Fifty-six years ago, the first Earth Day helped spark a generation of landmark environmental legislation — and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) was born from that same moment. On this Earth Day 2026, host Sebastian Duque Rios sits down with ELI President Jordan Diamond and Senior Attorney Jay Austin to trace the arc of environmental law from that founding era to the compounding crises of today.

Together, they reflect on how statutes like NEPA and the Clean Air Act were designed with more foresight than we often credit them for, why adaptive management is baked into the DNA of environmental law, and how ELI is responding to an era of rapid institutional change — from regulatory rollbacks and executive action to the governance challenges posed by emerging industries like deep sea mining, geothermal energy, and data centers. They also dig into ELI's new collaboration with the Federation of American Scientists' (FAS) Center for Regulatory Ingenuity and their joint white paper laying out a framework for rebuilding and reimagining environmental governance fit for the 21st century.

This episode is a candid, long-view conversation about what it takes to protect people, places, and the planet. For more information on other emerging topics in environmental law, see our recent episode, "What's Next for Environmental Law in 2026."

Environmental and land defenders in Brazil face some of the highest rates of violence in the world, yet most attacks are never investigated, and fewer still result in prosecution. In this episode of People, Places, Planet, host Sebastian Duque Rios speaks with Kristine Perry, staff attorney at ELI, and Amael Notini, ELI's in-country partner in Brazil and legislative consultant to the Brazilian Federal Senate, about the systemic forces driving violence against defenders and what accountability could look like.

Together, they explore how Brazil's legacy of land inequality, weak rural state capacity, and a deeply entrenched culture of impunity have put Indigenous and Quilombola communities, small-scale farmers, and civil society actors at risk. The conversation covers the structural roots of land conflict, the ongoing contested ratification of the Escazú Agreement, the temporal framework threatening indigenous land rights, and what — if anything — emerged from COP 30 in Belém for defender protection. The episode concludes with a first look at what the team is finding as they build a first-of-its-kind database tracking investigations and prosecutions of lethal attacks against defenders across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, and why that data matters.

This episode is part of ELI's ongoing series on environmental defenders across Latin America. If you've missed our previous episodes, check out our introductory episode on environmental defenders and ELI's database ("Environmental Defenders: On the Frontlines of Conservation") and our Spanish-language episode on the Colombian context ("Defensores ambientales: hacia la rendición de cuentas en Colombia").

For more information on the project, consult ELI's Platform to Protect Environmental Defenders.

Ahead of our eighth season, here's a preview of what's to come in People, Places, Planet, a bi-weekly podcast from the Environmental Law Institute. From climate change and biodiversity loss to pollution and public health, environmental law is at the center of the biggest challenges of our time.

"How do we make the law work for people, places, and the planet?"

This podcast brings you in-depth conversations with experts with leading experts, breaking down the foundations of environmental law and diving into the cutting-edge issues reshaping our world. Whether you're an environmental professional or someone who cares about the future of our communities and ecosystems, this podcast is for you.

New episodes drop every other week. Subscribe now so you never miss a conversation.

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