Is it my imagination, or is it that no one is able to stand back and do a reality check on what is currently happening with not only Our Environment, but Our World as well? I have taken that step back many times since 9/11 and have observed that our environment as well as human life has become somewhat EXPENDABLE, and therefore acceptable collateral damage. Though fellow environmentalists and I continue the good fight to save us from the Earth’s deterioration, we continue to be our own children’s and our children’s children’s covert executioners by allowing the use of pesticides and other pollutants that get either mixed into our waters, dropped from the sky or blown into the air while they are at school or enjoying carefree moments in their playgrounds or backyards. We continue to use gas-guzzling automobiles that send pollution into an ever-increasing gap in the Earth’s fragile ozone, and think that parking ships that are three football fields in length, full of an alternative fuel just off our shores, is going to be a viable solution. So which is better: Dealing with the illness or the cure? Especially when the cure has a hell of a side effect if it ignites, which has been the case in at least a couple of places in different parts of the world. The effects of Hiroshima multiplied and the tsunami-type waves produced, in addition to other catastrophic events, is a good opening visual of the possibility forecasted. We continue to compromise our oceans, which are in a fragile state of maintenance from the pollution absorbed from a land whose deluge of poisons have been transported to the waiting arms of streams, rivers and other waterways, then transported to their eventual receptacles: our oceans. Land, water, air; have we become so jaded with all the past and current events of the world that it seems such an insurmountable task to become better stewards of the only world to which we have been entrusted? Are we so set on fulfilling Nostradomic prognostications that we cannot believe it is not yet too late to become our own healers, and therefore ensure our children and their children will see sunsets ablaze with a myriad of colors? It is said that crisis has an element of danger, as well as one of opportunity. We all will proceed to deal with the crisis in our own ways; the danger is that either in attempting shortsighted solutions or in not taking any action at all, we will compromise any feasible resolution. So the opportunity is that we can decide to act, and in the activity serve notice that we are committed to living in a pesticide/pollution free environment… Save Our Oceans, Save Our World.

Ricardo Melendez (Chumash Nation) Wishtoyo/Ventura Coastkeeper Ventura, CA

In an article dated May 12 2003 at http://www.wolvesontario.org "Allowing species to decline towards extinction when protective legislation exists, violates Ontario's many commitments to protecting biodiversity," said Earthroots Campaigner, Melissa Tkachyk. "It is disturbing to know that the Province takes little action when Ontario is home to more species at risk than any other jurisdiction in Canada."

Ignorance is to blame and whether or not we'll learn from this lies entirely on our Great Provincial Polititcians who at the time this discussion was posted were probably out enjoying a good game of golf! That's the spirit!

Do your part - Save the gray wolf of Alngonquin Park from extinction!