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| ROAD TO MY PLACE IN THE FALL |
Where I live -- is on a ridge surrounded by woods and fields that provides some of nature at its best. That is best using today's standards. During Audubon's time -- who knows how we compare. I imagine the time that he spent in Kentucky was one of a prolific constant maze of nature. I can only imagine this by his writings and work as photography was not developed then.
Today we have surveys and tagging and modern technology to record nature -- all kept in articles and journals for us to peruse. We are aware of nature's decline because of these documented records. We can't compare Audubon's time to today's time but we now can compare the changes of nature over the last few decades. And what do we see? Degradation, that is what we see -- to our oceans, mountains, land and air and more. And, what is being done about it? Not much government wise. Small organizations, located within various countries around the world, are working diligently, attempting to stop this march toward a natural Armageddon.
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| OVERCAST WINTER DAY AT MY PLACE |
Now we can maintain hopelessness in our psyche and tell ourselves it is inevitable that we are a world scheduled for natural disaster down the road or... we can look at a wonderful concept that has taken hold in Ecuador. It is brilliant and is wedged into a legal document. That being Ecuador's constitution -- where the citizens of Ecuador overwhelming voted to include inalienable rights to nature.
Ecuador is the first nation in the world to make such a monumental move toward saving Mother Earth.
The group that helped Ecuador formulate the language to insert into their constitution was the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund located in Pennsylvania.
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| REBIRTH OF SPRING ON BEAR MOUNTAIN |
Now some of you might wonder why I am just writing about this now when the Ecuadorian constitution was passed by its voters about a year ago. Well, we just had a national election and to me that election fortifies my belief that we as a country are becoming the "vessel" of give-aways.
We are giving away our natural resources to corporations. How? By buying off our elected officials with corporate money. Buying them off so the newly elected, corporate funded, congressional members will support scraping off every bit of mother nature to place money in the corporate funders pockets. All short term thinking.
As an example the gas and oil industry put 19.5 million dollars into the coffers of some candidates (of this past election) who will probably repay them back by voting for such projects as drilling in the Artic National Refuge in Alaska.
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| SWIRL OF SUMMER LIFE IN MY GARDEN |
The Ecuadorian constitution would not permit such a corporate holocaust to happen. But, we are up for grabs as we do not have a tight legal defense. Our laws have so many loop holes. We need an all encompassing statement in our constitution that will stop this wholesale robbery of our resources.
That statement could read like the Ecuadorian constitution:
The new constitution gives nature the "right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution" and mandates that the government take "precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles."
I live on a ridge with clean air and water and almost non-existent introduced chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. I consider myself fortunate. However, every form of life should have this opportunity to live safely, thoroughly and lively. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it as my father would say.
