RAZING PARADISE

My dear readers, I have been absent from these pages for a long time because I have been heartbroken and stunned. All of my writing lately has been to government officials and land owners, lawyers and fellow Earth lovers. My favorite wilderness in the world is being altered in a horrific way, and it seems none of the people who could be stopping this are going to. But I MUST believe that this is not how the story ends. There must be a light in here somewhere, not just for this place that is so sacred, but for all the sacred places around the world that are being razed. I am reading all the time about ancient forests being destroyed and the people who live in them are either displaced or killed. It seems so far away and hard to grasp, that humanity can treat the Earth and each other in this way. While I don't physically live in this forest that is being cut down, my spirit does. I feel this in my soul. I have read about aboriginal people being so connected to the land that they suffer as it does. Apparently I am a blond, blue-eyed Hawaiian, connected to this land.

Way back in the fall I wrote a blog called Saving Larsens, about how a cattle rancher wants to cut down the forest above the beach and make it cattle pasture all the way down the hill to the sand. Amazingly, he GOT the permit, issued by the government agency that oversees the "conservation land" it is on. CONSERVATION. What part of that word calls for cutting down native plants and smothering the reef in cattle dung? I just don't get it. There have been so many passionate appeals made, and not just by people like me who love the place. Actual authorities in the field. The government aquatic biologist for this island declared the reef to be the most pristine on the island, and stated his opposition to the cattle pasture in the conservation district. They even ignored him, and he works for the SAME AGENCY that issued the permit. How have we arrived in a place in the world where the agencies that are being paid to protect what is left of Nature are making decisions to destroy her instead? There are now 2 lawsuits filed to protect this place, against the agency whose job it is to protect it!!!!!! They need to be sued to do their job???? What a bizarre state we have created in our society.

So aside from laying my body across a tree that is about to be cut, writing letters and making phone calls to every one who might be able to do something, and getting involved with the lawsuit, what else can I do? Pray. I am. And raise awareness about what is happening all over the world to the last places that have not yet been destroyed by humanity. There are so few left. For people living in cities or even rural farmland, the plight of forests and reefs is not something they see with their own eyes, and I don't think they realize how it will affect them if they do nothing. It must somehow be felt in the heart, in order to care enough to do something to help save a place you have never seen. You must FEEL how important it is to retain what wilderness is left in the world, and REALIZE how you affect those places even if you live thousands of miles away. All of our lives are interconnected now with the last remaining forests and reefs on the Earth. If the last of them are cut down and the last reefs die, then we will feel it because we won't be able to BREATHE. Literally. No more oxygen. THEN we will all suddenly want to do something to save them, because we will finally realize we are in fact saving ourselves. And it is too late. We need to realize this NOW. We need to stop razing the forests NOW. We need to stop destroying reefs NOW. EVERY choice we make in our days is a vote to either save or destroy what is left. Treat it as sacred, or disposable. PLEASE don't wait. When you go to Starbucks, when you use shampoo, when you buy toilet paper, it ALL makes a difference. Make your decisions to help save the Earth every day as if YOUR life depends on it. It does. And if you hear about a forest being cut down or a reef being destroyed, DO something, no matter how far away you live.
Thanks for listening, and acting.