*"We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless."

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”


“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit”

“Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”

“Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.”

Protect the Polar Bear and Walrus from Oil Exploration

The Bush administration is proposing to issue a blanket, five-year authorization to the oil industry to harass polar bears and Pacific walrus in the currently undeveloped Chukchi Sea off Alaska. Both the polar bear and Pacific walrus are imperiled by global warming, yet the administration's only management response is to open up their sensitive habitats to oil development.

The Chukchi Sea is the stronghold for the Pacific walrus and home to one of only two polar bear populations in all of Alaska. But the Bush government plans to lease areas of the Chukchi Sea for oil development early next year, and oil leasing cannot occur without exploration activities that threaten to crush denning polar bears and their cubs, as well as harm walrus with seismic blasts, drill ships, ice-breakers, and the ever-present threat of oil spills.

Please let the Bush administration know that you support the protection of polar bear and Pacific walrus habitat in the Chukchi Sea.


take action here: actionnetwork.org/campaign/...and_walrus

Tigers are on a "catastrophic" path to extinction, according to a new report, and China's proposal to lift its ban on domestic trade in tiger parts just might pave the way.

Please send a polite message to China today, and urge China to maintain the ban on trade in tiger parts.

Tigers are revered in China, but their important status in Chinese culture has also led to demand for tiger parts in traditional Chinese medicine. China has led many efforts to reduce poaching and demand for tiger parts, from its 1993 ban on domestic trade in tiger parts to its recent educational efforts among Chinese consumers.

But just this week, China told the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that it would allow trade in tiger parts from farmed tigers if a scientific review showed it would reduce poaching.

Urge China to maintain its ban on domestic trade in tiger parts.

The owners of private Chinese tiger farms - the source of some of the current illegal trade in tiger parts - are putting pressure on the Chinese government to lift the ban, claiming that lifting the ban will benefit tigers by regulating the tiger parts trade. But in reality, lifting the ban could be a death sentence for tigers.

Tigers desperately need our help. The largest of the big cats, in many ways they are also the most threatened. Experts estimate only 5,000-7,000 tigers remain in the wild.

Please send your message to the Chinese Ambassador today to ask China to help conserve tigers by continuing its ban on trade in tiger parts.

Send your message here: go.care2.com/e/saI1/JA6a/fdYp

Thank you for taking action today,

Action Alert: Work to Save the Congo Rainforest -- Intact, Healthy and Whole -- for All Time
Tell the World Bank, WWF and Greenpeace to stop aiding and abetting failed "sustainable" and "certified" forest management for the Congo Basin, and instead commit to End Ancient Rainforest Logging

Take action here: www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet - April 29, 2007
Congo rainforest
Caption: The Congo Basin must remain intact for local, regional and global ecological sustainability (link)
Ecological Internet's "End Ancient Forest Logging" Campaign Intensifies

Africa's Congo Basin contains the world's second largest rainforest; a haven for vital global biodiversity and ecosystem services, and a safeguard against runaway global warming. This locally, regionally and globally critical ecological system is being devastated by illegal logging. Sadly, many organizations trusted by their members and funders to protect ancient rainforests continue to emphasize "improved forest governance", "sustainable forest management" and "forest certification" after decades of failure to reform industrial logging.

Requirements for global ecological sustainability and socially just, equitable sustainable development dictate that the Earth's entire remaining large, contiguous rainforests are protected from any further industrial development. Sadly, this will require confronting the global ancient forest logging apologist industry.

The Congo Basin covers the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), most of Congo Republic, the southeastern reaches of Cameroon, southern Central African Republic, Gabon and mainland Equatorial Guinea. The DRC has the largest rainforests, containing 1,352,070 square kilometers (522,037 miles) of natural forests, representing six percent of the world’s tropical forests and more than 47 percent of Africa’s tropical forests. About 400 mammal species live in the Congo Basin, including the world's largest populations of lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and forest elephants. Some 655 bird species and over 10,000 plant species can be found.

Industrial logging devastates these species and ecosystems, brings few local benefits, while both local rainforest communities suffer as their rainforests are razed for a pittance, and the entire globe's climate and biological wealth are diminished. Up to 40 million people depend on the Congo rainforest for survival, and these communities have been granting logging rights to companies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for gifts such as bags of salt, machetes, soap, coffee and beer or unfulfilled promises to build hospitals and schools. Large-scale protection of the region's rainforests is a requirement for addressing global climate change. About 8% of the Earth's forest carbon storage is trapped in the DRC's rainforests. At current rates, forest clearance is set to release more than 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2050 -- the equivalent of UK's total emissions for the past 60 years.

The World Bank is failing to stop Western logging firms from devastating the tropical rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the Bank mediated 2002 logging moratorium deal, the government of the DRC agreed not to issue any further logging licenses or to renew any existing contracts in return for $90 million in development aid. Since then an estimated 100 logging contracts covering 15 million hectares have been issued. Many are in the process of being legalized as part of a review subsequently initiated by the World Bank. The World Bank has yet again fallen short of its aims of bringing the logging industry under control, making industrial logging environmentally and socially acceptable, and ensuring local communities benefit from valuable logging contracts.

The DRC government, World Bank and even WWF and Greenpeace view large-scale industrial "legal" and "certified" logging of the Congo and other rainforests as the best that can be done to protect them and their biodiversity, their regional and global ecosystem services, and development potential for the region's peoples. The scientific literature and years of failed, ecologically and socially devastating tropical rainforest logging show clearly that there is no such thing as "sustainable management" of ancient forests. Logging primary forests for the first time results in species composition, structure and dynamics that are irreversibly diminished and much of their carbon is released.

After some two decades of failed Bank and mainstream conservation organization's forest "sustainable" logging initiatives, which have consolidated the hold of logging interests on the World's last ancient forests, and given concerns regarding climate change, it is time to stop working to reform and instead shut down ancient forest logging. Effected communities and nations must of course be compensated by developed countries for this avoided deforestation and diminishment.

DRC's rainforests and their environmental and social services will only be sustained through protection and a complete cessation of industrial logging, with development limited to community based small-scale eco-forestry activities. In the face of ongoing illegal forest operations and climate change, the DRC government, World Bank and conservation stakeholders must stop enabling ecologically and socially criminal logging, and instead seek to end industrial ancient forest logging and to fund community based alternatives.

WWF, the global conservation organization, has promoted industrial forest certification in the DRC, and throughout the world's last natural, large and intact forests. WWF works with and takes money from logging companies -- including some of the world's worst ecological abusers -- to help get their primary rainforest logging operations certified. The supposed gold-standard of forest certification is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) which is closely associated with both WWF and Greenpeace. There continue to be serious and ongoing problems with the FSC including repeated issuing of totally unacceptable certificates and certifiers certifying essentially whatever they want. The rules on 'High Conservation Value Forests' are just one set of rules that are routinely violated, and FSC's principles make no claims of ecological sustainability.

The ultimate aim of Ecological Internet's "End Ancient Forest Logging" campaign is to get the World Bank, other donors and mainstream conservation bureaucracies completely out of the business of supporting industrial ancient forest logging -- and in particular to stop supporting national forestry institutions and policy that perpetuates the industrial logging model. One might expect such reformist clap-trap in the face of decades of failed rainforest policy from the World Bank, that is intent upon ensuring access to natural resources for global economic growth; but sadly WWF and Greenpeace have also undoubtedly become part of the problem. Both Greenpeace and WWF continue to write great reports illustrating the problems, drawn upon for this alert, yet have uncritically, dangerously and wrongly embraced certified, sustainable commercial scaled logging as the solution to the world's rainforest diminishment.

They are wrong, and today is the beginning of a movement to call them on it, and gain commitments to work for an end to industrial logging of ancient forests. WWF's and Greenpeace's embrace of FSC certified logging of ancient rainforests is not conservation, it is prostitution. Let Congo rainforest stakeholders know you demand a future for the Congo that is free of industrial rainforest clearance. And put the World Bank, WWF and Greenpeace on notice that their forest conservation policies are opposed and will be exposed and stopped.

Alaska’s iconic Cook Inlet beluga whales are disappearing -- and they could vanish forever within our lifetime unless we act now.

Take action here: secure2.convio.net/dow/site/Advocacy

-- tell the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to protect Cook Inlet’s belugas before it’s too late!

The Cook Inlet once teemed with up to 1300 beluga whales -- a genetically distinct population of these white whales. But sadly, their numbers have dropped to only around 300 in the last few decades.

Federal officials will decide soon whether to list the Cook Inlet belugas as an endangered species. These beloved whales need federal protection, but we have to speak up now to ensure they get the help they need.

Write federal officials today. Urge them to protect the Cook Inlet belugas for future generations. A decision could come as early as April 18th -- so please take action today!

Biologists thought that over-hunting was largely to blame for the decline of these belugas. But they have not rebounded, even after almost 10 years of stringent hunting regulations.

Scientists now believe that other factors are affecting the recovery of these whales.

Cook Inlet belugas rear their young and feed just offshore of Alaska’s most populated and fastest growing areas. Unfortunately, more and more pollution and sewage discharges pour directly into the beluga’s home each year.

Listing the Cook Inlet belugas as endangered would provide critical protections for both the whale and the inlet itself, giving the belugas the chance they need to recover.

Write to NMFS today -- tell them to give these animals the protection they deserve.

The international community has already spoken. Last year, the highly respected International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the Cook Inlet beluga as “critically endangered” -- the last category before “extinct” -- on its Red List of Threatened Species.

It’s time for the federal government to step in to save these whales before it’s too late.

These creatures need your help. Please tell officials to protect Cook Inlet’s beluga whales!

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

Demand Ugandan Government Stop Killing Rainforest Protestors and
Fully Protect Mabira Rainforest Preserve

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet, Inc.
www.RainforestPortal.org/
April 12, 2006

TAKE ACTION
Last Chance to Stop Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away
www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp


Update:
Ugandan police have opened fire at hundreds of Mabira rainforest
protection campaigners in Uganda protesting against government
plans to allocate forest land to a sugar company. Ecological
Internet is sad to report that two local rainforest
conservationists, protesting to save the Mabira protected
rainforest from being 1/3 cleared for sugar cane have, were shot
dead when protesting according to BBC. Stopping the "Great
Mabira Rainforest Give-Away" has been something the Ecological
Internet Earth Action Network has been deeply involved with
internationally (media coverage below). This in support of one
of Africa's first grassroots modern ecological protest campaigns
- with local peoples organizing boycotts against the sugar
company involved, setting up cyber-petitions and text messaging
via cell phones to organize protests. Efforts to save Mabira
rainforest are a spontaneous, home-grown rainforest conservation
protest that deserves our continued support. Search "Mabira":
www.rainforestportal.org/share...e.aspx

Ecological Internet's 25,000 strong global campaign community
must let the Ugandan government know that shooting protestors is
unacceptable, that the authoritarian efforts to give away
Mabira's rainforests are undemocratic and corrupt, and once
again emphasize that Uganda needs more protected ancient primary
and old-growth forests and restored buffer zones and corridors
to ensure national ecological sustainability including water,
climate, soils and local development options.

Though indications are the President is going to ram this
rainforest give-away through Parliament, let's not give up. And
let's not abandon those dying in the streets for the principle
that logging ancient rainforests is archaic and must be banned.
The message being sent has been completely altered so please
send again if you did already. We have other campaigns coming
but this is important. Please take action now at:
www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

*******************
Must recent alert:
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni continues to pursue legally
dubious plans to destroy large areas of Uganda's last important
intact and protected rainforests. Some one-third of Mabira
Forest Reserve, about 7,000 hectares of an area which has been
protected since 1932, will lose its protection for sugar cane
production by the Mehta Group. Ecological Internet was the first
to bring a thriving Ugandan rainforest protection and protest
movement to an international audience. Since that time many more
local and international groups have joined the campaign. Uganda
has long been facing a deforestation crisis, with forests
covering 20 percent of Uganda 40 years ago, but now just
covering seven percent. Deforestation has been directly
responsible for declining levels of waters in Lake Victoria,
River Nile and other rivers resulting in a scarcity of drinking
water and reduction in hydroelectric energy production.
Continued destruction of Uganda's surviving forests will have
further grave ecological consequences -- threatening ecotourism
revenues, rare species, sparking soil erosion and water
pollution. Already the movement for sustainable rainforest use
and development in Uganda has won. Maintaining and expanding
rainforest protection has been established as a critical pillar
of climate change mitigation, water availability and national
ecological sustainability for Uganda's future. Please contact
the entire Ugandan parliament, Ugandan ministries and embassies
and insist that the Mabira sugar cane project be abandoned, and
Uganda's remaining rainforest strictly protected. Take Action!

www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

Last Chance to Stop Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet, Inc.
www.RainforestPortal.org/
March 28, 2007

TAKE ACTION
Let the Ugandan Parliament know rainforests and their ecological
services including water, climate and biodiversity are more
important than sugar which can be grown elsewhere

www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni continues to pursue legally
dubious plans to destroy large areas of Uganda's last important
intact and protected rainforests. Some one-third of Mabira
Forest Reserve, about 7,000 hectares of an area which has been
protected since 1932, will lose its protection for sugar cane
production by the Mehta Group. Ecological Internet was the first
to bring a thriving Ugandan rainforest protection and protest
movement to an international audience. Since that time many more
local and international groups have joined the campaign. Uganda
has long been facing a deforestation crisis, with forests
covering 20 percent of Uganda 40 years ago, but now just
covering seven percent. Deforestation has been directly
responsible for declining levels of waters in Lake Victoria,
River Nile and other rivers resulting in a scarcity of drinking
water and reduction in hydroelectric energy production.
Continued destruction of Uganda's surviving forests will have
further grave ecological consequences -- threatening ecotourism
revenues, rare species, sparking soil erosion and water
pollution. Already the movement for sustainable rainforest use
and development in Uganda has won. Maintaining and expanding
rainforest protection has been established as a critical pillar
of climate change mitigation, water availability and national
ecological sustainability for Uganda's future. Please contact
the entire Ugandan parliament, Ugandan ministries and embassies
and insist that the Mabira sugar cane project be abandoned, and
Uganda's remaining rainforest strictly protected. Take Action!

www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

Right now, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is gunning for wolves. She wants to see hundreds of wolves killed in the next five weeks, and she’s pushing extreme measures to make it happen.

Already, more than 1,700 wildlife supporters from across the country have donated to support Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund’s emergency Campaign to Stop the Alaska Wolf Massacre. Now we need to make our voices heard!

Take action now! Call Governor Palin at (907) 465-3500 and urge her to rethink her state’s brutal and scientifically flawed wolf killing plans.

Last week, Palin’s administration announced plans to pay a $150 “incentive” (a.k.a. bounty) for each wolf killed in specified management areas - provided that shooters turn in the dismembered leg of each wolf they kill.

If this doesn’t produce the results they want, she’ll allow state officials to use helicopters to track down and kill wolves. Given the speed and efficiency of helicopters this action could very well boost the numbers of wolves killed.

Call Governor Palin’s office right now at (907) 465-3500 and tell her…

* “Science should guide the state’s budget decisions on wildlife management. The reason fewer wolves are being killed could be because the state has overestimated the populations in the control areas. The state lacks sufficient information on how many wolves exist in the targeted areas or how many could be killed without harming Alaska ecosystems.”
* “Listen to the people. Alaska voters have twice voted to restrict aerial gunning of wolves. Even more expensive and extreme measures to kill wolves are unlikely to be any more popular.”

Please remember to be courteous and stick to the facts. Overly emotional comments may be rejected out-of-hand.

Please call Governor Palin’s office right now at (907) 465-3500 and urge her to stop the Alaska wolf massacre.

this poem is for deer

I dance on all the mountains
On five mountains, I have a dancing place
When they shoot at me I run
To my five mountains"

Missed a last shot
At the Buck, in twilight
So we came back sliding
On dry needles through cold pines.
Scared out a cottontail
Whipped up the winchester
Shot off its head.
The white body rolls and twitches
In the dark ravine
As we run down the hill to the car.

deer foot down scree
Picasso's fawn, Issa's fawn,
Deer on the autumn mountain
Howling like a wise man
Stiff springy jumps down the snowfields
Head held back, forefeet out,
Balls tight in a tough hair sack
Keeping the human soul from care
on the autumn mountain
Standing in late sun, ear-flick
Tail-flick, gold mist of flies
Whirling from nostril to eyes.

Home by night
drunken eye
Still picks out Taurus
Low, and growing high:
four-point buck
Dancing in the headlights
on the lonely road
A mile past the mill-pond,
With the car stopped, shot
That wild silly blinded creature down.

Pull out the hot guts
with hard bare hands
While night-frost chills the tongue
and eye
The cold horn-bones.
The hunter's belt
just below the sky
Warm blood in the car trunk.
Deer-smell,
the limp tongue.

Deer don't want to die for me.
I'll drink sea-water
Sleep on beach pebbles in the rain
Until the deer come down to die
in pity for my pain.


Gary Snyder

In May of this year, the IWC will take place on U.S. soil. Tell the administration to lead the way in defending the whales. Whale hunting for commercial purposes must be stopped, calm returned to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and the government of the United States must stand up with its citizens for the whales and the oceans that give them life.

Take action here: members.greenpeace.org/action/start/138/

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

Alice Walker

Help Keep Northern Rockies Wolves Protected

Wyoming and Idaho are poised to start the biggest wolf massacre in decades. Together, we can stop them.

Speak up for our wolves! Submit your comments today to federal officials. Tell them to keep critical protections in place for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

It is important that federal officials hear what you have to say. Your personalized comments will have greater impact in the fight to protect our wolves.

You can use these points in your message:

* Federal protections under the Endangered Species Act must be kept intact for wolves in the Northern Rockies until adequate state plans are in place that would protect and conserve wolves.
* Idaho is not ready or willing to manage wolves to ensure their existence into the future. Idaho’s official position on wolves, passed by their legislature, is that wolves should be removed "by whatever means necessary." The state’s Governor "Butch" Otter supports a plan to kill 80% of Idaho's wolves once delisting has been approved and said he hopes to shoot a wolf himself.
* Wyoming's proposed state laws about wolves are designed to kill as many wolves as possible -- and only because they are wolves. The state intends to kill more than half of its wolves (16 of 23 packs) immediately upon delisting and to maintain extremely low wolf numbers thereafter through any means including poisoning, pulling pups from their dens and aerial gunning.
* Tell officials why it's important to you that Northern Rockies wolves are protected. Include any personal experiences you may have that shape your views.

Take action here:

secure2.convio.net/dow/site/Advocacy

Saving the wild tiger is not just about saving a species. It is about securing a long-term future for tigers, the forests they live in and the people who depend on those forests for their survival. It is about good governance and overcoming corruption. If we can’t save the wild tiger, what can we save?

Today, the world’s remaining wild tigers continue to face threats from the international illegal trade in their body parts and the decline in the tiger’s habitat and prey base. At the heart of these issues lies the major factor that has prevented the wide scale reversal in the decline of the world’s tiger population – the lack of political will. At local, national and international levels apathy and inertia have meant that expert recommendations and initiatives are left to stagnate, relegating the tiger to the political wilderness.

TIGERS CAMPAIGN: WHAT CAN I DO?

www.eia-international.org/campa..._i_do/


Write to the Chinese Ambassador in London to express support for Tibetan animal skin burning
Tibetan people are making a valuable contribution to tiger conservation by burning their skin decorated costumes. EIA needs your help in supporting this bold initiative.

Call for a Wildlife Crime Bureau in India

Write to President Hu Jintao of China
Add your voice to help EIA urge the Chinese Government to take action against the smugglers and traders of tiger and leopard skins

Letter Writing Campaign
To help with the Tiger Campaign follow these links.

Skinning The Cat: Crime and Politics of the Big Cat Skin Trade

SKINNING THE CAT: CRIME AND POLITICS OF THE BIG CAT SKIN TRADE

If you have read our new tiger report, seen the news and want to voice your concern, send a letter……

You can write to the Chinese Ambassador and respectfully request the Government of the People’s Republic of China to increase its investment in a professional enforcement response. We need to see the authorities move beyond simply confiscating a few skins, and get straight to the heart of the criminal networks who control the trafficking of tiger and leopard skins between India, Nepal and China. To do this they need to mobilise intelligence-led enforcement operations, in cooperation with India and China.

His Excellency Ambassador Zha Peixin
Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China
49-51 Portland Place
London W1B 1JL
United Kingdom


You can write to the Indian High Commissioner, acknowledging all India’s efforts under Project Tiger and the commitment of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the tiger crisis. But respectfully urge the Government of India to go a step further and make combating the transnational organised trade in tiger and leopard skins a national priority. While the legislative basis for the multi-agency enforcement unit is now in place (after 12 years of debate), the unit needs to be up and running, led by professional enforcement officers, as a matter of urgency.

His Excellency Mr Kamalesh Sharma
High Commissioner
High Commission of India
India House
Aldwych
London WC2B 4NA


You can also write to your MP and MEP asking them to encourage the UK and EU Governments to adopt a strong position at the next meeting of the CITES Conference of the Parties. In particular they should be requesting India, Nepal and China to increase their efforts at tackling the trade in tiger skins by adopting effective, intelligence led enforcement activites both domestically and regionally aimed at combating the traffickers and traders of skins. The UK and EU should also offer both financial and technical assistance to those countries to assist them in their enforcment activities.

To find out which MEP represents your region visit the following webpage: www.europarl.eu.int/members/...neList.do

Write to the Chinese Ambassador in London to express support for Tibetan animal skin burning
Tibetan people are making a valuable contribution to tiger conservation by burning their skin decorated costumes. EIA needs your help in supporting this bold initiative.

WRITE TO THE CHINESE AMBASSADOR IN LONDON TO EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR TIBETAN ANIMAL SKIN BURNING

Tibetan people are making a valuable contribution to tiger conservation by burning their skin decorated costumes. EIA needs your help in supporting this bold initiative.

EIA has received exciting reports that people in Tibet and neighbouring Chinese Provinces have been burning costumes and garments decorated with the skins of tiger, leopard and other endangered species. Concerted awareness raising efforts undertaken by EIA, the Wildlife Protection Society of India and other international organisations have drawn the link between the killing of tigers and leopards in India and the use of the skins as decoration on costumes in the Tibetan Plateau region. (For more information on this issue please visit the following link: www.eia-international.org/cgi/n...ws.cgi )

The burnings have been spontaneous acts and are a real credit to the people involved. The public burning of skins sends an important message to others in Tibet and elsewhere and is a vital contribution to reducing demand for the skins of tigers and leopards.

There have been reports that the Chinese Government is concerned about the skin burnings and has fears about public order.

EIA is, therefore, asking that you take the time to write to the Chinese Ambassador in London to express your support for the skin burnings; to acknowledge that this is an important contribution to the Chinese Government’s fight against the illegal trade in tiger and leopard skins and that it will assist China in fulfilling its obligations under CITES.

The address to write to is:

His Excellency Ambassador Zha Peixin
Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China
49-51 Portland Place
London W1B 1JL
United Kingdom

Call for a Wildlife Crime Bureau in India

Write to President Hu Jintao of China
Add your voice to help EIA urge the Chinese Government to take action against the smugglers and traders of tiger and leopard skins
WRITE TO PRESIDENT HU JINTAO OF CHINA

Add your voice to help EIA urge the Chinese Government to take action against the smugglers and traders of tiger and leopard skins

Letter writing really can be an effective method of raising awareness amongst decision makers and persuading them to act.

Please write to the President of China urging him to take immedeate action to ensure that domestic enforcement authorities in China have the necessary resources, training and political support to target the smugglers and dealers who trade in tiger and leopard skins.

Ask him to ensure that China does not reopen trade in tiger bone, especially in view of the crisis wild tigers are facing and of the lack of enforcement across borders.

Urge him to support awareness and outreach initiatives and to ensure more effective and proffessional enforcement cooperation with India and China.

Please send your letter to the President via the Chinese Embassy in the UK. A sample letter is provided below; please feel free to amend and personalise as you see fit.

President Hu Jintao
C/o His Excellency Ambassador Zha Peixin
Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China
49-51 Portland Place
London W1B 1JL
United Kingdom

DATE

Honourable President Hu,

I am writing to you to urge you to ensure that immediate action is taken to tackle the smugglers and traders involved in trading tiger and leopard skins and to seek your assurance that China does not intend to reopen domestic trade in tiger bone.

The illegal and unsustainable poaching of wild tigers in India and other countries is directly associated with demand for tiger skins and tiger bone, with China being a major source of such demand. In the last five years the illegal trade in the skins of tigers and other endangered Asian big cats has escalated to such an extent that all the tigers of one Reserve in India have been exterminated, with the populations in other Reserves having been severely depleted.

With wild tigers facing such an uncertain future due to high levels of poaching, it is distressing to read reports that China is considering turning back the clock on 12 years of positive conservation efforts by re-opening domestic trade in tiger bone. To do so will send out a dangerous message to the criminal networks already engaged in tiger trafficking and will fuel further poaching of tigers in the wild.

China has a long history of contributing to global tiger conservation efforts. In 1993 China took the significant and positive step of banning the use of tiger bones. Since then China has engaged with the international community through the UN Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to find ways to prevent illegal trade in tigers.

Reopening domestic trade in tiger bone would undermine those efforts and raise serious questions about China’s commitment and ability to work with the international community to conserve tigers in the wild.

I thus seek your assurance that China will not reopen domestic trade in tiger bone but rather ask that China will cooperate with India on cross border enforcement matters.

I urge you to take immediate action to ensure that domestic enforcement authorities in China have the resources, training and political support to target the smugglers and dealers who trade in tiger and leopard skins. Added to this it is essential that China develop a comprehensive awareness raising initiative directed toward the communities that wear costumes decorated with tiger and leopard skin.

If the tiger is to survive in the wild immediate action needs to be taken now. China can lead the way and make a valuable contribution to international tiger conservation efforts helping to ensure the long term survival of tigers in the wild.

I look forward to receiving your assurances that the Chinese Government will do all in its power to address the serious concerns outlined in the above.

Respectfully yours,
Thu, December 28, 2006 - 6:45 PM — permalink - 1 comments - add a comment
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The North Kaibab Ranger District has just proposed one of the
largest and most destructive logging projects in recent history.
It plans to log approximately 85 million board feet from the
forests of the north rim of the Grand Canyon. A commercial
timber sale of that size would be considered large even in the
Pacific Northwest, but on the arid rim of the Grand Canyon, it
is vast.

The Forest Service proposes to tractor-log about 10,000 acres of
forestland that have already been impaired by forest fire.
Tractor logging, though cheap, is the most destructive form of
logging because it entails driving heavy machinery over fragile
forest soils and dragging trees out over the ground; it causes
huge impacts to soil and water quality and opens pathways for
non-native species like thistles and cheatgrass. Cheatgrass has
already saturated the western side of the North Kaibab Ranger
District and is currently working its way down Kanab Creek into
the national park.

Please help us stop this enormously destructive and unnecessary
commercial logging project by sending the letter below, writing
your own, or attending one of the public meetings.

Public meetings:

February 8, 7-9pm at Flagstaff High School

February 9, 2-4pm at Grand Staircase-Escalante N.M. visitor
center in Kanab, Utah

You can take action on this alert via the web at:
actionnetwork.org/campaign/...ww4q63m3x7

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
actionnetwork.org/campaign/...ww4q63m3x7

We encourage you to take action by January 26, 2007

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:
If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this
alert by going to the following URL:

actionnetwork.org/campaign/...ww4q63m3x7

Your e-mail will be addressed and sent to:
Scott Clemans

----THIS E-MAIL WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME----
Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

I am writing to urge you to withdraw plans for large-scale
commercial logging in the Warm Fire near the north rim of Grand
Canyon National Park.

There is little scientific justification for salvage logging a
burned forest, and tractor logging, as you propose, is a very
destructive practice, particularly on burned soils and burned
forests.

Salvage logging is inappropriate for an area as precious as the
Grand Canyon, and the wildlife and native forests there are not
worth risking for short-term economic gain. This area is in the
heart of Teddy Roosevelt's Grand Canyon Game Preserve, and
should be protected from commercial logging of this nature.

The north rim's forests are valuable to all Americans, many of
whom will, at least once in their lives, travel great distances
to see the Grand Canyon landscape. This is one of America's
great, epic places, where fire is a natural component; the
Forest Service should be expending its efforts to teach the
public the ecological value of fire rather than moving to grasp
whatever profit it can.

The threats that commercial, tractor-based logging pose to this
important ecosystem include diminished wildlife habitat and soil
productivity as well as the increased risk of cheatgrass
invasions, which the forest has already suffered on its western
edge. Cheatgrass, once present, is difficult if not impossible
to remove, and salvage logging creates perfect conditions for it
to take hold.

Please withdraw plans for this timber sale, and focus efforts on
careful restoration of the land.

The Peru Free Trade Agreement would sanction the destruction of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest -- home to jaguars, long-haired spider monkeys, blue-headed macaws, giant river otters and other endangered species -- by failing to address the illegal harvest and trade in mahogany.

Free trade shouldn’t mean illegal trade! Send a message to your Representative and Senators urging them to reject the Peru Free Trade Agreement by filling out the form below.

Take action here: secure2.convio.net/dow/site/Advocacy

The Mexican Gray Wolf needs your help – tell Congress to investigate violence against the wolves.

Fewer than 10 years ago, the federal government reintroduced Mexican Gray Wolves into Arizona and New Mexico: progeny of the few wolves that survived the government's six-decade extermination program and that were trapped for captive breeding. The reintroduction was meant to recover and restore to the wild Mexican Wolves after their near extinction from an extermination campaign that included poisoning, trapping, shooting, and den-excavating.

But now the government is again killing Mexican Wolves: locating them by radio collars and shooting them from the air, digging up wolf pups that then don't survive captivity, trapping wolves and splitting up family packs.

Why is the government doing this? Because the livestock industry successfully pushed for rules and protocols that require such aggressive predator control of wolves in the Southwest, far beyond government violence carried out against wolves or other endangered animals elsewhere.

Five years ago, the non-governmental panel of scientists who wrote the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's official Three-Year Review of the reintroduction program urged changing those rules. The government has not done so, and instead has trapped and shot so many wolves that the projected growth of the population to more than 100 animals at the end of 2006 has not been achieved.

Even worse, the limited gene pool of the Mexican Wolf - stemming from just seven animals who survived extermination - is being squandered and lost as a result of excessive removal of wolves from the wild.

Last month the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to save the Mexican Wolf. The lobo also needs your direct help. Please request congressional hearings into this mismanaged program in order to apply added pressure on the Bush administration to stop the war against the Mexican Gray Wolf.

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s):
Your Congressperson
Your Senators

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Mexican Wolf & endangered species hearings

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

Please use your influence to push for oversight hearings into the Bush administration's subversion of science in recovery of the Mexican Gray Wolf as well as other endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored the urgent recommendations of an independent science panel that called for reforms in the Mexican Gray Wolf reintroduction program in New Mexico and Arizona. The recommendations would bring the program up to the same standards as other endangered species recovery programs such as that for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and in the Lake States. The panel's recommendations, issued in 2001, warned that without changes, "survival and recruitment rates . . .are far too low to ensure population growth or persistence. Without dramatic improvement in these vital rates, the wolf population will fall short of predictions for upcoming years."

As predicted, Mexican Wolves have not grown to the 100-number minimum that was projected and intended to be reached by the end of 2006. During 2004 and 2005, the population even declined. And the gene pool of this critically endangered species is being narrowed, foreclosing future opportunities for recovery.

Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator David Parsons has stated that his former employer "is systematically undermining recovery of the Mexican wolf" and that its "management appears to throw science out the window." He says that "Anti-wolf politics have been controlling agency decisions and actions to the detriment of wolf recovery."

Other endangered species recovery programs also have suffered from political interference by the Bush administration. It's time for Congress to take a close look at how science is used - and subverted - in endangered species recovery programs. The case of the Mexican Gray Wolf should be exhibit number one.

Action Alert: Continue to Oppose Oil Production in Ecuador's Yasuni and Other National Parks
Note gains in Ecuador’s rainforest and indigenous protections, while insisting the rest of Ecuador's protected areas are strictly protected from oil and logging

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet - November 8, 2006

Caption: Oil Production and Protected Areas Do Not Mix (link)

UPDATE: Jan. 20, 2007

"Save America's Forests" reports on a stunning partial victory in the international campaign to end oil exploration and production in the world's "protected" rainforests, in this case in Ecuador. Many key demands in Ecological Internet's longstanding campaign below have been met, including greater protection for indigeneous peoples and protected rainforests from oil and logging. Please choose to send the updated alert below, a congratulatory email that asks for the designation to be expanded to all of Yasuni and other Ecuador protected areas.
***********************

In two separate letters delivered to the Ecuadorian government, a group of over 40 Yasuni scientists (known as the Scientists Concerned for Yasuni) and 6 international NGOs have criticized Petrobras’ new Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of their new “roadless” plan to build oil production facilities in Ecuador’s world class Yasuní National Park. Although both letters praise Ecuador for stopping Petrobras from building an access road into Yasuni National Park, they emphasize that the new project design (construction and operation of 2 drilling platforms, flow lines, a processing facility and pipeline) will cause major impacts to the region’s biodiversity and indigenous peoples.

A massive new processing facility would be constructed on the alluvial plain of the world renowned Tiputini River. Sixteen hectares of mature, inundated forests along the Tiputini would have to be cleared and drained, completely destroying the habitat. And the rainforest surrounding the proposed sites for the two drilling platforms is home to large mammal species considered indicators of high quality rainforest, such as tapir, giant armadillo, giant anteater, and large monkey species.

Moreover, the processing facility would be built on an important hunting area for the Kichwa community of Chiru Isla, and the drilling platforms would be located within the prime hunting grounds of the Waorani community of Kawimeno. The Waorani representative organizations were never consulted about the project, nor did they grant consent for activities on their ancestral territory.

The Ecuadorian government must be urged to NOT approve the study and to cancel the project, as oil exploration and protected area status are simply incompatible.

Take Action Here: www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp

High on a slope in New Guinea
the Grumman Hellcat
lodges among bright vines
as thick as arms. In nineteen-forty-three,
the clenched hand of the pilot
glided it here
where no one has ever been.

In the cockpit the helmeted
skeleton sits
upright, held
by dry sinews at neck
and shoulder, the webbing
that straps the pelvic cross
to the cracked
leather of the seat, and the breastbone
to the canvas cover
of the parachute.

Or say that the shrapnel
missed me, I flew
back to the carrier, and every morning
take the train, my pale
hands on the black case, and sit
upright, held
by the firm webbing.

Donald Hall

The Amazon rainforest in Peru is one of the most biodiverse and environmentally vulnerable regions in the world, with hundreds of endangered and threatened species at risk. Unfortunately, the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement that Congress will soon consider will further endanger Peru?s rainforest. I urge you to oppose this agreement.

One of the most serious threats to the Peruvian rainforest is the widespread illegal logging of mahogany, an endangered species. This logging damages habitat for other endangered species such as the giant river otter. In addition, the International Labor Organization has documented the use of forced indigenous labor in many illegal logging operations. Most of the mahogany logged in Peru is exported to the United States in violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The Bush administration is pushing Congress to approve a free trade agreement that will put the Amazon rainforest on the chopping block. The Peru Free Trade Agreement will promote harmful trade and allow large-scale illegal logging in the rainforest. Tell Congress to protect the Amazon.

Take action here: action.foe.org/campaign.jsp