Union News

Join us!

Join EEIULIST!

New Links

Brochures

Chapters

Resources

Fellows

Members

Sponsors

Letters and Discussions

Constitution

Contact

Disclaimer

Report, January 2006 (Chairs Mbarga and Ahmadadeen)

Preamble

Considering the recent meeting of the Congo Heads of State, calling for improved sustainable management of the fast extinguishing forest and endangered species, particularly the great apes.
Considering Cameroon's indispensable role in protecting the natural resources and climate changes of the Congo Basin. It is in this light that we are propelled to contribute to the security and prosperity of this state.

Task Force Agenda

Mr. Ahmadadeen and Mr. Mbarga have set themselves the ambitious task of extinguishing the threats which plague the rain forest, tribal communities and the great apes and their habitat. In response to the existing crisis Mr. Ahmadadeen will deploy to Cameroon during the month of April 2006.

Duration: 30 Days

Estimated Order of Itinerary

1. • Set up the office of the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club and the EEIU Prim8 Fund, as well as establish the administrative infrastructure of the combined organizations.
   • Meet with the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife and the Minister of Environment and Protection of Nature to discuss in detail the Combined Task Force Agenda and our itinerary in the field.
   • Tour the protected wildlife areas in the South, East and Northern Provinces.
   • Meet with Director Ofir Driori of the Last Great Ape organization to discuss a resources merger and potential financial contributing to his operations in the field.
   • Meet with D.V.M. Sheri Speede and tour Sanaga Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center at the outskirts of Bertoua.
   • Meet with Parliamentarians to bring to the floor the following issues: lobby for the RIGHT to PERSONHOOD for the great apes. Discuss the possibilities of an environmental bill sponsorship.
   • Meet with environmental educator and zoo official Mr. Jeta James to review the Combined Task Force Agenda (CTFAP), plus discuss how we can merge our resources to enable long-term wild life protection.
   • Meet with primatologists, scientists and biologists to discuss their support of the Combined Task Force Agenda (CTFAP).

      

2. • Meet with Chief Njie, traditional Chief of the coastal village in the Limbe neighborhood, to discuss environmental and wild life protection issues in Anglophone zone.
   • Meet with Dr. Isaac Konfer, lecturer, and the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization to discuss the current assessment of Lake Nyos.
   • Visit the environmental schools in Mblamayo, as well as the biology departments at the University of Yaounde 1 and Ecole Normale Superieure.
   • Meet with the media to discuss ongoing favorable support and coverage. The media will play a vital role in providing people with the information they need to make decisions. It is the media who will give ordinary people the chance to take part in debates and have their own voices heard. In order for the media to be effective in this way, it must be free, independent and plural. We look forward to working with the media in all their formats.
   • Meet with Mr. Kingsley Mbanwei, President of RBTG, and artists of various genres to discuss creative exposure of our mission via their craft.

The long-term goal of the Combined Task Force Agenda (CTFAP), with a 5-year monitoring stipulation, is to promote strategies for the protection of the great apes in a comprehensive manner to which villagers and basic ordinary people can relate.

The subsidiary objective under the overall goals is:

Immediate Objective

Prioritize the use of resources for optimum effectiveness and identify funding areas that are currently neglected.

Support income-generating initiatives for the benefit of communities living in and around the great ape habitat and protect due consideration of the indigenous communities.

Long-Term Objective

With the philosophy or term that "no one gets left behind", the great apes are the "core" of our objective. This meaning from the great apes to Homo sapiens, we all deserve life and the pursuit of happiness. Our long-term objectives are:

1. • Lobby to obtain legal status for the great apes. This meaning no killing, no torturing, no captivity or claim as one's property. The RIGHT to PERSONHOOD. The right to a legal guardian. The right to legal representation. The right to sanctuary under strict protection and suitable welfare guidelines.
   • Provide high-level intelligence technologies to the eco-guards in the Ministry to help in environmental inventory and monitoring.
   • Enforcement of environmental laws in collaboration with Last Great Apes (LAGA).
   • Promote the inclusion of importance of the great apes and their habitats in the national curriculum, and disseminate information through the media.
   • Carry out scientific research to generate information necessary for the survival of the great apes and all other endangered species in their habitats
   • Promote reforestation as a priority in the Congo Basin.
2. Work with the corporate sector and personal donors to develop an advantage point in the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT).

   Collaborate with the Ministries website technical support to enhance content, backroom interface, set up e-commerce, capture third party integration tools, create search facilities, offer foreign language conversion, create polls, forums, facilitate multimedia and design presence to build a global audience as well as attract donors. These same web vitals would be applicable to the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club website.

• Collaborate with Engineers without Borders to assess "hotspot" communities where pipe-borne water is urgently needed.
• Distribute the optimal amount of computer systems to the field so that students and other individuals throughout the cities and rural communities can have access to the Internet and register at EEIU Prim8 Fund petition URL. The EEIU Prim8 Fund and the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club call on the US Congress and other figureheads from developed countries to acknowledge and support a bill which would allocate funds to execute strict penalties on those who bring harm to the great apes. Federal Sanctuary System US Code Title: 42287a-3a.
• Collaborate with Panos London to work with the media and other media actors to enable a developing country such as Cameroon to shape and communicate their own developing agendas through informed public debate. Panos London particularly focuses on amplifying the voices of the poor and marginalized.
• Develop environmental education in schools by encouraging debates, conferences, environmental related art, exhibitions, photography, documentaries and field trips.

Campaigns

Fall 2007 EEIU Prim8 Fund and Cameroon Ozone Club will launch a worldwide fundraising campaign titled: Ape2 the Core. We will team up with Café Express to assist in our fundraising efforts by marketing the Ape2 the Core calendar featuring 12 dramatic images of the great apes. There will also be 5 different styles of incredible graphic designed t-shirts with great ape images. We will also manufacture great ape anti-captivity, anti-exploitation, anti-zoo postcards, and bus benches with slogans sure to capture the world's attention.

Winter 2007 The EEIU Prim8 Fund and the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club will launch the NO BREACH campaign. This is a campaign letting the world know about the dangers of the Nyos Dam and what can be done to completely resolve the crisis. This will be a very aggressive fundraising project. Proceeds will go to the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club to enable it to manage the financial end of the project with the support of an advisory Board.

Production

The EEIU Prim8 Fund and the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club will collaborate with the Los Angeles Film Cooperative (LAFCO), to shoot a docu-drama in Cameroon titled Prim8. The film will shed light on the degradation of the rain forest, the bush meat crisis and the plight of the great apes and the forest-dwelling people.

The Paratrooper Folding Tactical Folding Bike (PTFB)

Far too often the Eco-guards within the Ministry lack transportation to carry out their objectives in the field or, when on alert, are unable to respond due to lack of transportation. The EEIU Prim8 Fund and the EEIU Cameroon Ozone Club's goal is to minimize the Eco-guards deployment problem when in the field by providing 100 Paratrooper tactical folding bikes for improved rapid response in the field or daily monitoring of the rain forest, coastal and desert protected zones. LAFCO will follow up by shooting a promotional video illustrating the need and successful use of the tactical bike in the field.

The Paratrooper tactical bike is a full-size, rugged mountain bike deployable almost on any terrain. The Paratrooper tactical bike is designed and sponsored by Montague.

Article, 18 January 2006 (from Chair Abhi Ahmadadeen)

This photo was taken in Central Africa where illegal deforestation is exceeding at an alarming rate - innocent people and animals are being removed from their habitat - how long will we be silent to this blatant cruelty?

From Awareness to Action

We have revealed a dire situation in the forests of West and Central Africa; a seemingly hopeless scenario of rapid change and destruction. The invasion of equatorial rain forests by the forces of global commerce is faster and more detrimental than that of colonialism, and its effects may be even more lasting. If the process continues at its current pace, many species will become extinct and most of the remaining wilderness could be destroyed and degraded in the next few decades.

One core cause of this abuse is the detachment of the new generation of exploiters. Most early colonials had to live with the people and within the landscape of Africa. Today's exploiters come for the short term; their allegiances remain far away in the major cities of Europe, Asia, and America. They rarely feel the suffering nor witness the disorder that results from their activities. If they do, they remain indifferent to them so long as their business operations continue to turn a profit. As a result, the African people must endure the long term costs; the dissolution of a way of life that has supported them for generations. The reactions range from depression to hostility, and too often lead to social collapse and civil war. With the human order in such turmoil, how can we hope to conserve the wealth of biodiversity in these regions?

Clearly, the full range of solutions to these complex problems will require changes in values, behaviors, and social dynamics of people within and outside Africa. This calls for major commitments from the international community as well as a willingness on the part of Africa's new generation of leaders to improve the quality of governance. Conservation is only a part of the new order that is needed, but it can be a very important part - one that can help to stimulate and define a brighter vision for the region as a whole. The growing global outrage about destruction of the forests and wildlife of equatorial Africa can be a catalyst for positive change in many sectors. The increasing worldwide visibility of this issue is beginning to capture the attention of political leaders in the region, and there are signs that some may be willing to make important changes. If respected and effective officials take responsibility for addressing the crisis, it is possible to move forward in new directions.

What we offer here is not a recipe on how to achieve all that is needed, but rather an overview of some of the issues and experiments that are worth considering. Hopefully this will stimulate investment and innovation aimed at improving the future for people and wildlife in West and Central Africa.

Protecting Habitats and Species

From the viewpoint of the global conservation community and for the benefit of future generations, to establish and secure protected areas for biodiversity is the first priority. There is no better way to avoid extinction of endangered species and preserve the stability of ecosystems than to set aside intact tracts of natural habitat that are secure from all indiscriminate exploitation. Given the many challenges to the survival of wildlife in West and Central Africa and the fact that reversing current destructive trends will take time, parks and reserves could be the only places where the largest and most impressive species will be able to survive and maintain their crucial role in the overall ecosystem. At this time, only about 7% of the Central Africa region is classified as parks and reserves; less in West Africa. Very few of these areas are free of illegal hunting and logging. Commitments have been made to change this scenario in some countries.

The 1999 Yaoundé Declaration, signed by the heads-of-state of seven Central African nations, promises to increase allocation of intact forests to protection and to strengthen management of existing protected areas. While little action has been taken, several countries have made commitments. The Republic of Congo increased the world-renowned Odzala National Park fourfold in size in 2000 - it now represents 2.5% of the national landscape. The Government of Cameroon has authorized two new protected areas, Campo-Mann and Mbam et Djerem. Recently President Omar Bongo of Gabon issued a mandate to create 10 new protected areas covering 10% of his country. In West Africa, the government of Liberia has agreed to convert more than half of its remaining forests into new protected areas, totaling nearly 1.5 million hectares. Efforts are underway in Ghana to increase coverage and improve management of protected areas countrywide. It remains to be seen whether these commitments will be carried through, but they are a place to start.

Outside these parks and reserves, the need to establish programs aimed at securing habitat of endangered and threatened species is vital. Wilderness buffer zones, wildlife corridors, and logging concessions are the primary targets. A first step in mitigating the destruction caused by bushmeat commerce is to segment the trade into animals that seem to persist in the face of hunting pressure and those that are susceptible to it. Endangered species such as the great apes and forest elephants are extremely vulnerable to hunting and do not thrive in severely degraded environments. Certain species of rodents, duikers and even some of the more prolific primates adapt to secondary forest situations, and have been known to survive in areas of moderate hunting pressure. On the other hand, threatened species such as Colobus and Diana monkeys, zebra and Jentink's duikers, pygmy hippopotamus, the great apes, and forest elephants are extremely vulnerable to hunting and do not thrive in severely degraded environments. These species must be given special treatment in order to reduce risks of extinction. Phasing out the commercial bushmeat trade starting with complete protection of endangered species will be more acceptable to local people than an outright ban. Care must be taken to reduce commercial demand for all forms of bushmeat, since the end result of commercial hunting is extinction.

It is important to recognize that to declare an area or a species "protected" does not automatically make it so. Neither is the creation of parks and reserves on paper an assurance that such territories will become safe havens for wildlife. But this is an important place to begin. Well-defined agreements which commit key stakeholders in the region to collaborative biodiversity protection, audited by independent observers, represent a necessary groundwork for change. Political pronouncements and policies can, and must, set the stage for action.

Political Will and International Investment

Political will and international investment are absolutely necessary, not only to convert so-called "paper parks" into fully functional protected areas, but even more to address the myriad problems that underpin the destruction of natural and cultural heritage in equatorial Africa. Before international donors will invest, African governments must demonstrate their will to use personal power for public good; to assure ecological and social security before private profit; to safeguard life on earth as vital heritage, not merely as commercial resource.

There are commitments that global and African leaders can make which will signal their willingness to address the biodiversity crisis. Political, business, and religious leaders can start by openly refusing to consume bushmeat from endangered wildlife species. They can insist that all who govern and police in their countries work to stop the hunting, transport, sale, and consumption of endangered wildlife. Global financiers and donors need to invest substantial funds to help African governments improve community and national law enforcement and justice systems. Altogether, a policy of conditionality must be established wherein effective protection of the environment and enhancement of social welfare become prerequisites for economic assistance. The rapid deterioration is caused by the new exploiters who employ modern technology and the wealth of the global economy to the detriment of African wildlife and human culture, rather than for their sustenance. Political leaders and corporate executives must be willing to change.

Link to this entry as downloadable Word file (49K)

Goodwill Ambassador Appointment Letter (.pdf format)

Report, 15 January 2005 (from Chair Ahmadadeen)

2004 was an incredible year. At Prim8 we succeeded in listening to those who fear the imperialist and those who challenge the imperialist. We sat quietly on the coast of southern California sipping tea, coffee, water, crying, laughing, listening to those in need of support. We lived through the loss of journalist friends in Iraq and jogged with politicians along trendy Mulholland Drive discussing unembedded reporting, Haiti, Sudan, Latin America, Sex Trade of Children, the Great Apes. The year which has passed in some ways has left us ignorant to the truth, the fact of the illegal going on in many parts of the world, primarily in Africa, Haiti. Our species are dying, people are dying, and while we have one of the greatest forums in the world to mobilize, the EEIU, many seem to fear mobilization, grassroots, drawing in our youth or all people to soldier in protection of our environment and humanity. At EEIU/Prim8, if you naturally and fearlessly care about all that is living, be in touch. Share with Chairs and Fellows, and all the members of EEIU about all your endeavors. Be at peace and let us know what we can do to help to unite a safer, healthier world. Peace be with all of you and no matter what, remain fearless, remain in the light of the truth.

Reprinted with permission. Mfonfu VG (2004) ' CAMOC activities embrace biodiversity conservation'. Cameroon MINEF Newsletter , Lettere Verte 13:19

While upholding its resolve to promote activities that protect the ozone layer, the General Assembly of CAMOC recently decided to embark on a nation-wide campaign to raise public awareness on the need to protect threatened wildlife and plant species.

With the expansion of its scale of activities, CAMOC management has established partnership on conservation work with some international organisations. The first international conservation body to establish partnership with CAMOC was the Eco-Ethics International Union (EEIU) based in Germany, whose working philosophy is based on the hypothesis that all creatures on earth like human beings have a right to protection.

Through EEIU another renowned international body based in the United States of America called Prim8 Fund came to know and admire the contribution of CAMOC to nature conservation through the promotion of activities that protect the ozone layer. It would be recalled that CAMOC has received letters of congratulation from the Minister of Environment and Forestry in cognisance of their contribution to conservation activities.

The US Prim8 Fund is now seeking ways to establish partnership with CAMOC in the area of biodiversity conservation through public sensitization and awareness raising.

The ozone layer prevents the ultra-violet radiation of the sun from reaching the earth surface where it causes damage to human beings and biodiversity (flora and fauna).

Letter, 21 January 2004 (from Abhi Ahmadadeen, to EEIU Coordinator Mary Batson)

Dear Mary,

I would like to thank you very much for your warm and sincere welcome letter. It is an absolute honor to be a founder/chair of the USA, Glendale California, EEIU Chapter. I do want to also take this time out to send an exhilarating hello! to all the other Chapters from around the world. In reading their mission statements and program objectives I clearly see that working together as a Union, we have the absolute power to educate millions and millions of people from all walks of life, worldwide about how eco-ethics plays a vital part in their future on earth.

There were a lot of key concerns which you mentioned in your letter and I want to address those concerns as well as address your proposed ideas in another letter soon to follow. There are some very strange things brewing around the world concerning our environment and wildlife. Unless we take a stance as a financially strong Union and unite as a "we shall not be overcome Union", the beauty around us will fall to dust.

Here is a letter and an article sent to me last November from Africa re: the USA President's thoughts on endangered species protection laws.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello! Abhi,

It looks like Minister Banuamere of the DRC, last year, had an inside track to the US administration when he signed the new forestry and wildlife utilization laws, offering all the DRC's protected species for 'hunting, capture and to keep in captivity." (e.g. to hunt a mountain gorilla: US$ 500, live capture US$1000, right to keep in captivity US$ 3000. Okapi, to hunt US$ 500, to capture US$ 1200, to keep in captivity US$ 6000).

With the DRC having been reinstated to CITES and half a dozen international conservation organizations having experts running around on the ground, writing beautiful reports, the US administration, I am sure, will have no problem to conclude that the DRC "is a country with an effective conservation program." Talking about CITES, I thought the US was a signatory and the convention had a problem with transacting commercial traffic of listed species....???

Never mind the local poachers, as is already happening in Cameroon, making the point that they see no reason why they can not kill a few of THEIR elephants now and then, for a meal and/or some cash income, while rich foreigners can buy license to hammer the species FOR FUN. These villagers/poachers would also have no problem endorsing the US administration concerning: "The US government's limited power to promote change in other countries that have their own national laws and policies." They will happily confirm that they have never seen a cent of any hunting fee income collected in the capitals at their end of the country and that appears to be national policy as well.

I also have little doubt that other ministers will follow the Hon. Banumaere's lead and introduce new 'national laws and policies' to take advantage and comply with this great US offer.

Clearly when it comes to Central Africa it makes sense to try to protect all these valuable species from the bush meat trade, so US sport hunters can come and blast them away or for some animal dealers to come and catch them for some new safari park a la Disney. (There, the best of the African Safari experience is offered in a sanitized form at US$ 50 entrance fee. What is the point to go to the real Serengeti or the real Lamu and worry about terrorists, while it can all be had so much cheaper and safer back home).

Let's in this context not forget the Congo Basin Initiative for which the US has offered to cough up some US$ 54 million with one of the main objectives being to encourage partnerships with the private sector. Cynics — and I am one of them — see this as just another effort to buy the oil, logging and other extractive industries a green image. I guess sport and safari hunters can now be added to this list and there are 54 million new reasons for the conservation establishment to jump on the bandwagon.

We are going backwards not just in steps but by leaps.

Karl Ammann

Nanyuki 19/10/03

----------------------------------------------------------------------

18 / 19 October 2003

By JOANNE MARINER

At ceremonies two years ago in honor of Earth Day, President George Bush stood beneath a giant sequoia and called for "a new environmentalism for the 21st century." As defined by his administration, this new environmentalism prefers market-based incentives to government regulation and elevates property rights over wilderness and species protection. It is the environmental corollary to Bush's broader deregulatory views.

Peter Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is one of the brains behind the Bush administration's approach to the environment. His influential political tract, "Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists," was published in 2000 as a conservative counterweight to Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance."

In "Hard Green," Huber lauds Teddy Roosevelt as a model environmentalist. Roosevelt, famous as a hunter and safari enthusiast, once killed several hundred wild animals — including a reported nine lions, five elephants, thirteen rhinos and seven hippos — during a single extended expedition in Africa. As Huber puts it, approvingly: "He loved wild animals. He particularly loved to shoot them."

Roosevelt's love them and kill them approach is the obvious antecedent to a new endangered species policy that the Bush Administration announced this summer. As set forth in a draft document whose comment period expires this Friday, the administration plans to begin allowing hunters, zoos, circuses and others to kill, capture and import wildlife facing extinction in other countries.

"An Open Door to Corruption"

The new policy marks a dramatic break from past practice. Rather than interpreting the Endangered Species Act to protect foreign species from exploitation and slaughter, as previous administrations have done, Bush Administration officials assert that encouraging such actions can contribute to the species' ultimate survival.

Prominent defenders of species preservation disagree. "It stinks, quite honestly," said renowned primatologist Jane Goodall of the proposed change. "It's an open door to corruption. It's disgusting."

The Bush Administration insists that the new rule is consistent with the law's existing provisions. Passed in 1973, the Endangered Species Act was meant to protect wildlife species in danger of extinction. In a landmark 1978 case interpreting the scope of the law, the Supreme Court called it the "most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation." The law now recognizes more than 1,700 threatened and endangered plant and animal species.

Besides protecting native plants and animals, the Endangered Species Act extends its coverage to wildlife in other countries. At present, 561 foreign species, nearly half of which are mammals, are listed as endangered or threatened under the act. Included among them are the snow leopard, the gorilla, and the South African mountain zebra.

To "Enhance the Propagation or Survival" of the Species

In the past, officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have interpreted the law to bar the commercial importation of endangered plants and animals to the United States. The clear reasoning behind this refusal was that U.S. demand would further deplete these species' already limited numbers.

The current administration, however, argues that the burgeoning U.S. market for sporting trophies, hides, pelts and other animal parts, as well as the demand for exotic pets and circus animals, could create positive conservation incentives. Invoking Section 10(1)(A) of the Endangered Species Act, which allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant exemptions to the law's ban on endangered species imports in order to "enhance the propagation or survival of the affected species," the administration proposes to permit the importation of wildlife from countries with effective conservation programs.

Imports would be allowed, specifically, in cases where the country has a conservation plan by which the number of wildlife that are killed or captured is offset by increases in the target population. The overall net impact of such a plan should, theoretically, be positive.

The administration's draft policy is crowded with the language of incentive and sustainable use. Its promised benefits are speculative and long-term, however, while its risks are direct and immediate. By opening up the American market to endangered species from abroad, the proposal creates clear incentives for the depletion of existing wildlife stocks. In contrast, the promised overall growth in endangered species populations will result only in those countries where the conservation plan is well thought out, where the authorities are genuinely interested in implementing it, and where the circumstances are such that implementation is actually possible. Given the corruption, disorganization, and competing priorities in many countries, it is doubtful that the proposed influxes of American cash will have the desired effect.

In the end, what the change does is allow Fish and Wildlife Service officials to gamble with the future of foreign wildlife stocks. It substitutes a speculative weighing of incentives for a bright line rule.

False Modesty

Another aspect of the draft policy's reasoning that is worth examining, since it is so jarringly inconsistent with the Bush Administration's approach to other international problems, is its modesty. At several points in the draft policy, the use of market-based incentives is justified by reference to the U.S. government's limited ability to influence other countries' policies.

Here, where the goal is wildlife conservation, the U.S. government underscores the limited nature of its power to promote change in "other sovereign countries that have their own national laws and policies." Given such constraints, the administration asserts, market-based incentives are among the "few available means" for encouraging conservation efforts abroad.

For an enlightening contrast, consider the "war on drugs." (Note the declaration of "war," for starters.) In its counter-narcotics efforts, the U.S. government has long eschewed market-based incentives in favor of a range of bullying tactics, which include blatant violations of other countries' sovereignty. The government's coercive measures have included invading a country and prosecuting its president (as with Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega), abducting foreign citizens (as with Mexican physician Humberto Alvarez Machine), and denying access to U.S. markets in retaliation for insufficient cooperation with U.S. counter-narcotics programs.

As the most powerful country in the world, the United States has enormous leverage in every realm. In approaching trade issues, the drug war, the counter-terrorism effort, or a number of other national priorities, one can rest assured that U.S. policymakers do not feel overly constrained by their limited options for effecting change. To rely on such excuses here is thoroughly cynical.

The Larger Context

It is worth remembering, in closing, that the recent proposals are part of a larger attack on the Endangered Species Act. With the administration's support, Republicans in Congress have been seeking to amend the law in order to weaken it. To achieve the same goal though other means, the administration has also consistently underfunded the endangered species program, creating a work backlog that undermines the Fish and Wildlife Service's ability to enforce the law's requirements.

Several of the administration's federal court nominees, such as Alabama Attorney General William Pryor and Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, have a history of hostility to the Endangered Species Act. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the head of the department charged with enforcing the law, once filed a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging significant cuts in endangered species protections. Her assistant secretary for water and science is a former mining lawyer who once called for the law's abolition.

The overall picture is, in short, a gloomy one. It may be called the New Environmentalism, but it sounds a lot like the old anti-environmentalism. And Peter Huber is right: it makes Teddy Roosevelt look awfully good.

Joanne Mariner is a human rights attorney who has worked in Latin America for nearly a decade.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

When have this type of unfavorable energy being dished out from the White House, it leaves one to wonder is there a chance in hell that we all can get through this together as a Union. I believe we can. In my next letter I will write about the objective of the EEIU Chapter of Glendale California.

In closing, I leave you with this message from the blessed Dr. Martin Luther King.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed — we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that.
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Sincerely,

Abhi Ahmadadeen

-----

Response, 22 January 2004

Dear Abhi,

Many thanks for your recent emails — it is both exciting and encouraging to hear of your work. I've only a moment, but I wanted to suggest that you might like to get in contact with Fredrick Smetacek, Jr., Chair of our India Uttaranchal SAVE Chapter — you share similar interests and might be able to work out some mutually beneficial projects. Check out their latest report, which can be accessed at:

http://www.eeiu.org/chapters/uttaranchal/reports.html#SAVE060104

All the best luck with EEIU Glendale!

Regards,

Mary Batson

This page was last updated on 3 April 2006.