Are You A "Friend Of The Forest?"
Many thanks to those of you who attended the REI, Dublin event that Friends of Selva Vida Sin Fronteras hosted on November 14th. It was entitled: Amazon Enrichment Tour, March 2019, An Artists’ View.
Our trip to the Amazon last March has set in motion my desire (and our board’s) to educate our local community about regarding the rain forest and indigenous Peoples in Ecuador. From my perspective, we are literally watching a repeat of what happened in our country, regarding the Native Americans (NA’s), with a polluted and greedy spin.
The “First Peoples”, as Native persons are called in Canada, in the US were forced off their land by use of war, force, and germ warfare in the form of dirty blankets infected with Small Pox. Their trail of tears is well known to many of us, but history is not always truthful, and most do not know the truth.
Today in Ecuador, the Indigenous communities over 32 million still living on the tributaries in the Amazon are being threatened. This time the crime is laced with oil extraction, gold mining and burning the forest to plant soybeans for cattle consumption. Our Friends of Selva eco-tour visited the Amazon basin in Ecuador as well as 4 indigenous communities in the Spring of 2019. The health of the tribal collective is challenged with a lack of clean water to drink, fish or bathe in. The food supply is shrinking as they cannot each the fish any longer. Their lands are being decimated, the rivers changing course as land is dredged and dams are erected.
I was not around to watch the Native of our country be pushed aside, and it is still happening. The tar sands resistance and loss against the corporate will only enables the “one percent” with 99% of the money to continue making deadly choices for all of us, but especially for the poor and compromised. What is mine to do?
Personally, raising awareness, and educating as many persons as I can about how much we need the Earth, a HEALTHY earth! The addictive nature of oil consumption is no different that an individual hooked on crack. Some say cold turkey, others promote weaning…either way, something has to change. Reducing our footprint in anyway we can. Raise awareness, converse, protest, sing a song…Go outside today and feel your feet on the ground. We are all connected, and “whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the People of the Earth”. Chief Seattle.
Our next eco-tour in 2021 will be focused on connecting with the Women, to hear what they want and what their solutions may be. We are an all woman board, and have nothing against males, we just feel a need to do things differently. We intend to sit with the women and share our art and our vision of a better world.
Watch for more events, we do appreciate your support! One lesson I learned from the Monkeys is that we are all LOCAL…everything that is happening in Ecuador has an effect on us. What we do reaches the stars. Make your actions count.
