| Eight things you can do to help save the rainforests.
1. Don't eat fast-food made with rainforest beef. Avoid fast-food burger,
roast beef sandwiches, tacos and fajitas made from imported beef raised
on grazing land cleared from rainforests. It's the major cause of rainforest
destruction in Central America. Before you ask "Where's the beef?" ask where
it's from. If it isn't home grown, chances are it's rainforest beef.
2. Don't buy tropical wood products. Skip the teak and mahogany furniture.
Tell your friends and family that we can live without toilet seats made
from tropical hardwoods. If you're a carpenter or building contractor,
don't buy plywood made from timber clearcut from rainforests.
3. Help protect indigenous tribes and environmental activists who ar putting
their lives on the line to save the rainforest. The only thing that stands
between repressive Third World regimes and rainforest activists is you.
Worldwide outcry recently helped free Malaysian activists jailed for protesting
the clearcutting of the world's oldest rainforest by commercial loggers.
Right now, two Kayapo Indians and a U.S. anthropologist in Brazil are being
prosecuted for protesting construction of a giant dam in the Amazon. Send
the letter in the following reply to the President of Brazil.
4. Tell the World Bank to stop funding rainforst-killing development projects
with your taxes. Right now, the "Brazil Power Sector II" loan package to
finance rainforest-killing hydroelectric dams is being considered by the
World bank. The dams are costly boondoggles (usually destroyed in ten years
by corrosion and silt) that drown thousands of acres of rainforests, desplace
indigenous tribes and saddle developing countries with a permanent mountain
of debt, mortgaging their futures to U.S. and Japanese banks. Send the
letter in the following reply to the President of the World Bank urging him to
stop financing rainforest dams and fund small-scale projects that benefit
rainforests and their inhabitants instead.
5. Help break the "Circle of Poison" by writing your representatives now.
American companies are allowed to export deadly pesticides banned the U.S. to
Third World countries for use in export agriculture. Right now, in an effort
to eradicate coca plants in Peru, the U.S. State Department is using highly
toxic herbicides near the Amazon headwaters, killing rare rainforest plants and
animals downstream, poisoning rivers and contaminating the food-growing
topsoil of peasant farmers for years to come. Cancer-causing pesticides end up
back in the U.S. on American dinner tables in the form of insoluble residue on
imported food. Send the letter in the following reply telling your
representatives in Washington to break the "Circle of Poison" now.
6. Help put out the raging Amazon fires. The World Bank-financed Cuiaba-Port
Velho highway opened up fragile Amazon rainforests to ranchers and timber
barons who clear rainforest by burning. NASA satellites spotted 170,000
fires in the Brazilian province of Rondonia last year, which has lost nearly
twenty percent of its rainforst, considered one of the richest eco-systems
in the world. The fires in Rondonea alone account for ten percent of the
globle output of carbon dioxide, the main cause of the Greenhouse Effect,
the catastrophic warming of the earth's climate. Send the letter in the
following reply to the General Secretary of the UN Environmental Programme
asking for an emergency session to plan global action to put out the Amazon
fires.
7. Talk to other about saving the rainforests. Send your name and address
to the following address and we'll send you back information of rainforests,
including World Rainforest Week (October 9-16). Learn more. Talk to others.
Rainforest destruction starts here and can be stopped here...but only if
enough of us get involved.
Public Media Center
"Rainforest"
466 Green Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94133-9983
8. Register and vote! Decisions made in Washington, D.C. during the next
four years will determine the fate of rainforests around the world. Make
sure the people who represent you in Washington -- in Congress, the U.S.
Sentate, and the White House -- share your concern about rainforests. At
the present rate of destruction, we can't afford four years of official
U.S. indifference or inaction. We need our government on the side of
rainforest preservation, not rainforest destruction. This November, your
vote will make a big difference. Register and vote.
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Your involvement is vital to the survival of the rainforests. Join the
fight for rainforest survival. Make your voice heard in the battle to
save the tropical rainforests. Fill out postcards with the following
information and mail them. Act now!
SEND TO:
Hon. Gus Yatran
Chairman
House Subcommittee on Human Rights
B258 Rayburn House Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515
Representative Yatran:
The International Cultural Survival Act of 1988 (H.R. 4738) will
protect and promote cultural survival throughout the world by requiring the
U.S. government to promote the rights of indigenous or tribal peoples' rights
and livelihood. The bill will insure that no U.S. tax dollars are used to
adversely affect indigenous people. The fate of millions of indigenous people
-- and the rainforest environments they live in harmony with -- depend upon
their survival. I'm sending a copy of this card to my government
representative. Please keep me posted on the bill's progress. Thank you.
Sincerely,
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
NEXT
SEND TO:
Exmo. Sr. Jose Sarney
Presidente da Republica
Palacia do Planalto
70 000 Brasilia DF, Brazil
President Sarney:
The best measure of any government is the respect it has for those who
disagree with it. Your government is prosecuting two Kayapo Indians and an
American anthropologist for holding a press conference and meetings with
World Bank officials in which they objected to the construction of hydro-
electric dams in the Amazon because of their environmental and social
consequences. Your government has a stewardship responsibility to safeguard
the Amazon rainforests, one of the earth's premiere biological resources. It
also has the responsibility to respect and protect th rights of individuals to
speak out -- whether in protest or agreement. Stop the prosecution of the
Kayapo Indians and the American anthropologist. Protect the Brazilian
rainforests. The whole world is watching. Please respond. Thank you.
Sincerely
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
NEXT
SEND TO:
Your Government Representative
_________________________________:
It's time to stop the export of toxic U.S. pesticides and herbicides
so dangerous they are banned from use in the U.S.
The dumping of toxic pesticides in developing contries threatens human
health and rainforest environments. The toxic pesticides and
herbicides are used mainly for growing food for export on land cleared
from rainforests. The deadly, cancer-causing pesticides return to the
U.S. as toxic, insoluble residue on imported food, ultimately eaten by
unsuspecting Americans. Only government action can break this
vicious "Circle of Poison" that defoliates and destroys the rainforest,
poisons the precious topsoil in developing countries and threatens the
health of farmworkers in the Third World and consumers here at home.
Let me know what you intend to do to stop the dumping of banned
pesticides and herbicides by U.S. companies.
Sincerely
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
NEXT
SEND TO:
Anne Wrobleski
Deputy Secretary for International Narcotic Matters
US Department of State
2201 "C" Street, N.W.
Washington, D,C, 20520
Ms. Wrobleski:
The U.S. effort to eradicate coca plants in the Peruvian jungle with
toxic herbicides is also killing rare tropical rainforest plants and animals.
Toxic chamicals sprayed in this area contaminate the headwaters of the
Amazon River nearby, poisoning plant, animal and human life downstream,
including the topsoil of the Peruvian peasant farmers used to grow food.
The U.S. war on drugs shouldn't be a war against the rainforest. It's
time to find better ways to fight drugs besides the wholesale poisoning of the
earth's premiere biological resource which is essential to our survival.
I'm sending a copy of this postcard to my Congressional representative.
Please respond immediately.
Sincerely
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
NEXT
SEND TO:
Mr. Barber J. Conable, Jr.
President
WORLD BANK
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D,C, 20433
Mr. Conable:
Stop using U.S. tax dollars to build large dams in tropical rainforests.
The dams financed by the World Bank are destroying the earth's atmosphere,
accelerating the Greenhouse Effect and threatening half of all life on earth.
For the indigenous people living in the rainforests, your dams mean
dislocation, desolation and death. Stop all loans for large dams and begin
instead making loans for small-scale development projects that promote
sustainable use of the tropical rainforest and protest the rights of
rainforest tribal people.
Sincerely
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
NEXT
SEND TO:
Mostafa Kamal Tolba
Executive Director
UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME
P.O. Box 30552
Nairobi, Kenya
Mr. Tolba:
The raging fires in the Amazon province of Rondonia in Brazil must
be put out now. NASA Satellites spotted 170,000 fires in Rondonia last
year, set mostly by cattle ranchers and timber companies who clear land from
the rainforest by burning. Nearly twenty percent of the Rondonia rainforest
-- considered one of the richest eco-systems in the world -- has been
destroyed. The Amazon fires produce ten percent of the global production of
carbon dioxide, the main cause of the Greenhouse Effect, the catastropic
warming of the earth's climate. It's time for the United Nations to
convene an emergency session to plan global action to extinguish the
Amazon fires now. We can't afford delay
Sincerely
__________________________________________________________________________
NAME
__________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS
__________________________________________________________________________
CITY STATE ZIP
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