Environmental Activism Confronts the Opposition

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Environmental Activism Confronts the Opposition

• Presentation by April Dean

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The Surge of Environmental Activism

• The past two decades have seen a tremendous surge
  in environmental awareness and activism.
  Countless conservation organizations have
  surfaced, such as Sierra Club, World Wildlife
  Fund, and the Nature Conservancy.
• Most notably is the organization Greenpeace
  International which has a membership base of
  about 2.8 million people, and an annual budget of
  100 million dollars.
• Despite their desire to work for the common good,
  environmental activists and organizations have
  encountered considerable backlash from
  industries, business interests, labor
  organizations, and even some governments that
  resent and fear restrictions on the exploitation
  of natural resources.
• Why?

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• Conservation of natural resources has been
  branded as bad for the economy. People associate
  it with loss in profits and job opportunities.
  The result is anger directed toward activists and
  conservationists.
• Often times environmental activists are greeted
  with violence, contempt, and even death.
• People who oppose unregulated and unrestricted
  development at the expense of the environment are
  branded as traitors, subversives, or foreign
  agents by their own governments. Often times
  these governments are regarded as progressives in
  conservation.

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Chico Mendes

• At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber
  trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the
  Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting
  for humanity.
• Chico Mendes was born into a family of rubber
  tappers. As he grew and adopted the family
  business, farmers began selling their lands to
  the highest bidders (cattle ranchers.) As the
  rainforest started depleting, Chico began to
  dedicate his life to saving it.
• He joined the socialist Workers Party and began
  working politically to save his beloved home.
  Mendes advocated creating protected reserves and
  educating the local people in the destructive
  powers of deforestation.
• In 1987, Mendes brought his fight to North
  America against the Bank Of Inter-American
  Development who was responsible for funding much
  of the deforestation. Financing of these
  devastating projects was withheld.
• Mendes was assassinated in his Xapuri, Brazil
  home in 1988. Widespread media attention was
  integral in solidifying the fight against
  deforestation, and awakened the world to this
  issue.

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Sister Dorothy Stang

• Dorothy worked tirelessly to help and defend
  families who had been displaced by devastating
  logging done on the Amazon Rainforest.
• After being on loggers death lists for several
  years she was assassinated in February 2005 at
  the age of 74. Despite knowing she was in
  danger, the government offered her no protection.
  
• I dont want to flee, nor do I want to abandon
  the battle of these farmers who live without any
  protection in the forest.  They have the
  sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on
  land where they can live and work with dignity
  while respecting the environment.

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Julia Butterfly Hill

• She sought to protect remnants of one of the last
  Redwood forests that stretched from southern
  Oregon to the Big Sur Coast, south of Monterey
  Bay, California. Loggers had already destroyed
  97 of them.
• On December 10th, 1997 she climbed into a one
  thousand year old redwood tree in which she
  affectionately named Luna.
• On December 8th, 1999, nearly two years later,
  Julia climbed down. She had been up there an
  unprecedented seven hundred and thirty eight
  days.
• A deal was finally made with the Pacific
  Lumber/Maxxom Corporation to create a 3-acre
  buffer zone. The company was given 50,000, and
  Luna was spared.
• Her widespread public attention allowed her to
  create an environmental group called The Circle
  of Life, whose goal is to transform the way
  humans interact with the Earth and all living
  beings.

The picturesque Eel River Valley
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Environmental Activists Mission

• They work to persuade or force society to accept
  that limitations must be imposed on human
  consumption if a healthy biosphere is to survive.
• Because some activists seek change through civil
  disobedience, our government is lobbying to
  counter many environmental groups.
• These lobbyists pro-development groups use jaded
  rhetoric to further their destructive campaigns.
  Such is the argument for wise use of natural
  resources. Wise use in their terms often means
  unlimited grazing, logging, mining, oil and
  natural gas drilling, and other unrestricted
  resource utilization that significantly degrades
  the environment.
• Rather than talk about the destruction of the
  planet, conservationists use discipline and
  strict devotion to educate and protect the
  planet, and its people. They provide hope.

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The End
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References

• http//myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?heroj_hill
• http//www.ecotopia.org/ehof/hill/bio.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Rainforest
• http//www.sndohio.org/dotstang.htm