Cormac Cullinan is a practising environmental attorney and author based in Cape Town, South Africa. He is a director of the leading South African environmental law firm, Cullinan & Associates Inc, and director of the Wild Law Institute, a non-profit organisation that advocates for Rights of Nature. A former commercial lawyer, he has practiced, taught and written about environmental law and policy since 1992, and has worked in more than 20 countries.
In the academic field he has lectured and written widely on governance issues related to human interactions with the environment and is notable for authoring a book, Wild Law, as well as several works commissioned and published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He is a graduate of the University of Natal and King's College London and is an honorary research associate of the University of Cape Town.
His work includes drafting: the Integrated Coastal Management Bill now before Parliament, the agreement between South Africa, Namibia and Angola that established the Benguela Current Commission; waste legislation for KwaZulu Natal and legislation for sustainable land use in the Western Cape.
In 2008 he was listed among the world's most extraordinary environmental champions in Planet Savers: 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists, which lists 301 people in history to be commended for their important role in saving and conserving the environment and promoting sustainable governance, including the likes of Buddha, St Francis of Assisi and Henry Thoreau.
In 2016, Cullinan was included in Warrior Lawyers: From Manila to Manhattan, Attorneys for the Earth. In 2021 he won the Nicke Steele award for the South African environmentalist of the year and in 2018 received the Enviropaedia Ecologic lifetime achievement award.
Cullinan has led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and is a founder and Executive Committee member of the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature. He drafted the Peoples’ Convention that established the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature, and was the president of the Tribunal hearings in December 2015 in Paris. Between 2019 and 2021, Cullinan served as the president of the European Tribunal on the Rights of Nature. He has addressed conferences throughout the world on Earth Jurisprudence and the rights of Nature, including the UN General Assembly in 2011.
Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, first published by Siber Ink, Cape Town, South Africa, August 2002 ISBN 0-9584417-8-2; also by Green Books, Totnes, Devon, 2003 ISBN 1-903998-35-2.
"Integrated Coastal Management Law" Establishing and strengthening National Legal Frameworks for Integrated Coastal Management, FAO Legislative Study No. 93, Rome, 2006.
Recent trends in monitoring, control and surveillance systems for capture fisheries, by P Flewelling; C Cullinan; RP Sautter and JE Reynolds. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 415, Rome, FAO, 2002.
"Law and markets - Improving the legal environment for agricultural marketing" FAO, 2000, AGS Bulletin, No. 139 Archived 25 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine . "Land Ownership and Foreigners: A Comparative Analysis of Regulatory Approaches to the Acquisition and Use of Land by Foreigners." FAO Legal Papers Online, 1999.
Author of legal section of Integrated coastal area management and agriculture, forestry and fisheries. FAO Guidelines (N Scialabba (ed.) Environment and Natural Resource Service, FAO, Rome. 256p.
Legal and institutional aspects of integrated coastal area management in national legislation. FAO Legislative study, 1994 (118 pages).
'If Nature Had Rights' Archived 16 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine , Orion , USA, January 2008.
Simon Boyle, 'On thin ice', The Guardian newspaper, London, November 2006.
Stephen Harding, 'Earthly rights', The Guardian newspaper, London, April 2007.
Silver Donald Cameron, 'When does a tree have rights?', The Chronicle Herald (Halifax, Nova Scotia), January, 2007.
'SA lawyer an eco-warrior', News24, Southern African and African news website, February 2008.
Sue Segar, 'Planet Saver from PMB', article in The Witness, April 2008.
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Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. Environmental law is the collection of laws, regulations, agreements and common law that governs how humans interact with their environment. This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments.Environmental law is seen as the body of laws concerned with the protection of living things from the harm that human activity may immediately or eventually cause to them or their species, either directly or to the media and the habits on which they depend.
Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place. Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both in freshwater waterbodies and the oceans. About 500 million people worldwide are economically dependent on fisheries. 171 million tonnes of fish were produced in 2016, but overfishing is an increasing problem, causing declines in some populations.
The goal of fisheries management is to produce sustainable biological, environmental and socioeconomic benefits from renewable aquatic resources. Wild fisheries are classified as renewable when the organisms of interest produce an annual biological surplus that with judicious management can be harvested without reducing future productivity. Fishery management employs activities that protect fishery resources so sustainable exploitation is possible, drawing on fisheries science and possibly including the precautionary principle.
Unsustainable fishing methods refers to the utilization of the various fishing methods in order to capture or harvest fish at a rate which sees the declining of fish populations over time. These methods are observed to facilitate the destructive fishing practices that destroy ecosystems within the ocean, and more readily results in overfishing, the depletion of fish populations at a rate that cannot be sustained.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries.
Earth jurisprudence is a philosophy of law and human governance that is based on the fact that humans are only one part of a wider community of beings and that the welfare of each member of that community is dependent on the welfare of the Earth as a whole. It states that human societies will only be viable and flourish if they regulate themselves as part of this wider Earth community and do so in a way that is consistent with the fundamental laws or principles that govern how the universe functions, which is the 'Great Jurisprudence'.
‘Wild law’ refers to human laws consistent with Earth jurisprudence. A wild law regulates human behavior that privileges maintaining the integrity and functioning of the whole Earth community in the long term over the interests of any species at a particular time.
Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice is a book by Cormac Cullinan that proposes recognizing natural communities and ecosystems as legal persons with legal rights. The book explains the concept of wild law, that is, human laws that are consistent with earth jurisprudence. Foreworded by Thomas Berry, the book was published by Green Books in November 2003 in association with The Gaia Foundation, London. It was first published in South Africa, the author's home country, in August 2002 by Siber Ink.
Ocean governance is the conduct of the policy, actions and affairs regarding the world's oceans. Within governance, it incorporates the influence of non-state actors, i.e. stakeholders, NGOs and so forth, therefore the state is not the only acting power in policy making. However, ocean governance is complex because much of the ocean is a commons that is not ‘owned’ by any single person or nation/state. There is a belief more strongly in the US than other countries that the “invisible hand” is the best method to determine ocean governance factors. These include factors such as what resources we consume, what price we should pay for them, and how we should use them. The underlying reasoning behind this is the market has to have the desire in order to promote environmental protection, however this is rarely the case. This term is referred to as a market failure. Market failures and government failures are the leading causes of ocean governance complications. As a result, humankind has tended to overexploit marine resources, by treating them as shared resources while not taking equal and collective responsibilities in caring for them.
South African environmental law describes the legal rules in South Africa relating to the social, economic, philosophical and jurisprudential issues raised by attempts to protect and conserve the environment in South Africa. South African environmental law encompasses natural resource conservation and utilization, as well as land-use planning and development. Issues of enforcement are also considered, together with the international dimension, which has shaped much of the direction of environmental law in South Africa. The role of the country's Constitution, crucial to any understanding of the application of environmental law, also is examined. The National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) provides the underlying framework for environmental law.
The Benguela Current Commission, or BCC, is a multi-sectoral inter-governmental, initiative of Angola, Namibia and South Africa. It promotes the sustainable management and protection of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem, or BCLME. The BCC was established in January 2007 through the signing of an Interim Agreement between the governments of Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Then, on 18 March 2013, the three governments signed the Benguela Current Convention, an environmental treaty that entrenches the Benguela Current Commission as a permanent inter-governmental organization.
Rights of nature or Earth rights is a legal and jurisprudential theory that describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The rights of nature concept challenges twentieth-century laws as generally grounded in a flawed frame of nature as "resource" to be owned, used, and degraded. Proponents argue that laws grounded in rights of nature direct humanity to act appropriately and in a way consistent with modern, system-based science, which demonstrates that humans and the natural world are fundamentally interconnected.
The South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association (SADSTIA) represents the trawler owners and operators active in the offshore demersal trawl fishery for hake, the most valuable of South Africa's commercial fisheries, contributing approximately 45 percent of the value of fishery production. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, SADSTIA currently has 32 members that catch, process and market the Cape hakes, Merluccius paradoxus and Merluccius capensis as well as several bycatch species.
The marine ecoregions of the South African exclusive economic zone are a set of geographically delineated regions of similar ecological characteristics on a fairly broad scale, covering the exclusive economic zone along the South African coast.
The marine protected areas of South Africa are in an area of coastline or ocean within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Republic of South Africa that is protected in terms of specific legislation for the benefit of the environment and the people who live in and use it. An MPA is a place where marine life can thrive under less pressure than unprotected areas. They are like underwater parks, and this healthy environment can benefit neighbouring areas.
The National Environmental Management Act, 1998 is the statutory framework to enforce Section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The NEMA is intended to promote co-operative governance and ensure that the rights of people are upheld, but also recognising the necessity of economic development. NEMA supersedes the Environmental Conservation Act, which was inadequate to deal with enforcement, administration, and governance, and was written to be more successful in these aspects.
The Rocherpan Marine Protected Area is a small coastal conservation region on the West Coast of the Western Cape province, in the territorial waters of South Africa. It is about 25 km north of Velddrif on the road to Elands Bay, north of Dwarskersbos.
The Trafalgar Marine Protected Area is an inshore conservation region in the territorial waters of South Africa in kwaZulu-Natal, between Port Edward and Margate.
