Principal Investigator: Silvia Bagni
LUMEN will demonstrate that the ecosystem approach, originally introduced for the protection of biodiversity, can be used as the backbone of a comprehensive transcultural and transnational eco-legal system, due to the existence of a common cultural background beyond the appearing “fracture” between man and nature that characterizes the Anthropocene’s crisis. This assumption will be demonstrated through the analysis of the innovations coming from Latin America and Africa, based on integral and unitary visions of “man and nature” and the traces of the ecosystem approach in environmental laws of European States. Even though the current environmental law system is falling short of offering adequate solutions to such crisis, the law remains a strategic asset to foster social, economic, and cultural transformation, and shall contribute to building a comprehensive and holistic response to safeguard the “higher interest” of the interconnected globe and all its human and non-human components. LUMEN aims at exploring and defining the existing common ground for the ecosystem approach through the comparative analysis of case studies from Europe, Latin America and Africa with the purpose of translating it into a viable and inclusive model for future normativity, in Europe and beyond.
The research results will be “innovative governance models”, enabling sustainability through the application of “new knowledge”. In fact, traditional and local knowledge can be embedded in the current legal system, resulting in innovative legal frameworks and paradigms.
The key to the achievement of such a goal is a transnational and transcultural approach, producing a tripartite dialogue between continents and different environmental cultures and normative frameworks.
Website: https://site.unibo.it/lumen/en/project
Members of the Department
Giorgia Pavani
Other members
Lea Querzola Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche
Marc Brightman Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
Vanessa Grotti Dipartimento di Beni Culturali