My Beauty Best Teacher

Nigeria Conservation Foundation has "...maintained a nature conservation standard with unrivaled competence. Its ability to localize global conservation efforts with adequate attention to local peculiarities is evident in the needs of inhabitants that are being met on a daily basis in its multiple project sites across the country they track records cut across conservation education, biodiversity surveys and species identification, policy advocacy, habitat identification and protection, research, internship for college graduates, media sensitization and fundraising, advocacy for rare species conservation, fight against environmental pollution and poverty reduction..."

Image by Martin_Heigan via Flickr

Ochuko Tonukari writes:

There has been, of late, enormous interest in the study of nature conservation by traditional societies. The protection of patches of forest as sacred groves and of several tree species as sacred trees belong to the religion-based conservation ethos of ancient people all over the world. ...

According to a very elderly and learned Urhobo man, “the concept of the sacredness of trees, from the Urhobo historical past enters into every facet of Urhobo traditional religion. It rests on the earliest conceptions of the unity of life in nature, in the sense of communion and fellowship with the divine centre and source of life. The sacred tree is said to be deeply rooted in the primitive religious ideas of earliest Urhobo people. In the history of Urhobo religious evolution, it lies behind the primitive era.”
As one Urhobo traditionalist noted, "If you come upon a grove of old trees that have lifted up their crowns above the common height and shut out the light of the sky by the darkness of their interlacing boughs, you feel that there is a spirit in the place, so lofty is the wood, so lone the spot, so wondrous the thick unbroken shade."

...[continue reading]

Hat Tip Toyin Adepoju!

Founder of Conservation through Public Health the award-winning Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka contends that:

Well-kept wildlife sanctuaries can provide an income for the community...“Most Africans think that wildlife is dangerous, harmful and detrimental to the development of the country. Some people think that wildlife should be eaten, and the national parks are just a waste [and] that pastures should be used [only] to graze cattle.”

,VOA.

photo courtesy of Ashoka

Sebastian Chuwa a leading award winning Tanzanian conservationist and founder of the African Blackwood Conservation Project:

Has established more than 50 clubs to teach youth about the need to conserve. He has also inspired the founding of women’s tree-planting groups, and he actively works with Roots and Shoots, a youth conservation foundation run by Jane Goodall. Chuwa has helped plant more than 1 million African Blackwood trees in Tanzania, and has helped create nurseries to lead the reforestation efforts of the tree that is one of the most highly valued and over harvested plants in Africa.

National Tree Trust.

photo courtesy of Rolex Awards

C0-Chaired by Wangari Maathai the Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF)was "...set up to take early action to protect the forests in the Congo Basin region. The Fund invites proposals for transformative and innovative initiatives from the governments and civil society and private sector of the Congo Basin to slow the rate of deforestation, through developing the capacity of the people and institutions in the countries of the Congo basin to manage their forest. This includes helping local communities find livelihoods that are consistent with forest conservation and developing new approaches which will bring genuine change and ensure future sustainable forest management..."
via TED Blog

Award winning conservationist Tomas Diagne "...has been referred to as the "backbone" to save the spurred tortoise in Senegal. He is a member of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission (SSC). He has worked with the World Wildlife Fund and Nature Tropicale to protect endangered wildlife in Africa. Recently, he has participated in saving the African manatees along the Senegal River. At ESI, Tomas develops and directs conservation projects for the Sahel and upper Guinea regions of West Africa...",EndangeredSpecies.

Image via Wikipedia

In Tree Hugger:

The Rights and Resources Initiative says that while about one-third of forest in Latin America and Asia are under community control, in Africa that rate drops to just 2%. With such a low rate of land tenure, and the current slow rates of reform, the report says it would take the countries in the Congo Basin 260 years to reach the level of land ownership reform achieved in the Amazon.

Why is this important? A number of reports, this on included, point out that without effective community involvement, protection of indigenous people's rights, and those of women, programs to stop deforestation and decrease poverty are seriously compromised.

More Here

Sometimes when I am making copies, I find lessons and projects from other teacher's on the copy machine. One such essay that I recently found for a US History class was called "Progressive Reforms," and asked students to write a several page essay detailing all the progressive reforms of US Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. Students were encouraged to write what the reform was and how it helped society. Suggested reforms for students to learn about and glorify were Roosevelt's trustbusting or founding of the Department of Commerce and Labor or Pure Food and Drug Act, Taft's conservation efforts or the Mann Elkins Act, or Wilson's 'reforms' of the banks and 'reforms' of tariffs.

This lesson is a good example of the kind of prevalent liberal bias that exists in education today. Although these are all proper subjects to learn about and important to US history and there is nothing wrong with learning about these subjects in isolation, this essay does demonstrate liberal bias because of the context that these subjects are studied and the absence of other things being studied.

The context that Progressivism is taught in schools is that society needed to be reformed because things were really bad in America under the conservative administrations of Republican McKinley and Democrat Cleveland, who favored businesses and limited government and traditional values to the determinant of our nation. Progressives on the other hand were the good guys in the story of American history, using the power of government to override the objections of states, localities, and minorities so that they could jam through regulations of business and society to give increased power to groups that they favored. Admittedly some good was done by these changes- national parks are nice- but at the very least some of the reforms that are taught to students as unqualified and unconditional successes are not.

Arguments could made that the glorification of the Progressive era is distorting the reality of the situation- students learn that Roosevelt broke up Standard Oil because it was an evil monopoly run by a bad millionaire, but that is not the real story at all. Students read and memorize The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and are told that this is an example of why we need a federal Food and Drug administration, but they never learn any criticisms of this book or the arguments that it advances or the legacy that it led to. Students learn about 'reforming banks', but what is meant by 'reform' is actually a big government-big business partnership called the Federal Reserve System of Banks, which many (especially the Ron Paul types) think is very bad. And these are just a couple examples.

The point is that students are being asked in this essay to talk about all that was good about the Progressive movement after reading a textbook about how good the Progressive movement was, and later on these students will become voters who might perhaps believe what they read and wrote about. Again, that's not to say that students should not learn about the good aspects of the Progressive movement, but it is to say that it demonstrates liberal bias in education that is deep and thorough when students learn about events and issues from one slant or agenda only and do not spend equal time learning about other issues from other slants or agendas (for example, students spend considerable time on the Progressive Era, but little time on the successful economic time period of the 1920's or the foreign policy successes of Taft or the return to normal economic growth that was achieved under Eisenhower).

The effect of this kind of education in every school in our entire country speaks to the size of the bias and slant that education needs to overcome if it is to no longer be liberally biased.

From the NFS website:

Nigerian Field Society (NFS) is a national organization founded in 1930 with Branches in several cities across the country. There have been active Branches in as many as 20 cities over the years bu, as the NFS is entirely a voluntary organization.The Mission of the NFS is:

• To encourage interest in and knowledge of the fauna, flora, history, legends and customs, arts and crafts, sciences, sports and pastimes of West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular;

• To support their conservation;

• To co-operate with organizations with similar interests

Image:Gurara falls

According to the AP, President Barack Obama's new chief of staff William Daley respond to the proposal from congressional Republicans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget by going on CBS' 'Face the Nation' and asking the "Where's the beef?" He then elaborated that he is very curious to see exactly where those cuts will come from, implying that Republicans are playing the same sort of game that Obama plays often where he makes vague statements with no details to back them up. Both President of the United States Barack Obama (Democrat) and him apparently can't find the details for these cuts and so think that this is some sort of trick.

This is really sad, because I opened up internet explorer, went to google, searched 'details of gop plan', and the very first site that was listed was "A Roadmap for America's Future: The Budget Committee Republicans," which links to the GOP's detailed plans to cut $55 billion from the federal budget. That I was able to find the details to the plan so easily and yet the President of the United States and his chief of staff were not able to speaks to one of two things- one, they're all incompetent idiots who lack basic computer and research skills because they are all stuck in the pre-internet past, or two, they are disingenuous liars who are knowingly trying to scam and fool the American people because they know they are not decent or honest or truthful people so they can't find any refuge there.

Daley is thus either an incompetent idiot or a disingenuous liar- either way, the fact that he was chosen to be the main advisor to our President speaks to the kind of people that our President has chosen to surround himself with.

In case Obama or Daley ever do figure out how to use the internet and read by blog, I'll help them out by putting the apparently hard to find information on where 'the beef' is below:

• LEGISLATIVE BRANCH...............................$1,283,000,000. (23%)
• Notes: The Government Printing Office is abolished.
• JUDICIAL BRANCH......................................$2,434,000,000. (32%)
• AGRICULTURE............................................$42,542,000,000. (30%)
• The Agriculture Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Resources Conservation Service, and Foreign Agricultural Service are abolished. The Forest Service gets a $1.2 billion haircut.
• COMMERCE...................................................$5,322,000,000. (54%)
• National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is cut by $857,000,000.
• DEFENSE.......................................................$47,500,000,000. (6.5%)
• EDUCATION..................................................$78,000,000,000 (83%)
• Only the Pell grant program survives.
• ENERGY............................................................$44,200,000,000 (100%)
• The Defense Department takes over all of Energy's remaining functions (nuclear waste, for example) and about $18 billion of its budget.
• HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES..............$26,510,000,000. (26%)
• Notes: FDA is cut by $230,000,000; Indian Health Service is cut by $650 million; CDC is cut by $1.17 billion; NIH by $5.8 billion.
• HOMELAND SECURITY.................................$23,765,000,000. (43%)
• Notes: Coast Guard is shifted to Defense. TSA's funds are cut by $900 million.
• HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT....$53,100,000,000. (100%)
• Notes: Completely eliminated. Veterans' housing programs are transferred to the VA
• INTERIOR........................................................$10,934,000,000. (78%)
• Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Indian Affairs are abolished.
• JUSTICE.............................................................$9,057,000,000. (28%)
• Note: Office of Justice Programs is abolished.
• LABOR....................................................$2,803,000,000. (2%)
• OSHA, MSHA, and the The Employment and Training Administration are spared all cuts (no cuts to unemployment benefits)
• STATE...................................................................$20,321,000,000. (71%)
• Note: Massive foreign aid cuts. All international commissions and organizations are defunded.
• TRANSPORTATION............................................$42,810,000,000. (49%)
• Notes: Amtrak is completely de-funded.
• VETERANS’ AFFAIRS..........................................No cuts
• CORPS OF ENGINEERS......................................$1,854,000,000. (27%)
• EPA..............................................................$3,238,000,000. (29%)
• GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION.....$1,936,000,000. (85%)
• INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS...$24,300,000,000 (100%)
• NASA.........................................................................$4,500,000,000 (25%)
• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION...............$4,723,000,000. (62%)
• OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT.......$9,070,000,000.
• SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.........No cuts
• FCC...........................................................$2,150,000,000. (22%)
• ABOLISH...............................................................$2,050,000,000. (100%)
• (1) Affordable Housing Program.
• (2) Commission on Fine Arts.
• (3) Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• (4) Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• (5) National Endowment for the Arts.
• (6) National Endowment for the Humanities.
• (7) State Justice Institute.
• MISC
• Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees........$3,000,000,000.
• Freeze Federal Government employee pay...................$2,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal Government travel..............................$7,500,000,000.
• Repeal Davis-Bacon..................................................... $6,000,000,000.
• Prohibit union project labor agreements......................$2,000,000,000.
• TARP repeal.................................................................$4,481,000,000.
• Sell Federal Buildings..................................................$19,000,000,000.
• Reduce Federal vehicle budget..........................................$600,000,000.

UPDATE: Comment from theblogprof's story on this subject, which I echo:

Note the one cut close to the end: "Collect delinquent taxes from Federal Employees." $3 BILLION??? Good grief. How are they still federal employees at all?

Democrat President Barack Obama's economic programs can be best called "The Inside Deal." There is a long history of 'deals' in our nation, where the government expands unconstitutionally into areas where it is not supposed to be and crowds out human freedom and industry. These deals all have cool names- Square Deal, New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society- and as Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have jammed through considerable changes in our nation over the last year, it is appropriate that we give a name to Obama's economic policies. I hearby submit to the world that we call Obama's economic programs "The Inside Deal."

The Inside Deal is Democratic President Barack Obama's domestic economic program and is characterized by extensive government spending for politically connected groups within American society. It is aimed to reward those groups that supported Obama's campaign for the Presidency in 2010, such as labor unions, public employee unions, teachers unions, environmentalists, anti-war protesters, Wall Street, and big businesses. Some of the programs that were passed by the Democratic Congress at the time to reward these groups include the stimulus bill, the healthcare bill, and massive annual budgets.

Increasingly during the height of the Inside Deal, there is a link between who receives taxpayer money from the federal government and their political connections. Called by some crony capitalism, it is increasingly unpopular, and in the face of continuing recession in spite of (or because of) the massive deficits that marked the Inside Deal, this program was largely overturned by Republican Congressional majorities and Presidents from 2010-2020 (hopefully).

Hopefully someone will soon create a wikipedia article on this, describing Obama's Inside Deal in more depth.

The first 'deal' that was made between government and America where citizens traded their rights and liberties for the promise of 'progress' was the Square Deal. The Square Deal was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking the plutocracy and trusts through rhetoric and expansions of federal power while at the same time protecting business from the extreme demands of the rising communists.

Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had The New Deal. This was a series of economic programs passed by Congress from 1933 to his reelection in 1936. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. To see a list of some of the programs that comprise FDR's New Deal, see my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong.

The next 'deal' was offered by Democrat President Harry Truman, who presented a 21 point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare, including the call for universal health care. But in the face of peace and rising prosperity, the country decided that it didn't want to accept this deal, and the boom times of the 1950's and 1960's followed.

But Democrat Lyndon Johnson was inspired by the Fair Deal, and when he became President, he tried once again to make a deal between government and society whereby people would trade their individual rights and freedoms and liberties for some sense of 'fairness' in society. He called his 'deal' the Great Society. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The federal government has since spent trillions of dollars on these issues, and education, healthcare, urban areas, and transportation systems are now much worse today then they would have been if the federal government would not have stuck its nose into those areas and let human ingenuity and freedom and industry work unchained and untaxed.

Obama's Inside Deal represents then just the latest in a long line of usurpation's that have the goal of reducing our rights to life, liberty, and protection of property. Like our forefathers before, it is up to us to fight and overturn these injustices, least we be reduced to a state of tyranny.

Sociolingo reports on an ongoing debate regarding The Mande Charter described as a Magna Carter for Africa.It is a document that "is presented by its promoters as a “hidden treasury”; from the West African past. It is already the basis for claims of endogenous origins of modern concepts (decentralisation, local democracy, environment conservation, feminism, human rights, cultural diversity, welfare state)"

In Scidev:

Most endangered livestock breeds are in developing countries, where they are herded by pastoralists or tended by farmers who grow both crops and livestock on small plots of land. Faced with a daily struggle to survive, many of these farmers are unlikely to prioritise conservation of their rare breeds — at least not without significant support...Documenting and conserving this diversity — of cattle, goats, sheep, swine and poultry — is just as essential as the maintenance of crop diversity for ensuring future food supplies in the face of health and environmental threats.

More here

Via American Thinker:

President Obama stated in a Presidential Memorandum last month:

the Federal government...has a responsibility to... [r]econnect Americans, especially children, to America's rivers and waterways, landscapes of national significance, ranches, farms and forests, great parks,
and coasts and beaches.

Obama's response to this crisis is to create another of the government programs that seem to be spun out of the White House at a rate of two or three a week. This one is called "America's Great Outdoors Initiative." It calls on no less than three Cabinet Secretaries (Interior, Agriculture and EPA), plus the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality to develop "A 21st Century Strategy for America's Great Outdoors." According to the Memorandum:

The Federal Government, the Nation's largest land manager, has a responsibility to engage with these partners to help develop a conservation agenda worthy of the 21st Century. We must look to the private sector and nonprofit organizations, as well as towns, cities, and States, and the people who live and work in them, to identify the places that mean the most to Americans, and leverage the support of the Federal Government to help these community-driven efforts to succeed. Through these partnerships, we will work to connect these outdoor spaces to each other, and to reconnect Americans to them.

These "public/private partnerships," and "leveraging" mean one thing: the Federal Government is expanding into yet another part of our lives. It's going to cost us some money, but connecting outdoor spaces and reconnecting Americans to them is vital work that can only be done by the Federal Government. As Obama reminded us at his recent speech to the Business Council, "no business, no individual is going to provide [public goods] on their own."

Hmm... perhaps this 'federal responsibility to reconnect America with nature' is somewhere in the list of delegated and lawful powers of the federal government... I'm looking... Article I, Section 8.... don't see it in there. Perhaps the Necessary and Proper clause can be used... is it 'necessary' and 'proper' for the national government to have the power to 'reconnect America with nature' in order to exercise the power of... regulating interstate commerce... promoting science... establishing post offices... probably it is part of the general welfare clause....

Or perhaps it doesn't matter if this is a lawful power of the federal government, because President Obama believes in rule of men, not rule of laws, and decided to operate our federal government in an unlawful manner fitting of tyrants and dictators. Perhaps it doesn't even matter anymore what is delegated and proper and constitutional, because we now live in a tyranny where power over others is exercised by those who have political connections (public-private partnerships or individuals leveraging the power of the federal government).

Personally, I don't know what the heck President Obarfo is talking about- I'm not disconnected with nature at all- I fish, I hunt, I go outside, my five kids go outside, and I even take my dog for a walk every day, and I live in an apartment in the middle of the city! Leverage the power of the state all you want, Obarfo, but the only way I can spend more time connecting with nature is if you follow through on your plans to destroy all energy production in this country and tax and regulate me out of a job.