From: United Eco-action Fund <admin@uneco.org>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 02:37:29 -0700 (PDT)
To: Greenwind 2000 <grapevine@uneco.org>
Subject: RETURN OF THE BUFFALO -AMERINDIAN GREENWIND
Message-ID: <v03110700b053b0d5fda7@[207.158.20.46]>
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Dear Friend,

VISIT US AT <http://www.uneco.org>.  YOU'LL FEEL AT HOME.

In the time it takes to enjoy a lark's happy song you'll know how to cross mighty waters to the land of well being and a bright future.  The earth is generous, but wounded.  She cries out for help.  We must rush to heal her, or, as sure as the eagle flies, death will descend upon us silently as snow in winter.  Set aside distractions.  Take time now.  Open your heart.

THE BUFFALO ARE COMING!

Put your ear to the earth. Listen carefully. Can you hear the mighty roar of ten million hooves?

The buffalo are coming, flattening the tall prairie grass.  Where empty land was lying fallow, rich grass grows again and the great American bison are returning.  

United Eco-action seeks to buy land to reunite the scattered tribes of the Great Plains through a vast "Wild Bison Preserve."  Help us give back some of what was unjustly taken in dishonorable breach of many treaties from the American Indian. Help us buy back buffalo land to restore American Indian culture.  Land where Tatanka (the buffalo) may roam proud and free once again.  Read on,  dear friend. There is much in all this for your happiness in the joy of restoring a safe future for all Americans.

PRINCESS DIANA AND MOTHER TERESA DID NOT DIE IN VAIN--
 A MEMORIAL

The recent death of two world-beloved women bowed much of humanity for a few days with emotions before the sublime greatness of charity and its fragrance of love as it protects life and peace. The futile agitation of daily life ceased briefly.  Many glimpsed the reality of inevitable death.  Aware of the eternity of the end, some focused on life and joy with a renewed sense of proportions.  Seeking true values. Tasting the glory of being alive.  Rejecting aimless consumerism.  Realists perhaps understood for the first time that love--love alone--justifies the gift of life and that rebirth (however one may understand it) is gained by renouncing selfishness and embracing the happiness of generosity.

REACHING OUT TO YOU WITH OPEN ARMS 

In this spirit United Eco-action Fund (UEF) reaches out to you, our friend, brother or sister, young or old, man or woman, rich or poor, to give to you and to ask from you.  We all belong to the same family living on one small and fragile planet.  

"For the first time in my life I saw the horizon as a curved line.
It was accentuated by a thin seam of dark blue light - our atmosphere.
Obviously, this was not the ocean of air I had been told it was
so many times in my life.
I was terrified by its fragile appearance." Ulf Merhold, German astronaut

UNITED ECO-ACTION'S TASK DEFINED

Grassroots groups initiate most of the major changes to stop environmental degradation worldwide.  People educating people, people acting on the belief that clean water, clean air, and a safe environment are their inalienable right.  From them the greenfire has spread to occupy the minds and influence the policies of people in government.

In the early 1900's, Gifford Pinchot, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under Theodore Roosevelt, wrote:

"The central thing for which Conservation stands is to make this country the best possible place to live in, both for us and for our descendants...Conservation is the most democratic movement this country has known for a generation. It holds that people have not only the right, but the duty to control the use of natural resources, which are the great sources of prosperity.  And it regards absorption of these resources by special interests...as a moral wrong.  Conservation is the application of common-sense to common problems for the common good." The Fight for Conservation

THE SAME TASK DEFINED BY FIRST AMERICANS

"We did not inherit the earth from our parents.
We are borrowing it from our children." 
Native American saying

Like smoke signals, e-mail is, at best, but a limited exchange between distant members of one tribe.  Sometimes--just sometimes--a few words can lure our senses into sudden awareness. 
 
WHAT EVERYONE TODAY NEEDS TO KNOW

° The relationship between humanity and the earth is now in a state of rapidly increasing disequilibrium, approaching a critical point.  This fact is no longer seriously open to dispute. Misinformation sold by vested interests is forever dispelled by visible events themselves.

° Less than 3% of the earth's water is fresh water, and only a shrinking .01% of that is clean drinkable water--75% of which is used for irrigation. What is left must supply 5.5 billion people. 

° Only 5% of America's original forests remain standing.  

° "The cutting of primeval forest and other disasters, fueled by demands of growing human populations, are the overriding threat to biological diversity everywhere.  But the data that led to this conclusion, coming mainly from vertebrates and plants, understate the case...Patches of rain forest and coral reef harbor tens of thousands of species, even after they have declined to a remnant of the original wilderness.  But when the entire habitat is destroyed, almost all of the species are destroyed.  Not just eagles and pandas disappear but also the smallest, still unclassified invertebrates, algae, and fungi, the invisible players that make up the foundation of the ecosystem." Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life.

°  Quarrying of coral, over fishing, and silting from tropical deforestation have caused extensive damage to almost 50% of earth's coral reefs.

°  Whether in the tropics or temperate zones, forests represent the single most important stabilizing feature of the earth's land surface, and they cushion us from the worst effects --particularly those associated with global warming--of the environmental crisis.

°  If destruction of the rain forest continues at the present rate, by the year 2022 50% of the remaining rain forest will be gone. 

°  The Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest inland sea, was destroyed by dams and its 25,000 tons annual fish harvest vanished with it.

°  Misplanned California urban sprawl destroyed Owens Lake into an alkaline dustbowl and now threatens destruction of one of the most remarkable desert eco-systems:  Mono Lake.  Since 1941 Mono's level has dropped 41 feet; its shoreline is shrinking; its salts concentrating; its rich and delicate ecosystems failing.

°  The redwood forests once covered an area nearly a 1000 miles long and 100 miles deep on the Pacific Coast. Less than 3% is left, and they are still being cut.

°  The Rhine is the drinking water supply for 20,000,000 people, but on its shores 20% of the world's chemicals are produced, making it the dirtiest river in Europe. 

°  50% of Europe's remaining forests are dying.

°  In 1983 29% of Quebec maple trees were affected by acid rain.  By 1986 the figure was 80%.  Maple syrup may soon be just a memory.

°  The last gentle manatee in Florida are becoming extinct because of habitat loss and propeller kills.   

°  Up to 50,000 northern seals are killed each year by entanglement with plastic fishnets fragments and plastic debris.  

°  Vast acreages of monoculture doused with tons of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides are not sustainable.  Chemical agriculture mines the soil and poisons groundwater.

°  The National Academy of Science, in a report on alternative agriculture, concluded that farms planted with diverse crops can, with little or no chemicals, be as productive and more profitable than farms dependent on chemical pesticides and inorganic fertilizers.  Farmers who started thinking for themselves find it very simple. 

°  "Cancer circles"--regions with abnormally high incidences of the disease--are multiplying in America.  Cancer kills 1 in 4.

°  Waterborne disease kills 25,000,000 people annually, most of them children.

°  Many river dams, financed by The World Bank, are ecological disasters.

°  Of the 119 known pure pharmaceutical compounds used somewhere in the world, 88 were discovered through leads from traditional medicine.  The knowledge of all the world's indigenous cultures, if gathered and catalogued, would constitute a library of Alexandrian proportions.

°  "About four years ago...my older daughter Whitney was very ill with cancer.  She literally came within a few days of death.  She is here today, and she is a beautiful, fourteen-year-old, healthy, completely cured young lady.  Why?  The drug that saved her life was derived from a plant called the rosy periwinkle...a plant native to the island country of Madagascar.  The irony of this story is that 90% of the forest area of Madagascar has been destroyed.  100% of all native habitat of the rosy periwinkle is gone forever."  Jay D. Hair, president, National Wildlife Federation.

For pertinent literature on many other ecological issues, visit UEF's Bookstore:  <http://www.uneco.org/bookstore.html>

SOLUTIONS

"The battle we have fought, and are still fighting
is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong..."  John Muir

We must triple the pace of environmental protection to prevent catastrophic events.  Misinformation disseminated by vested interests, ignorance, and apathy are our greatest enemies.  The task is so immense that everyone is duty-bound to help with money, time, or both.

"If nothing else can unite us, the ecological crisis will."  Joseph Campbell

The dimensions of this planetary emergency are truly frightening.  We are at the turning point.  To leave the problem to the next generation would be criminal.  We must not condemn posterity to irretrievable desolation and suffering.  Everyone must learn the facts ASAP so that united we can restore balance.

REFUTING A THEOLOGICAL ERROR

THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN BIBLE DOES NOT ISSUE A LICENSE TO DESTROY THE EARTH;
"DOMINION" OF GOD'S CREATION MEANS RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP.

The duty to care for the earth is rooted in the fundamental relationship between God, creation, and humankind.  In the Book of Genesis, Judaism first taught that after God created the earth, He "saw that it was good."  In the Twenty-fourth Psalm, we learn that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."  How can one glorify the Creator while heaping contempt on the creation?

THE BIBLE SHOWS GOD'S CONCERN FOR BIODIVERSITY

"But with thee I will establish my covenant... of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.  Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive"   Genesis 6:18-20.  

Therefore, all Christians are duty-bound to actively help restore God's creation.


WHERE THERE IS POVERTY, LAND DEGRADATION FOLLOWS,
CAUSING MORE POVERTY--A VICIOUS CYCLE

Poverty and land degradation are curable in a well-governed technological world.  Poverty can and must be eliminated, while greed must be restrained and limited.  We are all responsible and in debt to the earth for every molecule of our being and for all our possessions.  Therefore, the least we must do is to invest 10% of our time, income, and assets to saving what is left and restoring what we have seriously damaged.

America, being the world's largest consumer, must be first to turn around and lead the planet into environmental balance and a sustainable economy.  If people everywhere consumed as much as the U.S. and Japan do, the planet could support only an additional 200,000,000.

UNITED ECO-ACTION FUND PROGRAMS

I.  CLEVELAND NATIONAL FOREST CONSERVATION FUND:
protecting one of the 18 most threatened regions on the planet
where unique specie are in greatest danger of extinction from human activity
( see UEF website at <http://www.uneco.org/cleveland_national_forest.html> )

In the first decade of this century President Theodore Roosevelt mandated protection of Southern California's wilderness by establishing the 2 million-acre Cleveland National Forest.  Since then government allowed 2/3 of this unique ecosystem to be quietly taken by invasive development.  

The Cleveland Forest still shelters one of America's greatest diversity of wildlife.  Majestic stands of cedar and fir bordering fragrant green meadows where scented multi-colored wildflowers bloom in spring and where in autumn live oak set up a blaze of color that flickers over a backdrop of pines.  Foxes bark and deer silently cross fields half hidden in the morning mist.  Golden eagles soar in the blue sky over the bountiful home of mountain lions.  It and other western forests must be saved.

United Eco-action Fund is working to implement the 1993 California voter mandate to protect this spectacular natural resource.  UEF seeks acquisition of privately owned wildlife habitat, and, where possible, the reopening of migration corridors.

II.  RETURN OF THE BUFFALO:
re-establishing the bison to the Great Plains
( visit <http://www.uneco.org/return_of_the_bison.html> )

The National Parks do not suffice as a means of perpetuating the larger carnivores.  The reasons for this are clear...The most feasible way to enlarge the area available for our wilderness fauna is for the wilder parts of the National Forests, which usually surround the Parks, to function as parks in respect to threatened species.  Aldo Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac

A program seeking international funding to create large wildlife preserves in Montana and Dakotas under Amerindian management to shelter and increase the last free buffalo herd being slaughtered by Montana ranchers as the animals migrate out of their Yellowstone Park shelter to escape loud snowmobile traffic.

III.  PRINCESS DIANA-MOTHER TERESA MEMORIAL PROGRAM:
formerly called "The Good Neighbor Program"
( go to: <http://www.uneco.org/Princess_Diana-Mother_Tere.html> )

In honor of Princess Diana and saintly Mother Teresa, United Eco-action Fund has renamed its GOOD NEIGHBOR PROGRAM the "Princess Diana and Mother Teresa Memorial Program," so that the love of these great women may continue to produce miracles of generosity toward the poor far into the future and help us save many children and suffering families.  

The original program, dedicated to alleviating the abject poverty of many Mexican children who collect broken glass in disease ridden garbage dumps without medical coverage, is being expanded to reach out as far as human generosity and love will allow. 

AN OPEN APPEAL FOR YOUR HELP

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, 
we will love only what we understand, 
we will understand only what we are taught."
Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum

Become part of United Eco-action Fund (UEF), an international grassroots organization, by contributing as a:

FRIEND (any amount)
SUPPORTER ($50)
DONOR ($100)
SPONSOR ($500)
BENEFACTOR ($1000)
PATRON (more than $1,000)

A donation in any amount will award you a place on the "Roster of American Wilderness Heritage Guardians," to be published internationally over the Internet.  All contributions are tax-deductible.

To send donations, use any of the following methods:

(1)	CHECK:  Make check to UNITED ECO-ACTION FUND.  Include your name, address, (e-mail), and phone number.  Mail check to:  United Eco-action Fund, P.O. Box 156, Descanso, CA 91916.

(2)	CREDIT CARD:  E-mail the following information to us at: <donation@uneco.org>. 
Credit Card:  Visa  Master Card (please indicate)
Credit Card #:
Expiration Date: 
Credit Card Statement Address and  Zip Code:
State the amount you authorize as a donation to United Eco-action Fund.
The above is treated with absolute confidentiality.  It is safer to use e-mail than the telephone.

(3)	BANK TRANSFER:  Transfer funds from your bank into UEF's bank account at Bank of America, La Mesa Main Office, 5500 Grossmont Center Drive, La Mesa  CA 91942, Account Number:  02310-10250.

(4)	CASH:  If you send cash, please enclose a note stating amount and your address so we may send your tax deductible receipt.  Mail to:  United Eco-action Fund, P.O. Box 156, Descanso, CA 91916.

You can also help further the programs of UEF by ordering books from our Internet Bookstore in association with Amazon.com.  Our bookstore is located at <http://www.uneco.org/bookstore.html>.  A percentage of price of all books ordered here will be donated to UDDERS.

DEFENDERS OF WILDERNESS:

"It does not suffice to have a few such societies [Sierra Club, Wilderness Society], 
nor can one be content that Congress has enacted a bill aimed at wilderness preservation...
A militant minority of wilderness citizens must be on watch 
throughout the nation and vigilantly available for action." Aldo Leopold

We are recruiting like-minded, dedicated individuals and groups to help implement our programs.  To become a spokesmen and volunteer for United Eco-action Fund, please e-mail us at:  <volunteers@uneco.org>.  We urge you to call on others to join you in this important task.

To be an active "Greenwind Friend" and earn an income by collaborating with UEF's international mission, e-mail your name, address, and phone to <income@uneco.org>. 

Visit <http://www.uneco.org> and learn more about the most important issue of our time.  

"This point is crucial:  
a choice to 'do nothing' in response to the mounting evidence
is actually a choice to continue and even accelerate 
the reckless environmental destruction that is creating 
the catastrophe at hand.  Vice-President AL Gore

Heart Greetings,


VIKTORIA VIDALI
Executive Director

United Eco-action Fund is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation whose primary mission is to protect wildlife habitat, to fund research, education, and to support programs that benefit the quality of human life by integrating diverse groups nationally and internationally.  UEF is a member of the congressionally created National Forest Foundation and Theodore Roosevelt Association.  Our extensive Internet site <http://www.uneco.org> displays the honorable roster of "American Wilderness Heritage Guardians," lists UEF's American and foreign advisors, the management team, and details our programs.  Visit our Internet bookstore in association with the largest book retailer on earth, Amazon. com.