EarthAction

Introducing the Nominees of International Children’s Peace Prize 2023

We are excited to share the latest updates on the International Children’s Peace Prize 2023!

As you may know, the International Children's Peace Prize (‘ICPP’) is the most important award given to a young changemaker who has made an exceptional difference for the rights of the child and the position of vulnerable children, anywhere in the world.

The prize was launched in Rome during the 2005 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. Since then, each year the prize has been awarded by a Nobel Peace Laureate.

For the first time ever, this year’s awards ceremony for the winner of the 2023 International Children’s Peace Prize will take place on November 17th at the Palace of Whitehall, London. To ensure as many people as possible can join the ceremony, it will be held in a hybrid format.

For the ICPP 2023, we have received 140 nominations of young changemakers from 35 countries around the world! The nominees are working on a range of topics, including education, climate change, refugees and migrants, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, non-discrimination against children of prisoners, indigenous people, and many more.

You can now see all their amazing stories on our website!

We hope that you will be inspired by their stories and encourage young people to continue their changemaking activities with more passion and rigor. You can also contribute to make this happen by donating on our website.

Learn more about Kids Rights here

Focus on land to safeguard climate and sustain life

Media Advisory
 

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Focus on land to safeguard climate and sustain life on our planet 

Côte d’Ivoire hosts first major conference in 2022 to tackle the interconnected challenges of land degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss 

The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will take place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 9 to 20 May 2022. Heads of State, ministers and delegates from 196 countries are expected to attend this major event on the future of land management, alongside private sector, civil society, women and youth leaders. 

Journalists and media organizations worldwide are invited to attend the Conference to cover the meeting and participate in all events organized for the media. Online Registration | UNCCD  is now open for media wishing to participate in person or virtually.  

The COP15 theme, ‘Land. Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity', is a call to action to ensure land, which is the lifeline on this planet, continues to benefit present and future generations.  

The Conference will focus on the restoration of one billion hectares of degraded land between now and 2030 and tackling the growing impacts of droughts, sand and dust storms, and wildfires. COP15 will also take action on key policies that can enable action on restoration, particularly land rights, gender equality and the role of youth in future land stewardship.  

In addition to formal negotiations, COP15 will include a high-level segment on 9-10 May. UNCCD COP15 will be the first of the three Rio Conventions meetings to be held in 2022, with Biodiversity COP15 and Climate change COP27 convening later this year in Kunming, China and Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, respectively. 

The Convention unites governments, scientists, policymakers, the private sector and communities around a shared vision to restore and manage the world’s land. The last Conference of the Parties took place in New Delhi, India, in 2019. It was preceded by COP13, which took place in Ordos, China.  

Journalists are required to submit the following documentation to be considered for participation. 

• Duly filled online application form 

• An electronic passport photograph 

• Official press card or a company photo identity card  

• Letter of assignment to cover the event 

On request, the secretariat will provide accredited foreign journalists with a Note Verbale to secure visas from the Embassy of Côte d’Ivoire closest to them.  

Detailed information on COP15, including the provisional agenda, is available here: cop15.  

For more information and to register, contact: Wagaki Wischnewski, [email protected] 

Read more about the UNCCD here

2021 EarthAction Project & Campaign Report

2021 EarthAction Project & Campaign Report

The following projects and campaigns were made possible with your support. Thank You.

2020 Action: Every month, 2020 Action educated and mobilized thousands of US citizens and encouraged them to communicate with US policymakers on critically important peace and environmental issues. Each month, 2020 produced a timely Action Alert with meaningful actions for citizens to take to protect our environment and security—usually to contact a policymaker facing a critical decision. For details, read 2020’s 2020 Action Report at 2020Action.org. 2020 Action just completed its 35^th year!

Strategies to Boost Fair Climate Action in the 2020-2030 Decades: EarthAction sponsored a Side Event at COP 26 UN Climate Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland, November 2021. We collaborated with The Group of Governance on Climate Change - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. They presented an equity-based analysis of the current NDCs; Climate Scorecard reported on efforts to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030, and the Asociación Proteger described real cases of community driven improvement of housing and schools, based on local resources.

The American Friends of the Palestinian House of Friendship: EarthAction helped to raise over $100,000 to support the Palestinian House of Friendship (PHF) in Nablus, Palestine and their programs including: Summer Camps; a Skate Park; after school programs and e-learning for kids who were unable to go to school due to COVID; Girl Scouts (160 members) who served elders, needy families, and orphans in the community; an older women’s chorus and the formation of a younger women’s chorus called Zunnar; the Open Gate Music Studio that produced recordings throughout the year; the creation of a Little Free Library in Nablus; a cultural folklore festival in Asira with music, dance, and hand-crafts displayed which more than 2,000 people attended; and a new program called, “The Green Hands Initiative,” where children learn to love the land and to plant vegetables and fruits.

Support for Indigenous Peoples: In 2021, in collaboration with the Save Our Spirits (S.O.S.) Fund, EarthAction provided over $60,000 in much-needed support for indigenous and ancestral communities around the world. These projects included the following:

The Elders Project (TEP) in Colombia: We continued to work with and to provide assistance to the traditional authorities (Mamos) of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (SNSM) in Colombia. Rick Harlow, the Project Director, traveled to Colombia in August to distribute a new book of Kogui wisdom, published with TEP funding, to the pueblos of the SNSM. Rick returns to Colombia in December to coordinate the next Black Line Journey for the Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamos pueblos. These activities are of great help to the Elders in their efforts to strengthen their spiritual traditional practices.

TEP has also been working with the Hopi Elders.  In October Rick traveled to Arizona to assist the Hopi in realizing a 1,300 mile pilgrimage to 11 sacred sites that define their ancestral territorial boundaries. TEP will continue working with the Hopi in 2022 as they realize another pilgrimage next summer.

The Lalakea Foundation: We provided a grant to their Nā Wāhine ʻĀpapalani, Hawaiian women cultural practitioners who have been conducting ritual and ceremony on Maunakea for many years. They are dedicated to honoring the sacred Piko O Wākea through prayer, chant and ceremony that acknowledge Nā Kānaka o ka Mauna, Deities of the Mountain, and form connectivity with the sacred through space and time. Due to COVID, this project was extended into 2021.

Hopi Community: We provided support to several Hopi communities for their COVID-19 Emergency Response Hopi Contact Tracing Projects. They trained people within the community to carry out contact tracing in a number of Hopi villages that were being hard-hit by the pandemic.

Q’eros Ceremonial Terrace Project in Ecuador: Through the Wiraqocha Foundation, Fredy Flores Machaca & Hannah Rae, received a grant on February 1, 2021 to design and build a terrace as the first phase of creating a museum and center for the preservation of the Q’eros culture. The terrace will be a sacred place for the Q’eros to gather for communal ceremonies.

Restoring Ancestral Connection to the Environment— a Community-Led Project of the Moken People of Koh Surin. The Global Purpose Group, founded and directed by Bodhi Garrett, was the sponsor of this project. In February 2021 they received an S.O.S grant to provide cultural and ecological preservation, education for children, meaningful income for adults, and community empowerment for the Moken community at Koh Surin National Park. The islands are located in the Andaman Sea of Thailand.

Kaibeto Navajo COVID Relief: On the Dine' Nation, Sharon Claw-Watson organized a team of 12 volunteers (Kaibeto Covid Relief Team) that served the communities of Kaibeto, Inscription House, Shonto, Redlake (Tonalea), Navajo Mountain and Rocky Ridge on the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. Our S.O.S. grant helped these communities to receive needed supplies including fresh food, healing herbs, water, medicines, vitamins, and boxes of food to keep the people in these communities, especially the elderly, healthy and safe from exposures to infection. Many of the volunteers used their own vehicles, traveling long rough unpaved roads to deliver supplies. Our grant provided food and needed supplies to 50 to 100 families for one to two months and paid for gas for the delivery vehicles.

Panina Makahiki/Closing Makahiki Ceremony 2021 in Hawaii: the project sponsor, Kohe Mālamalama O Kanaloa-Protect Kahoʻolawe Fund (PKF), received a grant for a closing ceremony in a series of ceremonies called, Makahiki Kaho‘olawe, that brought together their kūpuna (elders), kamaliʻi (children), kumu (experts/teachers) and ʻohana (families) from each island of Hawaiʻi to aide in their re-greening on the island and to secure blessings for Kahoʻolawe for the new year.

The Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Philippines received a grant to assist them with their response to the COVID-19 pandemic including the distribution of food relief consisting of rice, sugar, salt and cooking oil to a total of 500 families of indigenous people among the Ayangan tribe in the province of Ifugao. They also shared information on COVID-19 and held discussions on food security during the relief distribution in communities and conducted psycho-social sessions among vulnerable groups such as farmers, elders, youth, and informal workers.

Grass-Roots Organization for Women (GROW) Ghana: We provided support for Community-based Initiatives to address the impact of the Corona-19 virus in rural indigenous and local communities. They strengthened their outreach to prevent the spread of infection and addressed emerging public health issues that impacted vulnerable populations in rural areas who lacked access to essential services. This project went from June 2020 through May 2021.

NEW PROJECT Indigenous Solidarity Fund (ISF) In May 2021, EarthAction became the sponsor of ISF whose mission is to support elders, leaders, and wisdom-keepers of indigenous groups in Colombia and the Americas in their efforts to preserve and share their cultures and traditional practices. Click here to view a video made in 2021 by ISF Project Director Jesse Stammel of an urgent message from the revered Grandfather, Wisdom Keeper, Land Protector and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Werjayo Berito Kuwaru'wa of the U'Wa people in Colombia

Other Campaigns

Throughout 2021, EarthAction engaged in many other global campaigns for peace, justice and the environment through our website and social media. These included: the global launch of the Green Grids Initiative at the Climate Summit in Glasgow; COVAX, the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines; the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; The launch of the Youth Elders Fusion Initiative; For details visit: www.earthaction.org.

THANK YOU

EarthAction thanks all our Partner Organizations, members, donors and Board members for their ongoing participation and support. Special thanks to the Thomas D. Hormel Trust, the Stewart R. Mott Foundation, the Whatcom Community Foundation and the Save Our Spirits Fund.

Click here if you would like to make a donation to support our ongoing work.

Frightened Palestinians Call On Israel To Speed Vaccine Delivery

 

At a time when the COVID-19 crisis is in retreat throughout much of the world, Palestinians are suffering through their worst lock-down since the start of the pandemic, with infections surging and no prospect of relief from vaccines.

“People here are panicked,” said Mohammed Sawalha, a professor at the Al-Najah University and founder of the Palestinian House of Friendship (PHF), a community center in the city of Nablus which provides services for children. “They are afraid of what is coming. There is no strategy, no plan and no vaccines.”

The Advocacy Project has partnered with PHF since 2015 and recently donated $500 to a PHF initiative, Boxes of Love, to help struggling families in Nablus.

According to The World Health Organization, 245,790 Palestinians have been infected in the West Bank and Gaza since the pandemic began. Cases rose by 4,193 between Tuesday and Wednesday, in spite of a severe lock-down. Deaths rose by 29 to 2,561.

Adding to the stress is a growing conviction that Israel has withheld vaccines to put pressure on the Palestinians. Seventeen members of the US House of Representatives issued an open letter on Monday accusing Israel of failing to live up to its responsibility as an occupying power.

With a population of around 160,000, Nablus has one of the highest rates of infection on the West Bank, partly because it serves as a referral center for the north of the West Bank and includes three overcrowded refugee camps.

Nablus has 12 hospitals and recently opened two centers for COVID-19 cases only. But both filled up quickly, according to Dr Abdelsalaam Al-Khaiyat, a Palestinian epidemiologist and professor who sits on the COVID emergency committee of the Nablus governorate.

“My worst nightmare has always been that there would be no beds for patients at hospitals,” said Dr Al-Khaiyat. “That’s what we now see. This has been absolutely the worst time since the start of the pandemic last March.”

Dr Al-Khaiyat said that 263 people had died from the virus in Nablus so far. Hospital wards are overflowing and sick patients are lined up in corridors. The virus is infecting a growing number of young people and endangering children. Half of the cases have occurred in the last ten weeks.

Mr Sawalha also painted a grim picture of life in Nablus during a wide-ranging Zoom meeting. As in any close community, deaths are difficult to bear and Mr Sawalha said that the virus has claimed the lives of five faculty members at his university. Two young members of his staff were recently diagnosed with the virus.

All shops in Nablus are closed except for pharmacies and bakeries, which are open for two days a week. This has further devastated an economy and administration that was already suffering from occupation and mismanagement.

The education system is collapsing in remote villages where families do not have access to the Internet or computers. Remote learning is even difficult in refugee camps that are close to the city said Ansaf Khalil, who teaches at the Balata refugee camp. Ms Khalil's daughter Dareen is depressed and “dreaming of an end to this nightmare,” she said.

With family food stocks running dangerously low, the authorities in Nablus are under growing pressure to ease the lock-down. This, however, could open the floodgates. “It is a very dark picture,” said Mr Sawalha.

The main line of defense against the virus – vaccines - is still not available to Palestinians. So far, according to press reports, the Palestinian Authority has only acquired 92,000 doses for a population of over 5 million. This includes 30,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V and 58,000 doses of the Pfizer and AstraZenaca vaccines which recently arrived through COVAX, the international sharing program.

Learn more at The Adovcacy Project 

Nominations for Prestigious UN Award Opens

Nominations for the 2021 Land for Life Award of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) opened today. The submission of nominees will close after two months, on 28 January 2021.
 
The Award recognizes initiatives to halt, reduce and/or reverse land degradation that have had a positive impact on people and their land by using a holistic approach as well as practices that address both the environmental and social aspects of land management.
Under the theme “Healthy Land, Healthy Lives,” the 2021 Award will spotlight changemakers doing innovative land restoration and conservation that is both promoting the well-being of communities and improving their relationship with nature. It will reflect land as part of the solution, as the communities around the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better around a social contract for nature.
 
Winners will be invited to present their projects and work at international forums, including the Kubuqi International Desertification Forum in China, where the Award Ceremony will take place in mid-2021, and at the Fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention at the end of 2021.   These forums offer winners special access to potential new funding partners and stakeholders.
 
Previous winners include World Vision (Australia), SEKEM (Egypt), Watershed Organization Trust (India) and Réseau MARP (Burkina Faso).

By winning the prestigious award, some have expanded their projects, secured new partnerships or been recognized by other international and national awards.

Mr. Tony Rinaudo, World Vision Australia, said “The Land for Life Award has played a significant role in lifting the profile of a relatively obscure intervention – Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) globally, giving it wider visibility and validating it as an effective tool in land and tree restoration. […] Today, FMNR is a normal part of the development lexicon when it comes to land restoration approaches and is considered a ‘best practice’ by many donors and development practitioners alike.”
“So much has awareness grown that the flagship intervention being promoted by the Global Evergreening Alliance, a coalition of NGOs, conservation groups, research institutions and professionals – is FMNR. In the seven years since World Vision was granted the Land for Life Award, the practice of FMNR, and individuals promoting it, have gone onto win other nationally and internationally significant awards,” Mr Rinaudo said.

”In our quest to establish a new social contract for nature and ensure a healthier and safer future for all, we need to promote the connection between people and their environment, on the one hand, and focus on innovative approaches that involve communities, empower women and promote new technologies on the other. In these uncertain times where a growing number of infectious diseases is coming through land use change, we are searching for positive and inspiring models that are creating healthy lives by turning degrading land into healthy land,” says Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD.
 
The Land for Life Award also has a special China Award that celebrates exceptional commitment to sustainable land management in China.
 
Elion Foundation is the main sponsor of the Land for Life Programme, but leads the special China Award together with the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Provincial Governmental of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Additional Quotes from Previous Winners:
Ms. Marcella D’Souza, WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS):  "The L4L Award helped us connect and engage with the ELD Secretariat at the GIZ based out of Bonn, who we had met at Kubuqi. This resulted in a new project on Economic Valuation of regenerating degraded lands through Watershed Development, implemented by our research unit - the WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (W-CReS). In addition, the Award and the exposure it provided us helped transition our watershed-focussed interventions to a more holistic ecosystems-based approach targeted at building adaptive capacities and resilience of rural communities to climate and non-climate risks. This led to another partnership and project with the ambition to develop a state level "Roadmap for Ecosystems-based Adaptation" which involves multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral engagement and collaboration across scales."

Mr. Mathieu Ouédraogo, Réseau MARP: “Winning the Land for Life Award is certainly a great honor, but above all a major opportunity. This distinction led the communities we work with to be more thorough in the actions they carry out daily, focusing on tangible results. Quantitatively, we have doubled our objective in terms of achievements in the field, thanks to the worldwide recognition of our efforts.”

Mr. Awadalla Hamid, Practical Action Sudan: “The award has definitely a great impact on the project and the life of the people of Darfur, as we managed to secure an additional fund for a second phase of the same project, 10M Euros from the European Union to support more families in Wadi ElKu project area, and to cover additional 180km along the Wadi ElKu Catchment in North Darfur.”

About the UNCCD

For further information regarding the rules and criteria, visit the Land for Life Award webpage.
 
Contact person : Caroline Galipeau, Coordinator of the Land for Life Programme, [email protected]

Deadline to submit nominations for the Children’s Peace Prize extended!

We would like to thank everyone who has nominated an outstanding child for the International Children’s Peace Prize 2020! We greatly appreciate your time and effort taken to submit the nominations.

After receiving several requests, we are extending the nomination period with one week until March 15th of 2020. 

Fighting for Children's Rights
The International Children’s Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child, whose courageous or otherwise extraordinary efforts have made an impact on behalf of the Rights of the Child.

Do you know a child in with a drive, passion and a history in standing up against violations to children's rights? Nominate him or her now via our website! 

Winning the Prize
The winner of the International Children's Peace Prize is offered a global platform to promote his or her ideals and future works, reaching and helping children worldwide. The winner receives a study-grant and the Nkosi statue. 

Recent Significant Climate Change Events

Global Spotlight Report #24 we asked Climate Scorecard Country Managers to report on significant climate change events in their countries that occurred from October 2019 – January 2020.

READ THE REPORT

Around the world many countries struggled to cope with extreme weather events. Brazil and Australia battled forest fires that burned large acreage in the Amazon, killed more than a billion animals, and pushed many species to the brink of extinction in Australia. India and South Korea battled “fine dust” and intense air pollution. Japan was hit by two powerful typhoons. Delta regions in Nigeria were harmed by widespread floods.

 

2020 will go a long way to determining the ability of countries around the world to work together to meet the challenges of climate change. View the latest report for detailed Country Activity Reports and Action Alert Messages.

2020 COUNTRY CLIMATECOMMITMENTS

View monthly updates of the short and long-term climate goals of leading greenhouse emissions countries. Learn More

 

DONATE TODAY!

Every donation helps our work.

Our global, grassroots organization relies on the support of other committed individuals. Learn More

 

Read more at www.climatescorecard.org

In the 11th Hour Court Halts Copper Mine From Desecrating Native American Tribes' Ancestral Grounds

 

An elder of the Tohono O’odham Nation speaks out against Hudbay Minerals’ proposed copper mine.

 

Tucson, AZ — Last night a judge ruled in favor of three Native American Tribes’ challenge to the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of Hudbay Minerals’ plan to raze the Tribes’ ancestral lands to construct a mile-wide open-pit copper mine in Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains. These public lands hold thousands of years of the Tribes’ cultural heritage, including ancestral burial grounds, ancient village sites, and sacred springs. The Forest Service assumed Hudbay had a right to obliterate these public lands to pave the way for what would be the third largest copper mine in the United States — and quick profits for the company. The court fundamentally disagreed, holding that the Forest Service’s assumption was a “crucial error” that “tainted the Forest Service’s evaluation of the Rosemont Mine from the start.” Accordingly, the court threw out the Forest Service’s decision, preventing Hudbay from moving forward. Earthjustice is representing the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the Hopi Tribe in court.

“This is a victory for the Nation and all of Southern Arizona,” said Ned Norris Jr., Chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation. “The devastation that the Rosemont mine would bring to our land, water, and cultural resources is well-documented and cannot be allowed to happen. The Nation will continue to fight to ensure that our sacred lands and the region’s water are protected.”

Hudbay Minerals’ plans — now stopped in their tracks by the court’s ruling — included clearing dozens of known archeological sites in the Santa Ritas that include ancestral burial sites. The company planned to target Gaylor Ranch, a historic Hokokam village, proposing to completely excavate this site and remove the remains of the Tribes’ ancestors within the first few months of construction. Hudbay Minerals intended to remove human remains, funerary objects, sacred items, and objects of cultural patrimony by digging backhoe trenches, mechanically stripping the site, and shovel stripping the land.

“The Pascua Yaqui Tribe is pleased with Judge Soto’s decision to protect the cultural and environmental resources that are so sacred to our people. We are stewards of the land, air, and water and must continue to protect our environment not only for our tribal members but for the community-at-large,” said Robert Valencia, Chairman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. “We are grateful to our partners in this effort — the Center for Biological Diversity, Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, and the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter as well as the Tribal leadership from the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Hopi Tribe — who have stood side-by-side with us to ensure that these sacred sites are protected for us, for our children, and for generations to come.”

The Tribes were again facing the threat of irreversible cultural destruction after suffering similar abuse in the 1980s, when the Anamax Mining Company proposed to mine the same site. The company mishandled the burial grounds, and while they removed some of the ancestral remains, they left graves and the village grounds open to the elements when the company went bankrupt and abandoned the site a few years later. The Tribes’ ancestral remains were shipped to the University of Arizona, where they were warehoused for thirty years while the Tribes fought to repatriate them. They were only returned to the Tohono O’odham Nation several years ago.

Trump administration greased the wheels for the massive mine, disregarding environmental laws and the unacceptable cultural destruction. The Forest Service assumed, without any basis in fact or law, that Hudbay had a right to destroy these public lands to construct its copper mine. Several months ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers abruptly granted a critical Clean Water Act permit for the mine, ignoring over eight years of opposition from the Environmental Protection Agency, Native American Tribes, and the Corps’ own Los Angeles District (which recommended denial of the permit in 2016).

Hudbay Minerals has a track record of trampling indigenous and tribal rights. The company has been accused of profound human rights abuses at their Fenix nickel mine in Guatemala.

“This ruling affirms the fundamental principle that nobody gets a free pass to destroy our public lands,” said Stu Gillespie, staff attorney with Earthjustice. “As the Court explained, the Forest Service provided no basis for assuming Hudbay had a right to destroy thousands of years of the Tribes’ cultural heritage. Because this crucial error tainted the entire process, the Court threw out the Forest Service’s decision and stopped Rosemont from destroying these sacred public lands.”

A MINE SO MASSIVE IT WOULD PIERCE THE AQUIFER

The Rosemont Copper Mine is slated for public and private lands in Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains. The mine is so colossal it would entail dumping 1.9 billion tons of toxic mining waste on public lands, burying over 3,500 acres of National Forest System lands that contain dozens of prehistoric tribal sites.

Rosemont would also excavate a half-mile deep pit that would puncture the regional aquifer, reversing groundwater flows and depleting surface flows at multiple springs, seeps, and streams into perpetuity. These impacts would be felt as far away as Tucson, Arizona.

The Santa Ritas are home to the last jaguar population in the United States. The iconic “El Jefe” jaguar has been caught on film over the years in these mountains.

 

From EarthJustice. Learn more here.

Protect Our Species

“In nature, nothing exists alone.”
— Rachel Carson, 1962

Nature’s gifts to our planet are the millions of species that we know and love, and many more that remain to be discovered. Unfortunately, human beings have irrevocably upset the balance of nature and, as a result, the world is facing the greatest rate of extinction since we lost the dinosaurs more than 60 million years ago. But unlike the fate of the dinosaurs, the rapid extinction of species in our world today is the result of human activity.

The unprecedented global destruction and rapid reduction of plant and wildlife populations are directly linked to causes driven by human activity: climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, trafficking and poaching, unsustainable agriculture, pollution and pesticides to name a few. The impacts are far reaching.

If we do not act now, extinction may be humanity’s most enduring legacy. Here are some quick facts on the current wave of extinction and additional information about this problem here.

All living things have an intrinsic value, and each plays a unique role in the complex web of life. We must work together to protect endangered and threatened species: bees, coral reefs, elephants, giraffes, insects, whales and more.

The good news is that the rate of extinctions can still be slowed, and many of our declining, threatened and endangered species can still recover if we work together now to build a united global movement of consumers, voters, educators, faith leaders, and scientists to demand immediate action.

Earth Day Network is asking people to join our Protect our Species campaign. Our goals are to:

• Educate and raise awareness about the accelerating rate of extinction of millions of species and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
• Achieve major policy victories that protect broad groups of species as well as individual species and their habitats.
• Build and activate a global movement that embraces nature and its values.
• Encourage individual actions such as adopting plant based diet and stopping pesticide and herbicide use.

Click here to view our library of resources

Click here to view our partners

Sign up here to receive updates on how to Protect Our Species and new ways to get involved. Please donate to support our campaign.

Taken from Earth Day Network. Learn more here

Ethiopia plants 350m trees in a day to help tackle climate crisis

National ‘green legacy’ initiative aims to reduce environmental degradation

About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.

The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.

The project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier.

 

Ethiopia’s minister of innovation and technology, Dr Getahun Mekuria, tweeted estimates of the number of trees planted throughout the day. By early evening on Monday, he put the number at 353m.

The previous world record for the most trees planted in one day stood at 50m, held by India since 2016.

Lord of the Rain: one man's fight against climate catastrophe – video

Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, the head of the centre for wood science and technology at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “Trees not only help mitigate climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air, but they also have huge benefits in combating desertification and land degradation, particularly in arid countries. They also provide food, shelter, fuel, fodder, medicine, materials and protection of the water supply.

“This truly impressive feat is not just the simple planting of trees, but part of a huge and complicated challenge to take account of the short- and long-term needs of both the trees and the people. The forester’s mantra ‘the right tree in the right place’ increasingly needs to consider the effects of climate change, as well as the ecological, social, cultural and economic dimension.”

Written by Anna Ploszajski. Originally appeared in The Guardian on 7/29/2019