'04/'05 News Archive
From CFI
Articles are listed by most recent first
6 de Abril 2005-Los Cedros
Primate Conservation Network
The Los Cedros Reserve received news today that an important project has been approved for financing through the Darwin Initiative, one of the United Kingdoms important contributions to fulfill obligations under the terms of the Kyoto Treaty.
The project is to create a network for the conservation of the critically endangered Brown Headed Spider Monkey, a primate endemic to Northwest Ecuador. Though the details of the financing approved are pending, the Los Cedros Reserve will be the center for collection of primate data and host to the training facilities for training community based primate monitors.
This project will provide the reserve with a defined direction in a much neglected area of scientific study. Other participants in this project include the National Herbarium which will conduct habitat studies and the Museo de Ciencias Naturales which will coordinate primate data collection. The University of Sussex will sponsor much of the technical assistance and advanced training for Ecuadorian postgraduate training.
Workshops will be initiated at this reserve, for selected individuals who actually live in areas where this now difficult to encounter primate is found, to create this community based network of monitors and data collectors.
This project will also provide many new opportunities for volunteer placement.
12/14 Hunger Strike Canceled Due To Holidays
Yes, it’s true, I’m calling it off. Trying to be so picky around the Holidays is just torture for me. However, I have learned a great deal about what resources are in the community and the kind of work it will take to stay fed in the future when we have to become more self reliant. Come the new year I’m going to continue utilizing the resources that I’ve encountered and expect to still eat about 80% - 90% local foods. This is my final update. Thanks to you for following my progress and encouraging this experiment.
Feliz Ano Nuevo,
Freeda Alida
12/13 Way to Go, Ohio!
by Dan Hamburg http://www.voiceoftheenvironment.org
On Monday, December 6, my wife Carrie and I, accompanied by a local ABC cameraman and a local radio talk show host, attempted to deliver a letter to the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell. Mr. Blackwell is housed on two floors of the Borden Building (yes, thatís the Elsie the Cow Borden Building) in downtown Columbus. The letter contained four demands that had been raised at a well-attended rally outside the Ohio Statehouse on the previous Saturday.
We requested that Secretary Blackwell commence the recount of votes in Ohio (as he had said he would do based on payment for same by the Green and Libertarian parties), that he refrain from certifying Republican electors until the recount was completed, that he respond to questions posed to him by twelve House Judiciary Committee members led by Rep. John Conyers regarding the election, and that he formally recuse himself from the recount.
These issues have consumed quite a few bytes on the Internet over the past weeks, although mainstream media coverage has been scant. Since the day after the election, close observers have noted that Mr. Blackwell has been engaged in a tactic known in basketball jargon as "running out the clock." In other words, he has taken as much time as possible with each step of the certification process, rather than speed that process along. In so doing, Mr. Blackwell makes it increasingly difficult for a meaningful recount that meets state and federal deadlines.
I was surprised that few Ohioans I spoke with over my week there knew that the Secretary of State, in addition to being the constitutional officer in charge of the election, also served as co-chair of the Ohio campaign to elect Bush/Cheney, and as the spokesman for the state ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. This is the second time in two elections that the Secretary of State in the crucial battleground state has also served as Bush/Cheney campaign chair. In 2000, it was Katherine Harris, who now represents Floridaís 13th district in the US Congress. Word in Ohio is that Blackwellís sights are even higher. He intends to run for governor of Ohio in two years, no doubt with significant help from the Bush machine.
From the moment we presented identification (God forbid anyone should try to pass go anywhere in post-9/11 America without picture identification!), there was trouble. Private security officers, having noted that there was a thoroughly peaceful picket on the sidewalk in front of the building, moved in to discourage us to pass through the now-omnipresent metal detectors and on to the elevators. However, we breezed past them, found an elevator and whom should we find on the same elevator that we were taking but J. Kenneth Blackwell himself.
"Hello, Mr. Secretary." I said. "I'm former congressman Dan Hamburg from California. We have a letter for you, requesting that you recuse yourself from the upcoming recount of Ohio's presidential vote. We have also raised several other issues that need your attention immediately." Blackwell quickly launched into a blustering monologue about how we didn't understand Ohio law because if we did, we'd know that he had nothing to do with counting the votes. With the floors whizzing by, my wife Carrie asked Blackwell whether he thought there might be at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in his serving as both final arbiter of the vote and as co-chair of Ohio Bush/Cheney. Blackwell frowned, the elevator door opened, he made a beeline for his private office and disappeared behind glass and steel.
However, we were far from alone. There to meet us as we stepped out was a phalanx of law enforcement and security officers' Columbus Police, Ohio Highway Patrol, Borden Building security, and several husky plainclothesmen. All seemed to feel the same way about any further attempts at interaction with Mr. Blackwell or his staff. As they were explaining to us our choices' leave immediately or be arrested--who should pop back out of his office but the Secretary of State?
"Here," he said to me, "read this. It should take care of your concerns." He handed me a two-page copy of an article that had appeared in Sunday's Cleveland Plain Dealer titled "Conspiracy theories on Ohio vote refuse to die." I asked the Secretary if it would be all right if I sat in his foyer and read the article. He quickly did an about face and returned to his private digs. We were left alone again with the officers. (Later, I read the article and found that while it addressed a few of the issues that have been raised regarding the Ohio vote, it left out many others.) One plainclothesman, nattily attired in a black trench coat over a gray suit, a conspicuous wire running up the side of his neck ending in an earpiece, let us know, in the famous words of Al Gore, that it was "time for us to go."
So we left, tails between our legs. But at least we'd been able to confront the man himself and perhaps made him feel a few moments of discomfort for all the hours of discomfort he helped put the citizens of Ohio through on voting day, not to mention the four years of discomfort ahead for the country and the world under W.
Monday was also the day that Secretary of State Blackwell was finally going to announce the certified vote for the Ohio presidential election. Obviously, he hadnít been in much of a hurry. It had taken his office five full weeks to certify, making Ohio the last state to accomplish this task. Blackwell had run the clock as far as he could without actually being charged with ìdelay of game.
After quite a bit of confusion about the time and venue of the certification announcement, we learned at about 3 pm that the Secretary would announce the certification at a media-only press conference to begin in a half hour at the Borden Building. Fortunately, we had brought press credentials from a small newspaper based in our hometown of Ukiah, California. But lo and behold, when we approached the front desk with our credentials in hand, we were again rebuffed.
Many of the same officers weíd gotten to know in the morning quickly converged to prevent us from boarding the elevator to the floor where the press conference would take place. I remember thinking that Columbus must be a really safe town since they had the capacity to assign so many officers to a couple of 50 year-olds who hadn't even let off a loud chant. Finally, a ìrepresentativeî from Mr. Blackwellís office emerged with the official word "from the Secretary" that I could go on up to the press conference but Carrie could not. Rebuffing their rebuff, we brushed past the security entourage at which point Mr. Black Trench Coat looked over at the Blackwell aide with imploring eyes. "It's all right, let her come," the woman sighed.
Victory! We were going to be able to attend the press conference! We might even be able to ask a question in a press forum where it would be difficult for the power-talking Mr. Blackwell to hide. But our win was ephemeral. Just as we arrived at the conference room, the Secretary of State was leaving the podium. He gave us a toothy grin as he passed us by. We hung out in the room for a few minutes asking what had happened. A brief statement of the "results" had been given, a few softball questions tossed, and that was that. Ten minutes! These guys definitely knew how to use the clock. We learned from people who had been privileged to attend the quickie conference that Blackwell had referred to stories of irregularities in the vote as "hiccups." As we left to go back downstairs, our "escorts" stood in a lineup outside the room, looking like the proverbial cats that ate the canaries. "Very slick," was the only comment I could manage.
Wednesday at 10 am was the scheduled time for the forum in Washington called by Rep. John Conyers and the Judiciary Committee members. We knew that Blackwell had received a fourteen-page letter dated December 2 with thirty-four specific questions under two main categories: counting irregularities and procedural irregularities. Counting irregularities referred to everything from the "security lockdown" on election night in Warren County (supposedly due to a "Level 10" alert from Homeland Security, about which the agency later denied any knowledge) to the situation in one Franklin County precinct where the president was initially awarded 3900 votes in a precinct that boasted fewer than 700 registered voters! Procedural irregularities included issues like machine shortages in heavily African-American and college precincts, interminably long lines, invalidated provisional ballots, and directives issued by Mr. Blackwell regarding acceptable paperweight for registration applications.
We also knew that Mr. Blackwell had received an invitation to come to Washington in order to address the committee members. It's a $39 ticket from Columbus to the nationís capital so we thought the Secretary of State could dip into his budget and come up with the bucks. However, if financial considerations or the affairs of state weighed too heavy to allow his on-site presence, the committee had indicated its willingness to allow telephonic testimony.
So at around 10 am, Carrie and I went to the front desk with a copy of the Conyers letter and presented our driver's licenses. We were told to wait while the receptionist called the Secretary of State's office, which told her "someone will come down and get the letter."
At that point, we retreated to Zuppa's, a very untrendyÝcafe located on the north side of the lobby.Ý We ordered orange juice and sat down at a table. Within minutes, security was all over us.
"You must leave this building now," said an exasperated Borden security cop, his hands shaking quite visibly.
"Whatís the charge?" I asked. "Are we trespassing or do you just reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?"
"You must leave this building now," he repeated.
"Sorry, we're not going. We don't believe we're trespassing by sitting here drinking our orange juice. We're not interfering with other patrons of the building. We're not blocking or obstructing anything. But we understand that you're just doing your job. Please try to understand that we also need to do ours."
It took about fifteen minutes for several white-shirted Columbus police and heavily-velcroed Highway Patrol officers to appear on the scene. We were cuffed, and taken out behind the building to a waiting patrol car. That was the beginning of our experience as arrested misdemeanants under the authority of Franklin County. Over the next thirty hours, we were printed (not just fingers but hands) twice, photographed three times, cuffed and uncuffed more times than we could count, held in scantily heated andÝodor-challenged holding tanks for hours on end, served endless smashed baloney-on-white sandwiches, and subjected continuously to the sneers and snide tongues of our keepers.
We also had the opportunity to meet some of the people we had come to Ohio to see--poor, mostly African-American folks, the very people for whom voting on November 2 had been such a challenge. By this, I don't mean that the prison population at Franklin County Corrections Center (known affectionately as "The Workhouse") was necessarily a voter-rich environment (though I did hear several stories inside the jail from people who at least knew others who had waited many hours and braved lousy weather in order to cast a vote that might rid the country of the horror that is the Bush presidency).
What I mean is that within the walls of the FCCC were men and women who hadn't had a lot of breaks in life.Ý They were the people who suffered the worst housing, the worst schools, and the worst public services. In Ohio in 2004, they also suffered, as had happened in Florida in 2000 and in countless other elections across this country since its birth, the worst (and least) voting equipment and overall ease of voting. It was not by chance that in Franklin County there were less voting machines available than in 2000, despite the fact that election officials, from Ken Blackwell on down, knew that Democratic registration was up nearly 25%.Ý By contrast, strong GOP precincts were provided with more machines.
Katherine Harris rode her performance in the duel roles of Florida Secretary of State andÝco-chair of the Bush/Cheney campaign to the US congress. How far might Ken Blackwell go, having delivered Ohio in 2004?
Elected officials like Harris and Blackwell sow discord by taking on multiple, and conflicting roles, especially when the presidency is at stake. Blackwell has created another problem by housing himself in a private building, isolated from the public that pays his keep. A private corporation like Borden should not be running interference for elected officials. Nor should the police. It would have been more appropriate for Borden security, or Blackwell himself, to have made citizenís arrests and then let the court decide whether those arrests were appropriate to the circumstances.
We met some wonderful people in Ohio. Unfortunately, by and large they werenít the ones that we taxpayers are supporting. Over the next few weeks, the people of Ohio have a unique opportunity. A recount of the vote will begin on December 13, with the January 6 date on which Congress certifies the Electoral College coming up fast. Only the watchful eyes of Ohiohans can force that recount to be full and fair, Blackwell or no Blackwell. Nothing less than the fate of the nation, and even the world, could be at stake.
12/13 Posting extracted from Mendo BB
Dear friends,
We are writing to encourage you to help support our friend and colleague Luke Anderson. As you may know, Luke is one of the world's leading activists on genetic engineering, and has been working tirelessly for many years on behalf of all of us.
A few weeks ago, Luke's biodiesel camper van was stolen in Berkeley. His van was his traveling home and contained virtually all of his possessions, including over a year's worth of creative writing and other personal mementos. Although the van was found three weeks later, the people that had stolen it had sold or trashed all of Luke's belongings and damaged the vehicle. Can you help us raise the $9,200 that Luke needs to at least recover the replaceable portion of his losses and repair his van?
Luke has been a full time activist since the 1990s, writing, speaking, inspiring and organizing groups in the US and around the world. Activists like Luke forego the usual measures of personal security in order to put their best energies toward the work of social change. This is a chance for all of us to show that the movement can take care of its own -- to model the caring society we hope to create.
Please contribute what you can: $100, $50, $10. More if you can. Please send your donation to Luke Anderson, c/o Margaret and Gary, P.O. Box 233, Boonville, CA 95415. Electronic donations are also possible, via http://www.adoptanactivist.org/donate. Click on the 'Paypal' button and enter "Luke Anderson" in the "Payment For" box.
For a tax deductible contribution, make your check out to "The Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County," write "Adopt-an-Activist/Luke" in the memo line, and send the check to: Adopt-an-Activist, PO Box 9363, Santa Rosa, CA 95405. You can also email adoptanactivist@riseup.net with any questions regarding donations.
Please forward this email to any email lists you feel would be appropriate.
Thank you, and have a phenomenal (and GE-Free) holiday season!
Brian Tokar Jeffrey Smith Starhawk
December 7, 2004
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Some more information about Luke's work:
In 1997, Luke founded the Totnes (UK) Genetics Group, and helped to set the stage for the most successful, sustained opposition to genetic engineering anywhere in the world. In 2000, he began touring the US with his comprehensive book, Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment (now in its third edition), informing many for the first time about the dangers of GE foods. In 2001 he relocated to California, touring the state in preparation for that year's Biojustice event in San Diego. Subsequent tours helped gather thousands of people for the 2003 Sacramento Mobilization against the USDA and the 2004 Reclaim the Commons events in San Francisco. Luke has also worked extensively in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Europe, Canada, and in several California counties in support of local anti-GE intiatives.
12/8 Hunger Strike - Resistance Weakens
Well, I’m a cheater, but I’m so good at making rationalizations for it. There have been too many good things to eat around for me not to sneak a bite of something here and there. Can you blame me? So my new adjusted rules are: I’m eating local 90% of the time and will keep that as my focus as long as I live around here. However if I can’t help myself I’ll eat other things too. Also I decided that even if I can’t find local grown wheat or bread I can do second best and buy organic CA grown wheat at Moores’ Flour Mill and make my own bread.
This past week some friends and I went and picked lots and lots of apples and canned a bunch of sauce. Next week sometime we will be tracking down a press and making and canning juice. It feels good to know that we’re making use of what would otherwise go to waste. I have tracked down cows’ milk and on Friday will get some and some butter cream too. Yay this weekend I look forward to bread and butter – that’s a major hurdle jumped!
Buen Provecho! Freeda Alida
12/1 Hunger Strike Reaches One Month Mark
It has been one month today! Unbelievable! I have expanded my reach into Lake and Humboldt counties (rice, goat cheese and sea food) but my plan is to avoid using sources from there unless it’s a last resort. This past week we had, what my entire family declared to be, the very tastiest Thanksgiving ever. We got our Turkey from Adam of Mendocino Organics. The stuffing was made with wild rice (from Lake County), sausage (from Adam too), walnuts, apple, wild mushrooms that my Dad foraged and lot’s of herbs from our garden. It was the best stuffing I’ve ever tasted. We also had mashed potatoes, a relish plate from pickles we made from our garden this year, and a green salad with honey glazed walnuts, diced apple, and goat cheese. By far, the best dish was a fruit relish made from pomegranate, grapefruit, and raspberries frozen from our garden, which we ate with Prickly Pear – it was devine! With the various holiday parties I was able to make contact with people that are hooking me up with extra goat and COW! milk that they have. Thank you folks with Mariposa Center and Frey Family you are so generous!!!!
People always ask me how long I’m going to do this for. I don’t really know, as long as I am able. Since I’m the only one regulating myself I may adjust the rules here and there. This past month wasn’t too difficult so I’m going to try and eat locally from now on! It’s good for my health and my pocket book. Until next week.
Buen Provecho, Freeda Alida
11/25 Hunger Strike Getting Hungrier
As I thought this is getting much more difficult. I feel that I may soon have to allow myself to start expanding my reach into other counties (Lake and Sonoma). Fruit is at its’ tale end, my goat milk source has dried up for now, and I am so busy that I don’t have all the time I need to dedicate to searching for food sources. If anybody knows of other sources please notify me or simply post it on the local food producers page. Last Thursday and Friday I had to go to the Bay Area and while I did bring a whole bag full of groceries I could eat – that I did eat; I realized that my food ceased to be local once I left Mendo. Which I felt was the perfect excuse to cheat and eat Sushi. Regardless of that little cheat I can feel the difference after three weeks of eating so purely. People have commented on my complexion and the over all “glow” that I have. I can tell that I must be detoxing because though I generally eat very healthily, lately I have been CRAVING junky food, which is a sign that those flavor enhancers etc. that are stored in my body are being eliminated. I hope it gets out soon, I don’t like the cravings! The big boon since last week is that mushroom season has started YAY! So I’m eating plenty of high protein mountain bounty, if I can get out and get some rose hips this weekend I’ll be very glad!
Tomorrow being Thanks Giving will still be a good pig-out day. Our Turkey’s local, we grew plenty of pumpkin, and hopefully I’ll be able to track down some potatoes to mash. None of that traditional green jello with cream cheese and pineapple though :( I hope you all have a great day and put the effort into realizing just how much we can be thankful for, and how much of what we are thankful for we’ll be letting go of as we enter the post carbon age. Start practicing NOW!
Buen Provecho Freeda Alida Burnstad
11/17/04 Hunger Strike Update
This is getting tougher! I may have to change my rules a little bit, like, I will let myself eat home canned goods even if they're non-mendo ingredients as long as the major component is home grown. I've been grinding corn for flour - yummy! And even did the leaching, roasting, grinding process to eat acorns - yum-eh-ok. Also picked up and roasted a good amount of Bay nuts. They're really good if you roast them until they're almost burnt. In general I eat about half as much as I was - but I feel good!
Buen Provecho, Freeda Alida
11/10/04 Hunger Strike Update
By Freeda Alida Burnstad
Well it has been a busy week for me foraging for food almost every day. I am getting this instinctual urgency telling me that if I'm not out collecting food now I will starve this winter. We bought starts and have begun planting a winter garden. Friends are helping a lot by giving me food from their gardens or milk from their goats etc. I'm experimenting with harvesting acorns, so far it's a lot of work! In all though, I feel really good. Eating this way is very challenging and takes time and effort but it is forcing me to eat very WELL! I went with a friend while she grocery shopped in Ukiah, and we realized that there was not one thing in that store that I could eat! The Co-op does offer a few local produce selections. The hardest to find is still the grains...but I have few leads so I'll let you know next week where that goes.
Buen Provecho! Freeda Alida
11/03/04 Hungry for a Revolution
By Freeda Alida Burnstad
Gathered with friends and family at the Brewery on the night of the elections the mood quickly went from hopeful to desperate as we saw everything from local to national go to the conservatives. The day after there was no protest from the Democrats or riots in the street, only long faces and fifteen to twenty High Schoolers in front of the court house (the youth not old enough to vote know what’s up!). I am sad to feel that rather than voter fraud being at fault (like last time) we are a STUPID, BIGITED, SHORTSIGHTED, GULLIBLE population of voters in America and this leaves me with very little hope for change.
In protest I’m practicing for the post-carbon future that awaits us by doing a “not so hungry – hunger strike”. Rather than stop eating all together I’m limiting what I eat to only food grown in Mendocino County. This would be much easier to do in the summer time growing season when our gardens overflow but it is more challenging as we head into winter. Since I’m being very strict about it that means no spices or condiments not grown here either (soy sauce, black pepper, chocolate, coffee, black tea, vanilla, cinnamon, etc. etc.) It’s motivating me to get out and harvest the fruits and nuts that grow around here and fall to the ground wasted; these will be the food stuffs that will get me through the winter. I’m learning about the things that are produced in our county for example olive oil, miso and kefir cultures, goat milk and cheese; as well as those that aren’t, like grains of any kind. No beer or liquor but plenty of wine! The serious realization is that if I was really having to do this post-carbon and bicycling to the various trees where I pick and towns where some of the food is grown the caloric output would far out way the gain.
Quickly it has become apparent that though we in Mendocino are pretty hip and alternative we are not as liberal of a county as we may think or as prepared to flourish sustainably as we need to be. I will be posting weekly observations about this hunger strike here online with the contact information for local food producers. If you would like to join in this hunger strike too please email me at freeda_burnstad@cloudforest.org so we can start a list of participants and get you posting online as well. Let’s not pretend that life will continue as normal despite the election, progress was halted and reverted these last four year and four years more promises to be just as horrible. We need to act defiantly in ways that will work positively for ourselves and our community.
8/04 Urgent Action Alert in Ecuador
Los Cedros Cloud Forest Reserve Battles Greedy Land Speculators
The Los Cedros reserve is being challenged by some members of a group of land speculators formerly known as Association La Florida or Madrigal. The core group seems to be related to the Ecuadorian Chancelery or Ministery of Foreign Relations. In 1994 they received a land grant that superimposed itself on 400 hectares of the Los Cedros Reserve.
Since 1996 Los Cedros has been aware of this problem and has made many petitions to the land grant agency for the rectification of this error on the agency's part. No answer have been received for any of the complaints filed over the years. Instead Los Cedros recently received notification after two years of administrative silence from the land grant agency that the entire land title was being challenged by some members of this same group of land speculators.
Today after changing the name of the organization and reason for incorporation they have newly emerged as the Corporacion Rio Manduraco, environmental organization dedicated to conservation and construction of the Choco/Manabi ecological corridor.
This new image is hard to reconcile with their efforts to destroy the Los Cedros Reserve. Their objective is to increase the land under their control. Supposedly 3 members of Corp Rio Mandu need the 400 hectares of the Reserve to include it in the conservation strategy of the Corp. This is patently a land grab not conservation. To accomplish their aims they have gone to the extent of nullifying the entire Los Cedros reserve title.
Los Cedros has assembled a legal team that will go into action if/when the first notification of title annulment is ratified and executed. Los Cedros needs your help and the help of your contacts to pressure the often mercuric Ecuadorian governmental ministries.
You can help with your e-mails and pressure on the politicians of your country to support the Reserve before this travesty. Please get in contact with Jose D’Coux at loscedros@ecuanex.net.ec for more information and to share any ideas about how Los Cedros can raise funds for stopping this or apply political pressure. For more information about Los Cedros visit their web page. Tax deductible donations for this purpose may be sent to Cloud Forest Institute PO 1435, Ukiah CA, 95482. Please make a note to specify that they are for the Los Cedros Protection Project.
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