ECO_CARE wants to internationalize law education and give communities a voice in academia!

- Water is a source of life and a robust connector of living beings and places. Nevertheless, globally we have seen a rise in water-related challenges: scarcity, contamination, and inequitable distribution. As a result, we observe an increase in ecological challenges; environmental threats, population-, and displacement stress. This is leaving both biodiversity and people in a vulnerable state, as Margherita Paola Poto, researcher at UiT explains.

Margherita P. Poto Photo: UiT

Together with Giulia Parola from the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Poto will lead the project “An Exchange Program on Empathy, Compassion, and Care in Water Governance, from the Perspective of Integral Ecology (ECO_CARE)”. The goal is for ECO_CARE to both improve the law education programmes in Norway and Brazil, and lead to groundbreaking research based on an innovative model for collaboration on water resource management!

Part of the project is to establish a three-month study program for master's and PhD students in law from both Norway and Brazil. Students will be introduced to and take part in critical legal research and community-based research. - We want to both internationalize the law education programmes in Norway and Brazil, and give members of different communities a voice in the academic arena, says Margherita Poto.

ECO_CARE is a collaborative project between the UiT - Faculty of Law, Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), the Chiquitano people from Mato Grasso in Brazil, and two law firms specialized in visual law and legal design. These partners will work together to address the community organization's needs concerning water and sustainability. The Chiquitano people will contribute with knowledge about indigenous law and storytelling, and students will contribute to research-planning and -implementation.

This week the project was granted funding by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (DIKU). In October, a workshop will be held in Tromsø focusing on a conversation between river Tana (Tana Valley) and River Taruma (Mato Grosso), through indigenous people’s voices.

Kortnytt fra Faculty of Law

Sollid, Sondre sondre.sollid@uit.no Studentansatt