Subject: Twin Islands Campaign
Sent: 12/10/97 2:42 AM
Received: 02/13 1:42 PM
From: mcl@utrent.ecuanex.net.ec
To: DWAYNER, dwayner@oberon.ark.com
Hello Dwayne
Here are some thoughts for the web page and for the sharing circle.
Please give copy of this for Bernie to read out at the next circle.
...and please do a spell check because my spelling is horrible and
there is no spell check on this program... thanks
All over the world the Earth is being ripped out from under our feet. From BC's lucious West Coast rainforest to Ecuador's Amazon we are liquidating the Earth's reserves, our future. It is only fitting that it should hit my home, Twin Islands. From the ages on 2 to 11 years old I grew up on Twin Islands. They layed the foundation for all that I am today. The more I travel, the more I realise that my childhood was blessed with one of the most stunning, grounding and powerful places on this planet.
We could lose Twin Islands and all it has to offer to others as it did to me, and honestly in a global perspective it would not be a huge loss. We can carry on bit by bit, bioregion by bioregion, eating away at the riches we are blessed with. We can continue compromising our future generations, human and non-human, by eating up in short term greed what could we could be investing in long term need. We could give Twin Islands to those who already have too munch and continue to impoverish the land by stripping her yet again...
However, we can do better, and we must. Why wait any longer to implement truly sustainable development?
I fully endorse protest. Reaction builds energy. However, the other and equal side of this balance consists of proposals. This is where our energy must be directed.
For years I have worked in the West Coast ecological movement doing youth education and empowerment around sustainable forestry practices that in the short AND long term will benefit all locals far better.
I took a year off my West Coast activism to come to the Ecuadorian Amazon and learn about the ecological crisises being lived down here as well. Here too I have been working with youth and reflecting on what is being left in a trust for our futures. My work with youth throughout Central America as well has opened my eyes to many ecological atrocities and how youth are rising above these with vitality and sustainable proposals.
Youth in Guatemala are organising in strength and building proposals from the ashes of decades of civil war.
Youth in El Salvador are reforesting a past prime strategic guerrilla post that was scorched in years of armed conflict. There, on that site of death and destruction, they have built an ecological training center.
Youth in Nicaragua are conducting nation-wide youth competitions for the best environmental sustainable development project in their area and then funding them.
Youth in Costa Rica are conducting eco-watch programs from forestry to sea-turtle beach patrolling.
Youth in Ecuador are organising to rebuild their traditional culture based in the protection of and love for our Mother Earth.
Youth in BC are also strong and active in countless areas and concerns.
With regards to Twin Islands, may we look with a long-term vision of sustainability so that my children's generation will have access to the natural world as I did. I propose that Twin Islands be made into a bioregional youth empowerment center. This is an idea I have had for years... it seems as though it is time to drag it out and share it.
I know Twin Islands very well after 20 years of exploring their nooks and crannies. I know very well that they have been logged; I have built many forts and fairy worlds as a child from the huge stumps that remain. I also know that the soils are thin and rocky and will not support another healthy forest if the present one is removed. Furthermore, recovery from subdivision and 'development' simply does not occur. Land degradation is the best we can hope for.
So my proposal is one of education for our future generations. To give them something rather than taking yet again from them. We can and must turn the path of our future around. Let us start here.
Thanks for everything!! And a huge Birthday hug to my dad!! It's
today!!
Smiles,
Noba
Mar'ia Larrea Trent University
INTERNET: mcl@utrent.ecuanex.net.ec
Casilla 17-23-249 Sangolqui, Ecuador
Telefono: (593 2) 449-839
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