Special Issue - 2024 Symposium

The 2023-24 Arizona Journal of Environmental Law and Policy (AJELP) Board is enormously proud to publish the following Special Issue, a retrospective on our symposium on Conservation, Racism and Indigenous Peoples Human Rights in partnership with the Indigenous Rights and Protected Areas Initiative. The Journal has shared a building with the Initiative for years– a few doors down on the second floor of Rountree Hall– but this symposium, held in the Spring of 2024, marks the beginning of our work together. Sometimes, it seems, the gaps in our understanding exist for failing to knock on doors just down the hall. 
Working as a Journal, we’ve come to understand that the work of publishing legal scholarship is really the work of selecting the bounds of what’s possible. Our work is political in this sense, and must be constantly conscious of its limitations and assumptions. Our Journal has undertaken a unique approach to environmental legal scholarship, understanding that when we’re talking about the environment we’re talking about everything. We’re talking as much about natural spaces as we are about the people who cultivate and rely on them, as much about the river as its disappearance after years of colonization, its steady return as that imposition is challenged. We can’t separate the interests of conserving natural spaces and resources from the interests of human rights and dignity, from the knowledge and conservation practices of Indigenous Peoples. 

This Special Issue begins with a retrospective and call-to-action by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, José Francisco Calí Tzay. Pieces that follow span the work of the Initiative’s staff and network, whose vital interventions offer an analysis of our current situation and where we can go from here. We’re honored to present this retrospective on the Symposium, and are hopeful this collection will spark new conversations and insights.