Who’s Next?
(And What Will We Leave Them?) - Safeguarding the Earth for Future Generations
On March 26, 2010, more than 30 lawyers, law professors and law students met at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Florida, to consider current efforts to preserve the Earth for future generations of humans and nonhumans alike.
After decades of expansion and development, we are becoming increasingly aware that our social and economic choices come at a price - a price that will be paid by our children and our grandchildren in climate change, loss of habitat and biodiversity, and a damaged Earth. We are learning that, as Thomas Berry asserted, we cannot have “well humans on a sick planet.”
The program highlighted themes of interdependence and sustainability, along with ongoing local and statewide efforts to reconcile current human needs and the needs of future generations of all species.
Keith R. Fountain, director of protection in Florida for The Nature Conservancy, began the program by outlining strategies and approaches that have resulted in the protection of almost 1.3 million acres of critical conservation landscapes throughout the state.
James Sellen, executive vice president of planning and design for MSCW Inc., a firm that focuses on the planning and design of sustainable, mixed-use, master-planned communities, followed with an outline of past and future “new urbanism” projects. His firm designs communities to meet human social and economic needs in a more environmentally sensitive manner than traditional developments.
Karen Z. Consalo, Esquire, founder and principal attorney of Karen Z. Consalo, LLC, then addressed development, conservation and the remediation of environmental contamination in affected communities from the government’s various perspectives at the city, county and state level.
The keynote address was delivered by Alyson Craig Flournoy, law professor and director of the Environmental & Land Use Law Program at the University of Florida Levin School of Law. She made the case for a National Environmental Legacy Act, based upon considerations of climate change, natural capital and intergenerational justice. Her presentation pointed out the basis for such an act in existing law and policy, and underscored the importance of having a proactive approach to preserving our environmental legacy, rather than an approach based upon a “spend down” mentality.
Please see presentations from the conference below.
Keith R. Fountain