Place-based, Earth-centred governance in Australia

Michelle Maloney and Mary Graham

As communities around the world work to protect their homes, traditional lands and ecosystems in the face of escalating climate change and biodiversity loss, many people in Western societies are looking for new modes of governance to inspire and guide their actions. In Australia, where British colonisation imposed the English legal system across the continent since 1788, the past few decades have seen rising interest in Indigenous knowledge systems and bioregional approaches to ecological restoration and social justice.

Note: This article was originally published in “Radical Democracy: recovering the roots of self-governance & autonomy” by the Global Tapestry of Alternatives in December 2025.

In this essay, we discuss how our organizations – Future Dreaming, an Indigenous and non-Indigenous partnership organization¹, and the Australian Earth Laws Alliance² – collaborate to promote ecocentric bioregional (AELA) initiatives that follow the leadership of Indigenous governance systems in Australia. After defining key elements of ‘bioregionalism’ and ‘bioregioning’, we introduce the core principles of the governance systems created by the Indigenous Peoples of the continent now known as Australia. We suggest that these governance systems can be seen, in Western terms, as some of the oldest ‘bioregional’ governance structures in the world, and they can provide important leadership and guidance to others exploring bioregional approaches. Finally, we briefly introduce an approach used by AELA called ‘Greenprints’, which aims to bridge different cultural approaches to bioregional governance in Australia, and assist Western practitioners to engage in a deeper understanding of Earth-centred governance.

What do we mean by ‘Bioregionalism’?

Western concepts of bioregionalism were popularised in the USA in the 1970s with the work of Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann³. Berg and Dasmann highlighted the disconnect between Western societies and the natural world, and they explored the potential of (re)connecting modern people and their identities, political, social and cultural life to the features and boundaries of nature. In their work, they touched on two important issues: (i) the biophysical realities, constraints and resources of the geographical terrain that people live in, and (ii) the ‘terrain of consciousness’, meaning the way humans perceive and see patterns, connections and themselves in the landscape. Many other writers and thinkers have further enriched ‘bioregionalism’ literature, and in a 2023 paper, Hubbard and Wearne (et al)⁴ conducted a helpful review of the origins and re-emergence of diverse practices relating to bioregionalism. They suggest that “bioregional thought is shifting from a static ‘ism’ into a careful and active engagement with usefully fuzzy concepts that ask how best to live on Earth”. They invite people to consider ‘bioregioning’ as a term that ‘turns concepts about ecological boundaries, scales and socio-cultural re-inhabitation’ into deliberative, ongoing discussions and initiatives.

AELA sees bioregional frameworks and ‘bioregioning’ as important concepts for building Earth-centred governance, especially in Western countries such as Australia. As noted by many writers – including Thomas Berry whose work on ‘Earth jurisprudence’⁵ inspired the formation of AELA – current Western law and governance is dominated by human-centred, growth-focused and top-down decision making, that perpetuates the disconnection between people and the biophysical realities of the living world upon which we depend. This is certainly the case in Australia, where decision making about land use, biodiversity and environmental protection is governed by top-down structures at the State and Federal levels, not at the local or bioregional level.

For AELA and Future Dreaming, we find that using the framing of ‘bioregional governance’ invites people from Western cultural traditions to question and more fully understand the dominant paradigm of Australian law and governance, which is disconnected from biophysical realities. It can then catalyse a search for new ways to connect with, and care for, the lands, waters, geography, plants and animals of local places, and also provides a useful ‘bridge’ to support further understanding by Western Peoples about the deep, rich, metaphysical nature of Indigenous governance systems.

Aboriginal Governance

The Indigenous or ‘Aboriginal’ Peoples of Australia⁶ are one of the oldest cultures and societies in the world. Aboriginal Peoples are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years, and it is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.⁷ As such an old culture, that lived successfully within the bounds of the ecological systems they were part of for so many millennia, we feel they have much to share with others searching for ways to create sustainable human communities in the 21st Century.

Prior to colonisation by the British Empire in 1788, the continent now known as Australia was governed by hundreds of Aboriginal communities. They were autonomous, connected, place-based, non-hierarchical and guided by the Law of the Land. They followed laws that ensured the ongoing sustainability of the land, plants and animals, and nurtured rich spirituality, kinship links and trading connections between Peoples.

The Aboriginal Map of Australia is very helpful for building understanding about how Aboriginal Peoples governed their societies, and the wider continent. The map is both a language map, and a governance map, as it shows the entire continent covered in a ‘patchwork quilt’ of connected communities with bio-cultural boundaries.

Within these communities, Australian Aboriginal people found order and security in the development of a system of co-existence with the natural environment and other living beings that foregrounds ‘relationality’ rather than ‘survivalism’. Relationality literally means ‘concerning the way in which two or more people or things are connected’.⁸ Aboriginal relationality is an elaborate, complex and refined system of social, moral, spiritual and community connections, rules and obligations that provides an ordered universe and governance system for people.

This deep understanding of the relationality and interconnectedness of all things is a fundamental characteristic of Aboriginal Peoples’ worldview. Within this understanding is the template for human society itself. In Aboriginal societies, the primary relationship is between people and land (this conjunction is termed ‘Country’⁹ in Aboriginal English). Relationships between people are always contingent/built upon the relationship between people and land. When communicating these relationships with non- Aboriginal people, many Aboriginal knowledge holders refer to the concept of ‘First Laws/Second Laws’.¹⁰

First Laws are the foundational laws and rules about how to live with and Care for Country (a community’s land/traditional estate/ bioregion). These First Laws emerged from the deep understanding that Aboriginal People developed about their Country – their unique ecosystems and local places – over millennia of observation, practice and spirituality. Second laws are the rules for living together with other human beings, which are guided by the template of First Laws.

So while Aboriginal Peoples are connected across the continent through kinship and they share similar foundational worldviews, the relationality that guides the law/lore for each Aboriginal community is created by the relationship people have with their specific, unique, places or ‘Country’. In Western terms, Aboriginal Australian Peoples created place- specific, ecologically based laws for their Country and communities.

Greenprints – Rethinking Governance In Modern Australia

While Aboriginal Peoples’ systems of law and governance have been interrupted by British colonisation since 1788, many of the ancient governance systems are still in place and many others are being restored where colonial interruptions have been significant.

We believe that the ancient and ongoing governance systems of the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia offer an important guide for rethinking and reshaping ecological custodianship – and broader societal governance – across our precious continent. The work that we are doing through Future Dreaming and AELA, aims to promote understanding about Aboriginal Australian Peoples’ culture and governance systems – both to increase respect and understanding by non- Indigenous Australians about Aboriginal culture and law, and also to assist non-Indigenous Peoples to develop more effective ecological custodianship and social justice initiatives.

Through AELA’s ‘Greenprints’ program¹¹, we use a bioregional approach to encourage Western people who are working on sustainability, climate change and/or ‘regenerative’ transitions, to connect their work deeply to place and to the unique ecosystems they are based in. We tend to find that some non-Indigenous practitioners focus on the local social justice and economic aspects of their transition work, without fully connecting these issues to a deep understanding of the unique qualities, guidance and ecological limits of their living bioregions. Greenprints invites Western practitioners to learn about and understand the foundations of their local ecosystems, catchments and bioregions first, then build an analysis of their current economic and social issues, so that systems change can be created that benefits and fits within their unique, specific ecological boundaries. Greenprints also advocates for ‘fractal governance’ which enables people to understand how governance within local and bioregional ecosystems, can fit within the larger patterns of ecoregions and the Earth system (including Planetary Boundaries), and how they can connect local and international ecological care.

Connecting bioregional governance with the Aboriginal Australian Relationist Ethos – and ‘First Laws’ – has much to offer modern Australian governance, as we grapple with the myriad of environmental and social justice problems we all face today. We look forward to continuing our work and exploring collaborative partnerships with others who are also exploring bioregional initiatives around the world.

Michelle Maloney is an Earth lawyer and advocate for Earth-centred governance, based in Brisbane, Australia. She has a Western legal education and is a descendant of Irish and Scottish Peoples who were part of the colonisation of Australia by the British Empire.

Mary Graham is a political scientist, philosopher and Indigenous knowledge holder. She is a Kombu-merri person of the Yugambeh Language Speaking Peoples, and lives on the lands of her ancestors, which is now called the Gold Coast, Australia.

Footnotes

1. Future Dreaming is a not-for-profit organization created by Indigenous and non- Indigenous partners in Australia, to share cross cultural ecological knowledge – www.futuredreaming.org.au ↩︎
2. The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) is a not-for-profit organization whose aim is to increase the understanding and practical implementation of Earth jurisprudence/Earth- centred governance – www.earthlaws.org.au ↩︎
3. Berg, P., & Dasmann, R. (2015). Reinhabiting California. In C. Glotfelty & E. Quesnel (Eds.), The biosphere and the bioregion: Essential writings of Peter Berg (pp. 61–63). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Originally published (1977). The Ecologist, 7(10), 399–401. ↩︎
4. Hubbard, E., Wearne, S., Jónás, K., Norton, J., & Wilke, M. (2023). Where are you at? Re- engaging bioregional ideas and what they offer geography. Geography Compass, e12722. https://doi. org/10.1111/gec3.12722 ↩︎
5. Earth jurisprudence is a call for Earth- centred law and governance to guide modern industrial societies towards a way of being that is in harmony with, and supports rather than destroys, the living world. See Berry,T. (1999) ‘The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future” ↩︎
6. The ‘labelling’ of Indigenous Peoples is problematic. Some terms are offensive to some people, and in Australia different people prefer different terms to describe their cultural connections. In this essay we introduced the essay with the word ‘Indigenous’ because people from around the world are familiar with this word. Further into the essay, we refer specifically to ‘Aboriginal Peoples’ and ‘Aboriginal Australians’ because these are terms preferred by Mary. ↩︎
7. National Museum Australia, please this webpage – https://www.nma.gov.au/defining- moments/resources/evidence-of-first-people ↩︎
8. Oxford Reference, https:// www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/ authority.20110803100412539 ↩︎
9. Graham, M. (1999) ‘Some thoughts about the philosophical underpinnings of Aboriginal Worldviews’ in Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 3 (2) pp. 105–118 ↩︎
10. Martuwarra RiverofLife, Poelina, A., Bagnall, D. and Lim, M. (2020) ‘Recognising the Martuwarra’s First Law Right to Life as an Ancestral Being’, Transnational Environmental Law, 9:3, pp. 541–568 ↩︎
11. See the Greenprints website for more details: https://www.greenprints.org.au ↩︎