Our work is founded on the recognition that the Earth is a dynamic living whole whose complex processes have maintained the conditions for life to evolve over millions of years. Humans are an integral part of this living process and depend on it for our wellbeing. Thus we need to ensure that we find a mutually enhancing way to live on our planet, our only home.

We believe humanity is now facing an unprecedented challenge, which requires us radically to rethink the way we see the world and organise ourselves. Never in our history have humans faced so many interconnected global crises of our own making - from climate change and economic collapse to ecosystem and community breakdown, species extinction and social inequity.

The globalization of the industrial system over the last century has pushed the Earth beyond her capacity to mitigate the impact of humans and created enormous inequity amongst humans. The era of excess, instant gratification, and production and consumption as our raison d'être, will have to end if we are to bequeath a viable planet to our children. Insatiable economic growth cannot continue if our children are to have a future. The dominant culture needs to find ways to grow other than accumulating endless things. Surely our human intelligence we are so proud of can aspire to more than becoming mindless consumers?

If we do not understand that the crises we face are symptoms of a deeper moral, ethical and spiritual crisis, no technical fixes will help us. Creating a viable future is about justice - for humans, for the Earth, and future generations of all species. To quote one of Gaia's friends and supporters, Teddy Goldsmith (1928-2009):

"The ecology we need is not the ecology that involves viewing the ecosphere on which we depend for our survival at a distance and with scientific detachment. We will not save our planet by means of a conscious, rational and unemotional decision, a sort of ecological contract based on a cost-benefit analysis.

A moral and emotional commitment is required. Indeed, one of the key tasks of ecology must be to redirect our emotions so that they may fulfil the role they were designed for: to commit us to what should be the overriding human enterprise of maintaining the critical order of the ecosphere."

Quite simply, we cannot solve the problems we have created with the same thinking that created them in the first place.

Community Ecological Governance lies at the heart of our work. We work with partners to accompany local and indigenous communities to revive and strengthen their traditional ecological knowledge which has evolved out of their understanding of the inherent ecological order of their ancestral lands.

The ordering principle of these lands is given by focal points or co-ordinates which maintain the integrity and health of the ecosystem, such as sources of water, breeding grounds, lakes, forests, rivers and mountains. These they recognise as Sacred Sites, meaning places that must not be violated under any circumstances because of their critical ecological, cultural and spiritual significance. Traditionally, these places of potency are protected by custodians who have a profound ecological understanding of the territory and play a central role in community governance.

Systems of governance which are derived from the primary underpinning laws of life are common to all indigenous peoples. This is because they recognize that the Universe is lawful and ordered, and that human law takes its origin from the laws of the Earth - an understanding which we call ' Earth Law' or 'Earth Jurisprudence'. The industrial process broke with this tradition, introducing the idea that laws can be invented exclusively for human interest, and can also be used to legitimise destruction of the Earth's ecological order and well-being, and thereby that of local human communities.

Climate change at the planetary level indicates the extent to which we have broken these laws, and so undermined the planet's capacity to maintain her dynamic equilibrium. Our response to climate change needs to be rooted in our commitment to understand and comply with the laws which govern our life support system. This is the foundation of Resilience. In order to achieve resilience we need to reclaim land, seed, water and food sovereignty as well as to revive meaningful and fullfilling ways of life, supported by local economies. This is now an imperative in order to restore the integrity of ecosystems and communities, which have been fragmented, polluted and destroyed by large scale industrial agriculture, mining and other activities. To build resilience to climate change and exploitative commercial interests, communities need to regain control of their lives and livelihoods.

In order to support this vital transition, urban dwellers need to buy local, seasonal and organic food to ensure that we regenerate the planet for future generations. We also need to radically reduce consumption overall if our children are to have any future. This is how healthy, responsible and reciprocal relationships can be restored between people and between people and the Earth - soils, plants, animals, insects - all embodied in the web of life. Our local economies and energy systems need to be mutually enhancing for people and planet.

Given the enormous challenges we face we need to focus on building a critical mass for change. A critical mass does not mean the majority of people, but enough people to swing the balance. That is why it is so important that we each "be the change we want to see". It is the only thing that has ever made unaccountable power change.

Guiding Principles from those who have led radical change before us:

• Gandhi principle: Our responsibility is to withdraw our participation from systems of violence while proactively building alternatives.
• Martin Luther King principle: the means is the end in the making.