Being The Earth, By Pooven Moodley

Pooven Moodley is a Be The Earth Fellow, international human rights lawyer and social justice activist from South Africa. 

When I was first connected with the Be The Earth Foundation, I pondered on the question ‘What is it like to Be The Earth?’ I share here a few reflections as my journey continues to unfold and my understanding about the connection of the elements.  

I will choose a point in time to start this reflection. Last Friday the Constitutional Court of South Africa (the highest court in the land) passed down a judgement which was celebrated by communities across South Africa, particularly the Wild Coast.

Several years ago, I got a message while I was at the Glasgow Climate COP. The message was about Shell proceeding to do seismic surveys (blasting the ocean for eight months non-stop) as part of their oil and gas exploration on the East Coast of South Africa.

I was the Executive Director of Natural Justice, lawyers for communities and the environment at the time. I checked with my legal team and other activists in South Africa. It became clear that this was being done without communities being consulted and without proper environmental impact studies. We mobilised very quickly to go to Court to stop Shell from blasting the ocean.

As we sought an urgent interdict, we lost the first case. The judge said we did not have sufficient evidence of harm and that Shell would lose a lot of money if they did not go ahead. It took a massive collective effort from communities across the country standing up together, an amazing team of lawyers working together to go to court again. This time we were able to get scientific evidence and powerful evidence from community members based on their incredible knowledge which has been passed on from generation to generation.

The energy of the marine life, whales, dolphins, and the ancestors were strongly felt in the courtroom. The argument that the ancestors will be disturbed if Shell blasted the ocean for eight months was accepted as an important one during the court proceedings.

We won the case and it then went on appeal several times. Last Friday was the most incredible day as the Constitutional Court delivered their judgement in favour of communities. A key feature was the connection of the communities along the coastline to the land and to the ocean.

In 2022, we ensured after decades that the UN passed a resolution to introduce a new human right: ‘The Right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’. This is based on ancient knowledge about the interconnectedness of everything. A human is connected to the ecosystem or environment in which we live. If we poison a river, we are also then poisoning the people who live in that ecosystem.

In the Shell case it was clear through the stories of people, how they live their lives fully connected to the land and ocean and any destructive project will have a devastating effect on the environment and the people. 

As I have spent time over the past few decades with indigenous and local communities around the world, we have developed a range of strategies to defend territories.

As I got very immersed in these communities and traditions, my understanding of the nature of reality which includes the more than human started to open up. This went beyond the aspects of nature we see to understanding energy that we often don’t see but feel and also ancestors who walk among us.

Being deep in the Jungle in the Sarayaku Territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon with the communities there increased my understanding of the spirit of the jungle and why it is important for the legal recognition of the Spirit in order to protect the Amazon.

In South Africa, with Cormac Cullinan and many others we are working towards the legal recognition of Hoerikwaggo as a Being. Beyond the legal recognition and protection as part of the Rights of Nature Movement the idea is to shift the way we experience and perceive mountains and rivers and whales and all of the incredible relatives we live with. 

When we start to realise that we are made up of the same elements as everything in the Universe, we then realise even momentarily, that we are connected physically and energetically. 

A few months ago, I was deep in the jungles of Suriname in a territory called Saamaka. The Saamaka Territory is a vast jungle shaped by rivers, creeks and ancestral knowledge, where Saamaka communities have maintained a profound relationship with the territory for generations. Like many Amazonian territories these communities face the threat of destruction from oil and gas exploration, mining, logging and other extractive interests, making the Saamaka struggle a powerful expression of what it means to defend the Earth as a living relative.

As Judges on the Rights of Nature Tribunal we heard powerful testimonies of communities defending territories across the Amazonia region across several countries.

The Saamaka are descendants of Africa who were violently taken from West and Central Africa and brought to Suriname as enslaved people.

Many escaped from the plantations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, finding refuge deep in the rainforest. There, the forest became more than a place of hiding: it became a place of freedom, belonging, memory and the making of a people.

Over generations, the Saamaka developed an intimate relationship with the rivers, forests, plants and animals, carrying with them ancestral knowledge from Africa while creating new ways of living with the forest. Their territory is therefore not simply land. It is the living landscape through which a people survived slavery, reclaimed autonomy and continue to defend their freedom today.

I was invited as part of the ICCA Consortium — a global movement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities defending their Territories of Life, cultures, self-determination and ways of living in reciprocal relationship with nature. As I spent time there meeting with communities and their leaders and strategising about the protection of their territory, I was also reflecting on my own ancestry with my ancestors being put on a slave ship from India to work on the sugar cane fields in South Africa.

I reflected on my time growing up on African soil and what it means to me to be connected to the earth here having been disconnected from the earth from where my ancestors come from.  

As I was leading a session on strategy to defend the territory, an elder intervened. I already felt in the room the presence of the ancestors and had a sense of what was to come. He asked me to lead a session to discuss the reconnection to the ancestors and the sacred sites in their territory.

For the rest of the evening, people from the community shared stories of their connection to their sacred sites and ancestors. It was a powerful session both in terms of the defence of territories and for creating an alternative pathway to the current destructive pathway we are on as humanity.

The next morning, we held a powerful fire ceremony before the arrival of the Oil and Gas Minister and others from government. The communities stood fully in their power to opposed new projects that were being proposed. 

As I reflect on ‘Being the Earth’ I am being called to fully immerse myself in the earth and all of the other elements. I am being guided to fully feel the earth and other elements within each of the atoms vibrating in my body. I am being guided to various points across planet earth with elders from various traditions to work with the energy points and the energy grid of planet earth.

As we reach this time of great transformation, based on the prophesy of many traditions, we are called to protect everything that is sacred. We often forgot that one of the most sacred is you. We look at sacredness outside of ourselves.

The second calling is a calling about creation. We have the potential and power to go even beyond our imagination to co-create a future we will thrive in as we more fully express our potential and open ourselves to the possibilities. 

In September 2026, indigenous elders and activists from across the planet will gather to co-create a different pathway. To fully launch a new ‘canoe’ that will launch us into the future away from the destructive trajectory we are currently on.

The Earthrise Collective together with The Earth Elders, A Wisdom Keepers Delegation, Ecoversities and the ICCA Consortium will gather in this powerful moment under the umbrella of ancient wisdom, activism and alternative ways of being on the planet.  

As I walk on my journey, I have the honour of connecting closely with Be The Earth Foundation. It is a powerful example of humans being more than human through the solidarity with communities and activists around the world.

A deep understanding of the transformative time we are in and knowing that ‘we are walking home into our hearts’.