Siena, 12 October 2017 The participants laid the foundations for their collaboration last year with the OSLO Manifesto.  The newly established Ecological Law and Governance Association ELGA [Link to https://www.elga.world/] sees itself as a lobby for the rights of nature. Many ELGA members are already active in international bodies (UNO, IUCN) or in initiatives and environmental organizations. Maria Mercedes Sanchez conveyed the best wishes of the UNO initiative "Harmony with Nature". The experts at the conference had no doubts at all that society’s attempt to safeguard the livelihoods of humankind by means of environmental protection laws had failed, and that there was a “system” to this failure.

As important and effective as it may be in some respects, environmental law still treats Mother Earth as a single thing. It ignores how closely everything in nature is connected to everything else. It is eurocentric and anthropocentric. It puts the needs of humans first and therefore fails to do justice to the scope of the problem.