What does it mean to think sustainably about water or the food we eat?

Jill Robbie, senior lecturer at the School of law, University of Glasgow, reflects critically on the role law has played in facilitating a utilitarian relationship with what we call “natural resources”. Instead of ownership and property rights, Jills sustains that we should move to governance systems that allow us to consider water rights and agency.

Mo Hume, Professor of Latin American Politics at the University of Glasgow, presents the case of the Atrato river, to which legal rights were granted. Located in Colombia, this river’s history helps to reflect on what it means to understand a territory sustainably– a space where the rights of the communities intersect with those of the river. Thus, when the state failed to protect the Atrato, it also fell short of protecting the communities around it.

Anna Chadwick is a senior lecturer at the School of law, University of Glasgow, and she brings the political economy lens to this conversation. To what extent can we move towards a sustainable relationship with land or water within a system highly shaped by finance and market logic? Anna critically examines the connections between legal, economic and political structures underpinning the current environmental crisis.

Theme music “Algorithms” created by Chad Crouch and sourced from Envato.

Article music kindly provided via the Diocese of Quibdó. https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/politics/projects/colombiariverstories/maps/