ACT UPDATE   December 20 , 2004

Dear Friends,

As we send out the final newsletter of another wildly productive year, we hope you will consider making a contribution to our efforts to protect biodiversity, indigenous health and traditional culture in the Amazon Basin-the individual donations we receive at the end of each year are crucial to meeting our most basic operational obligations. Donors can link to our donation page http://www.amazonteam.org/donate.html, or send a check to our home office:

Amazon Conservation Team
4211 N. Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203

All donations are, of course, tax-deductible.

We also note that any last minute shopping at the appropriately named Amazon.com accessed through the publications page of our website http://www.amazonteam.org/publications.html results in a donation to ACT.

ACT President Mark Plotkin's Fortune magazine editorial on the synthesis of economic development and conservation is available for previewing at http://www.principalvoices.com. It is scheduled to appear in the magazine in early 2005.

This December marked a landmark in the conservation movement-the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the noted Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai. We conclude our newsletter and the year with excerpts from her beautiful acceptance speech:

"In this year's prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has placed the critical issue of environment and its linkage to democracy and peace before the world. For their visionary action, I am profoundly grateful. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. Our work over the past 30 years has always appreciated and engaged these linkages...

"...In 1977, when we started the Green Belt Movement, I was partly responding to needs identified by rural women, namely lack of firewood, clean drinking water, balanced diets, shelter and income...

"...I came to understand that when the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of future generations...

"...Entire communities also come to understand that while it is necessary to hold their governments accountable, it is equally important that in their own relationships with each other, they exemplify the leadership values they wish to see in their own leaders, namely justice, integrity and trust...

"...Using trees as a symbol of peace is in keeping with a widespread African tradition. For example, the elders of the Kikuyu carried a staff from the thigi tree that, when placed between two disputing sides, caused them to stop fighting and seek reconciliation. Many communities in Africa have these traditions.

"Such practises are part of an extensive cultural heritage, which contributes both to the conservation of habitats and to cultures of peace. With the destruction of these cultures and the introduction of new values, local biodiversity is no longer valued or protected and as a result, it is quickly degraded and disappears. For this reason, The Green Belt Movement explores the concept of cultural biodiversity, especially with respect to indigenous seeds and medicinal plants...

"...It is 30 years since we started this work. Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated. Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.

"In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.

"That time is now.

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: there can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come."

-Wangari Maathai

Thank you once again for supporting the Amazon Conservation Team. Happy Holidays!