community participation, especially the historically marginalized groups?

All our actions are based on a methodology that takes into account the needs of the stakeholders first. 

1. The mock trial project

As our DNA is to be a network that grows each season, we launch calls for participation in June so that new associations can propose their topic for the next edition of the simulated trial. 

We always choose topics that are emblematic of the structural defects of the current law. Themes that combine the rights of nature and human rights are very present because they allow us to illustrate the interdependence between Man and Nature in a non-anthropocentric conception of law. 

2. A second example, the case of the project against illegal gold mining in French Guyana 
 
In French Guiana, our approach is to provide local organisations representing the indigenous Wayana people, a marginalised population traditionally very little involved in local democracy, with legal expertise enabling them to choose their mobilisation "roadmap". As a result of our legal work, the women of the community have chosen to conduct a mercury testing campaign with the aim of using the results to alert the state and obtain concrete measures to protect them from the consequences of illegal gold mining. We are providing the logistical means. Their actions can then be used in legal proceedings to defend their rights and those of the Maroni.

Your Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions already out there? How is your approach original and innovative? We are particularly interested in solutions that use regenerative approaches.

WL is the only French association to promote the rights of Nature through an annual programme of ecological transition through the study, practice and progress of environmental law. The association innovates and proposes a virtuous evolution of our legislation through an experimental method that is at the same time playful, educational and participative in order to train, practice and apply a biocompatible law. It differs from existing programmes, such as legal clinics, which work on specific research topics and do not offer integrated training, and moot court competitions, which are based solely on an oral exercise and simulated legal cases. 

Designed to bring together students, lawyers and citizens for the Rights of Nature, it acts as a platform for the most innovative environmental legal initiatives. It brings together actors who do not usually work together and allows young people to discover a way to get directly involved and take concrete action for the ecological transition. Students are gaining skills and acquiring a network.

Our approach is regenerative in that it offers an inclusive solution 

• inclusive, allowing young people to learn from professionals and field actors
• collaborative, in that its credo is never to do things in place of the actors in the field, but on the contrary, to act alongside them to strengthen their actions
• systemic, in that it works on the development of a new law, based on a bio-perspectivist vision of the law, and not an anthropocentric one, in order to propose a way out of a model that is deeply tinged with productivism, a factor in climate disruption
• practical, based on new methods of governance, where law is a tool to find a balance with the living in a biomimetic governance, including the needs and interests of non-humans

Founding Story: Share a story about the "Aha!" moment that led the founder(s) to get started or the story of how you saw the potential for this to succeed.

In 2019, the future founding members met for the Climax festival in Bordeaux, whose theme was "The Amazon, or the uprooting of the world" in the presence of the cacique Raoni. Faced with the ecological emergency, they brought together their experience as lawyers and their fieldwork in a common programme designed as an organic and systemic response to ecological problems. 

Convinced that current environmental law is too weak and unable to respond to ecological issues, the founding members, experts in the Rights of Nature movement, saw the possibility of making these concepts known and popularising them through an innovative and original school, which instead of remaining in theory, would aim to offer concrete support to local mobilisations. 

This programme is the result of a symbiosis between different concepts: 

• setting up a short Moot, to propose an attractive, stimulating and collaborative educational method
• creating a concrete link between legal professionals, associations, scientists and students to create a community that facilitates engagement 
• Provide legal support to organisations involved in environmental scandals to advance ecological justice
• To show the general public the implications of recognising the rights of nature and to stimulate a profound cultural change

Thus the association's motto has become: train, practice, enforce.

Impact: How has your project made a difference so far? How is it contributing to a zero-carbon world- where every person thrives, and nobody gets left behind?

Our work have succeeded in making a difference many times :  

• For a Carbon-Free World : we have notably through our Red Mud Simulated Trial in the Mediterranean highlighted the importance of recognising the crime of ecocide to create legal tools to fight against large-scale ecosystem degradation. Thanks to the programme, our work directly inspired the citizens of the Citizens' Climate Convention who took our proposal to ministries and parliamentarians. This momentum has had repercussions at the European level, in Belgium where a law has been passed and in the European Parliament which now supports this new legal concept. Our work has led us to be appointed as an observer association within the Council of Europe to enable us to bring our proposals on nature law and environmental crime to the attention of other member states.
• For a world where everyone flourishes: after the simulated trial on illegal gold panning, a white paper for the rights of the peoples and rivers of French Guiana was written to support the populations in the defence of their rights and to highlight their situation, which is unfortunately still unknown to the general public. Today, the association is working alongside local associations

Also, the rights of Nature are progressing: in 2022, Spain voted a law for the rights of the Mar Menor to turn the page of intensive agriculture and water pollution. 

What’s Next: What are your ideas for taking your project to the next level?

For our project to reach the next level, we need to structure and consolidate the team in order to 

• welcome more students.  
• follow all the legal work
• accompany partner associations to the courts or before the administration to ensure effective change
• promote proposals developed through collective campaigns 

In the coming years, we want to be able to develop partnerships with student associations as well as with institutions (universities and law schools) so that the WL programme is both better known and gives rise to university credits. In some universities this is already the case, but we need to amplify this approach by promoting our methodology. 

We also want to develop a network of professionals who share our commitment and our values so that the students trained can benefit from a welcoming network in which they can take their first steps after their studies.

By 2025, we would like to create a third-party think tank dedicated to the rights of nature, combining teaching, cultural awareness and a meeting place for the actors of the rights of nature in order to strengthen the link between the actors in the field and the legal professionals. This project would allow the movement to grow in France and strengthen the place of law in the defence of living things.

We have all the keys for the success of our project (network, skills, will), we only need the money to complete our project.

Your team: What is the current composition of your team (types of roles, qualifications, full-time vs. part-time, board members, etc.), and how do you plan to evolve the team’s composition as the project grows?

Currently, the associative team is composed as follows 

• A volunteer director and legal coordinator (full time)
• An office of 3 members (part time): 
  • Marine Calmet, President, lawyer specialized in environmental law
  • Simon Rossard, Treasurer, artistic curator and event programmer
  • Mélissa Mankaï, Secretary, human rights lawyer 
• a freelance fundraiser (part time)
• a freelance education officer (part time)
• two interns: lawyer and communication (part time)
• a team of 25 volunteers, mainly lawyers (part time)

Volunteers and interns are an extraordinary asset for the association, but to ensure continuity in the projects and to move forward in a more fluid and constant manner, we wish to set up a full-time salaried team by 2025 by recruiting 

• Two lawyers (full time)
• A communications officer (full time)
• An administrative and financial manager (part time)
• A pedagogical director for the school (full time)

Operational Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure operational sustainability.

We have developed a 3 year plan to ensure that we continue to move forward with our project and perpetuate the Wild Legal programme, both the "school" branch involving simulated trials and training on the rights of nature, as well as the "incubator" branch involving the support of local experimentation projects.  

From the outset, we wanted the association's programme to be financially accessible to students, who only pay a €25 registration fee each year to cover food costs during the tournament. We therefore ask our associative partners, who ultimately benefit from the legal work provided, to contribute to the costs of each season to the extent of their capacity (usually between 6k and 10k).  

This funding is supplemented by support from patrons, foundations and private donations. In order to perpetuate the simulated trial programme and the school as a whole, the association is currently developing a MOOC and specialised training courses for which a fee is charged to cover tuition fees and the salary of an educational officer. 

In addition, funders are interested in our method, such as the OFB (French Office for Biodiversity) and the Anyama Foundation. We can count on these first, enthusiastic partners to ensure the continuity of our project over time. In the same way, the full-time team by the end of 2025 will ensure the operational sustainability of our project.

VIDEO: Please share the link to a 1-minute YouTube video that answers the following “I identify as a Green Changemaker because...”. Ensure that your video does not exceed 60 seconds

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J5mz7SvvN-8

Impact Model: While reviewing applications, we identified a need to better understand the impact models for the innovations that applied. How would you describe the activities you engage in and what outcomes and long-term impact do they lead to?

In the long term, the association's activities will have a significant impact on the protection of nature and the recognition of its rights. This will help to strengthen the protection of ecosystems, species and natural areas.

Audience: Who are you most directly impacting through your work? Who is the target beneficiary? Please specify if the population you are reaching is underserved due to any of the following characteristics?

If you chose the "Other" option, please specify

Environment, nature and water

How are you activating green changemakers?

If you chose the "Other" option, please specify

Prepare legal action to defend human rights and environmental rights in the context of the climate and ecological crisis, in order to protect local populations and prevent further damage.

Organization Type: Which organization type best describes how your work or initiative has been organized or registered?

Nonprofit/NGO

Tell us briefly about how you have and/ or would like to engage partners or other changemakers to enhance your approach:

To improve our approach, we are working with these initial partners, whose number we would like to increase:

• Local players and institutions

We currently work with 7 partners to protect French rivers and ecosystems. We provide them with legal and technical support to strengthen their actions, as well as access to our network and greater visibility.

Impact: By working with these players, we are strengthening their ability to defend the rights of nature within a dedicated pilot site, and to become part of a network of players committed to this transition.

• Network of environmental protection NGOs

NGOs are integrated into our training programme by proposing subjects for future mock trials. 

Impact: they benefit from legal support and can enrich their advocacy and actions by using the rights of nature. 

We also have goals for the future:

• Educational establishments

We want to develop partnerships with universities and law schools. The aim is to make the mock trial programme better known and to promote it as a course that can be used for university credits. 

Potential impact: More participants in the training programme and greater awareness of our methodology among teachers.

Annual budget: Hint: What is the cost for your current operations every year (or most recent year)? This is expenditure for your project or organization. The reference currency is the U.S. dollar.

$50k - $100k

Winning Impact Potential: How would winning the Green Changemakers Challenge impact and leverage your work?

If we win the challenge, it will have a significant impact on the expansion and dissemination of the Rights of Nature. 

1. Victory would represent recognition of the importance of the rights of nature. We would have the opportunity to present our project at an international level, giving ideas and concrete examples to other similar initiatives.

2. The prize money would enable us to fund our key activities. We could use these funds to organise our mock trials and support the growing number of pilot sites. 

3. The support offered would help us to strengthen our impact assessment capabilities. With this support, we would be able to measure the results of our initiative more accurately, identify areas for improvement and maximise our effectiveness.

4. We could also step up our awareness-raising campaigns by using social networks and developing innovative formats to make our content more accessible and understandable to the general public.

5. Victory would enable us to strengthen our existing partnerships and establish new collaborations. These partnerships could include key players in the legal sector, universities, environmental protection institutions and local associations. Together, we could work towards the recognition and protection of the rights of nature by sharing knowledge, resources and good practice.

Skills Matching: If you win, you may have the opportunity to be matched with HSBC employees for skill-based mentorship. If matched, which of the following skills would you be most interested in receiving?

Monitoring Impact