wondering about effective stewardship of bio-diversity
I hope it's appropriate to just go ahead with inviting a political discussion here on securing bio-diversity in the gobal green movement... Hmm, politic, so how about questions that all the species going extinct may want to ask us, the survival interests that they are entitled to express equitable representation in, and what is humanity's response?
So time is of the essence, and then learning that the government of Canada 'allowed' just this year for the possibility that mining companies would be able to poison some of the last pristine headwaters in the mountains. And to learn of the degree of toxicity that has been and is being dumped into the Saint Claire river and lake...when the massive areas of ice in the arctic melted in the late summer of '07, I'de like to know what you think of it? As I was struck by the sense that that was one clear change signaling the planet passing the tipping point. Being an incorrigible optimist I hate to admit that sense of things, and would rather not have to dwell on it.
I'm mentioning these examples coming immediately to mind because they are environmental hazards which are having the greatest detrimental human impact on First Nations, in fact the direct impacts to the First Nations affected by each of the above examples are of an acuteness that goes far beyond what can be seen or measured. To me as a First Nation I also feel that the so honoured First Nations leadership, certainly not all but one has the sense of it appearing to be the majority, is amongst the most apathetic body politic in these matters. I find it very difficult to feel an appropriate sense of respect for my own nation, or the AFN, or the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples with these concerns and admittedly many many other concerns. And as a brief aside I wonder why those organizations would want to exist in competition with one another? Have they mutually agreed, in collusion with INAC, that perpetuating a divisive approach best serves their perpetuation by propping up their bureaucratic pursuits? I do not fully believe it to be so, and becoming aware of the efforts Phil Fontaine and everyone had dedicated to achieving the resolutions to the residential schools legacy did a lot to lift this cloud and inspire me, but I suppose I must continue this particular tangent to also draw the connection to another fundamental criticism of said political bodies, in that being limited to "Canada" means that they cannot represent myself, as I am border-less throughout the continent of Turtle Island, still not as truly sovereign perhaps as the vast majority of creatures on the planet.
Getting to a question of presenting these realities as actionable through justice, I know we have numerous environmental groups that we could join, and supposedly Canada has written into its laws an Environmental Protection Act, but this only has a set of superficial interpretations attached to it, and only in the limited minds of limited "authorities" in a limited jurisdiction, seeming therefore to have been entirely impracticable and ineffective in protecting us from the disastrous situation we've now found ourselves in.
I wonder how we can be effective in allowing~enabling the continued growth of human potential and secure the well being of the planet? For now the only collective leadership that I can see presenting this possibility is the Green movement.
And who really cares about 750B USD anyway? That's not even pocket change.
Strange, the questions & thoughts I've expressed are not the thoughts that prompted me to start blogging about this...but they'll do for a start
- Billy Jack Douthwright's blog
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reflection on a sublime gift of Chinese wisdom
Way transcends its phenomena
as one's real self immediately appears in the dark shadow reflection mirroring the depths
of the dewdrop containing the heights of the moon and the sky, great, small, self, others
, .
soft rushing of the waves, gentle light of the moon tracing patterns, reflected, reflected
this Dharma happens through our simultaneous co-existence, which although actualized quickly, is yet inexhaustible, for
the nature of Bodhidharma blows everywhere the wind of Buddhism, making the earth golden and causing the rivers to flow with sweet, fermented milk,
from Kyushu in mid-autumn.
( Disclaimer: The above is my own personal exercise inspired by an English translation of Eihei Dogen's GENJOKOAN by Nishiyama & John Stevens, courtesy of the web page posted at: www.uoregon.edu/~rwh/buddism/dogen.html
,and bears no pretensions whatsoever to being representative of the source writings of any of these authors. It is a reflective exercise inspired by a representative writing and teaching of Eihei Dogen, a historical figure who was instrumental in transmitting Zen Buddhism, as well as from the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism, which is an aspect of his spiritual journey that I discovered today, hence the desire to reflect on this, and he is also a figure who has had an obliquely subtle and yet pervasive effect on my personal development. Even as this is so, I also feel respectfully obligated to decline that any directly formal association with Buddhism as a religious tradition be inferred, which I equally would not want to convey as suggesting that this in any way diminishes my interest in and reverence of Buddha mind.
B.J. Douthwright 10/10/08)
Making CEPA work
This being the only 'space' in which I feel like venting independent thoughts on the issues of doing to safe-guard and promote bio-diversity, and someone will correct me if these do not align well enough with GPC and Global Green's positions on the issue... ...I've begun studying the most recent performance review report of CEPA 1999 undertaken and published this past March by one of the Senate Committees (Actually, it seems one of two recent Senate Committee reviews of CEPA) : http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/...
So far I'm struck by how narrow a focus this review takes, how long it took them, and more generally how little resources are apparently being paid to ensure effective monitoring of the implementation of CEPA 1999. Given the disastrous state of the condition of the environment due to human causes, it cannot be really at all surprising to discover just how ineffective Parliament's works to manage the safeguarding of our natural environment are,"for future generations" as they so often espouse.
It is probably worthwhile to complete a full assessment of the government processes with regards to environmental issues. At least one learns something about the art of subterfuge and postponement, two key ingredients of the misaligned current political process that continue to heap insult onto the injuries that the natural environment is already weighed down with. And while doing this it is also already clear enough in the evidence that much more drastic and coordinated measures will have to be implemented to be able to ensure success in achieving the overarching objective that is the purpose of the Act having been brought into existence.
My main reason for jotting this down in my blog (public or semi-public or not I don't know and also don't particularly care, and feel comfortable exploring this venting in a GPC 'green movement' space) is to frame those thoughts, to now get into the dimension of CEPA 1999's role in ensuring stewardship of bio-diversity. Ultimately this is going to be the measure of CEPA in how well the Government of Canada succeeds by its application in protecting the environment for future generations. Now I begin to add my definitions of what successful, harmonious stewardship of the environment in support of bio-diversity means:
Just to start with one, which is recognizing that the bench-mark measure of healthy bio-diversity with respect to each individual species is measured in being confident that each species is able to function and continue evolving within the entirety of its natural eco-system without any measurable detrimental impacts caused by human activities. It is unavoidable for this understanding to address the issues that have caused the degree to which humankind has encroached upon the shared resources of the planet's natural spaces, both directly and indirectly through the physical scale of human activities and population growth and expansion.
So, now onto investigating specifics of goals that can be met to re-balance the interests of all species, which is likely to become the sole concern of my blog. Maybe this will start with one local macro issue such as forest habitats (just to name a starter reference), and the combined threats of precariously managed forestry zones that if considered in light of growing predictions of how dramatically the shifting of temperature zones may speed up, presents an urgency to understanding how it will be possible to prevent endemic species of trees from becoming more dangerously in threat of extinction.
To come back to blogging about this in future, just now emphasizing that to take the issue of bio-diversity seriously means in a certain sense dropping the discussions about adaptation to climate change and establishing the top priority and obligation being the return to climactic conditions that would only be very marginally considered to be human caused. Humanity has to come to realize that in defining goals that may or may not prove attainable in human adaptability terms, we simple have no right to act in ways that threaten the environment as a whole, and more to the point, that may create conditions wherein other species will be unable to adapt. Mhm, this is perhaps getting a little into Haudenosaunee interpretation of natural law, which will end up being the foundational reference that I want to espouse here! Because this is the law of the land where I live, and is also appropriate to finding a workable resolution as it ties in with one of the most highly evolved examples of a truly peace-building oriented democratic tradition of governance, which holds openness to others as a fundamental value, which I'm mentioning so as to emphasize that whatever direction my argument takes, and however deeply critical of CEPA and etc., this openness remains fundamentally in place.