«12. . .171172173174175176177. . .184185»
Thanks for the information. I will tell the Indian External Minister.
Hello, I hope you're all well!
The second issue of the Voice of Forest (yes, I forgot to actually publish the dispatch last month) is entitled "Death in the Amazon". It chronicles the efforts of pioneering conservationist Chico Mendes, who gave his life protecting the Amazon rainforest and its peoples. As always, please have a read (if you can spare a couple of minutes) and know that you're always welcome to discuss what you read either here or on the Forest RMB!
And yes, the August issue will be published later this month - I've already started researching the activist it will be focusing on. Here's a little hint: the activist in question rocked the zoological world and pushed the boundaries of what we thought was possible for humans to achieve.
The Voice of Forest - Issue II | July 2021 | Death in the Amazon
.
(1944-1988)
Known For:
Conservation activism
Indigenous rights activism
Assassinated by cattle ranchers
Selected Awards:
UNEP Global 500 Roll of Honor
AwardNWF National Conservation
Achievement AwardNamesake of the Chico Mendes
Extractive Reserve
“At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save
the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.”
.
Background
Schools were often made deliberately inaccessible to seringueiro communities as the landowners did not want their workers to be able to read or do arithmetic. Mendes was taught to read by activist-turned-seringueiro Euclides Fernando Távora at the age of 18; he would later describe how practising with newspaper clippings covering social and political issues opened his eyes to the injustices surrounding him. Inspired by his experiences, Mendes decided to become a literacy teacher to educate his community and so raise awareness of the seringueiros’ unjust treatment.
The Rural Workers Union Movement, founded during the political turmoil of 1960s Brazil, became the principal political representative of peasants, small farmers and rural labourers. Mendes himself played a central role in the creation of the Rubber Tappers’ Union in 1975 and served as its secretary, returning to his hometown of Xapuri to establish a union branch there with Marina Silva in 1977. In 1979, Mendes introduced a scheme to establish schools on rubber estates. Originally aimed at educating adults, the programme quickly expanded to include children, aiming to improve the living standards of the seringueiros which would, in turn, incentivise them to protect their land and way of life. Despite the overwhelming success of the initiative, all was not well for the union movement; in 1980, the president of the Rural Workers Union and a close colleague of Mendes, Wilson Pinheiro, was assassinated by ranchers who opposed the work of the Union. While the union movement continued to pick up speed in the following years, acts of police brutality against union members increased and several key union leaders were murdered by ranchers in targeted attacks.
In 1988, a rancher named Darly Alves da Silva bought part of a rubber reserve in Xapuri where members of Mendes’ family lived. Mendes clashed with da Silva in October of that year when he convinced the Brazilian government to declare a 61,000-acre tract of traditional seringueiro territory on da Silva's land to be off-limits to logging. This was the world’s first extractive reserve – an area of publicly-owned land where unsustainable land use is forbidden but local communities have the right to perform traditional extractive practices like fishing and rubber tapping. This major victory sparked a wave of murders of the union movement’s leaders.
In the last few years of his life, Mendes received a constant barrage of death threats. After months of being watched by gunmen hired by da Silva, Mendes predicted on his 44th birthday that he would not live to see Christmas. The gunmen disappeared completely following his birthday, leading to a feeling of impending doom within the seringueiro community. One week after his birthday, on the 22nd of December 1988, Mendes was shot dead in his Xapuri home by da Silva’s son. Mendes was the 90th rural activist murdered that year in Brazil.
Activism
assassination of Chico Mendes (1988).
The formation of extractive reserves is perhaps the greatest testament to Mendes’ tireless efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants. The reserve created on what was then da Silva’s land was the first of many - thanks to the efforts of Mendes’ contemporaries, including Marina Silva, 13% of the Amazon is now protected as extractive reserves. The reserves are funded in part by the World Bank, which had previously financed roads to make deforestation of the Amazon easier; this change of heart is directly attributed to Mendes’ personal lobbying of the organisation. The Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, created after Mendes’ death, continues to protect one million hectares of rainforest to this day.
Mendes' launch of the Alliance of Forest Peoples (representing the Amazon’s indigenous peoples and the Rural Workers’ Union) in 1986 signified a dramatic change in the fight to protect the rainforest. Both groups had historically been at odds with one another, so the fact that they were able to unite and work together to protect their cultures and way of life sent a powerful message to their opponents and the Brazilian government. Three months after Mendes’ death, 27 demands on environmental and human rights protection were released, along with the Declaration of the Peoples of the Forest, which concludes: “This Alliance of the Peoples of the Forest, bringing together Indians, rubber tappers, and riverbank communities, and founded here in Acre, embraces all efforts to protect and preserve this immense but fragile life-system that involves our forests, rivers, lakes and springs, the source of our wealth and the basis of our cultures and traditions.”
The idea that environmental protection was compatible with sustainable land use in a way that did not ignore thousands of years of indigenous land use within the Amazon changed the way the global environmental movement considered conservation. Of Mendes’ death, associate Gomercindo Rodriquez said: “Those who killed Chico got it wrong. They thought by killing him, the tappers' movement would be demobilised, but they made him immortal.” Thus, in life and in death, Chico Mendes lit the fires of the Amazon conservation movement; that fight continues to this day. Please, if you can, take a moment to recognise the sacrifices made by Mendes and activists like him to protect his people and our planet.
Oh, and I also want to remind everyone that the submission period for the Forest Interregional Writing Contest closes on the 15th. Good luck to everyone involved, and happy writing!
Best wishes,
Terrabod
Culture Minister of Forest
Thank you for bringing us your Dispatch, M'Lord 
Terrabod. It is a most interesting read.
Hello
Hello to you all, how are you all doing? ^^
For me, ahh, it's fine for now. I got my second dose on 30th July, and with 14 days that have passed, I am now officially vaccinated. I still need to be careful, though!
Zheng Yi Sao and Baja cali
It will be a long time before we can all fully resume our normal, pre-pandemic lifestyles.
Bathor, Baja cali, and Jianghu
This makes me sad :(
The recent video posted by the Malaysian army is somewhat worrying... ...
As the previous defence minister is now the PM of Malaysia, this clearly is his doing.
Though I must reiterate that this is just more pointless posturing again.
Zheng Yi Sao, Bathor, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
Oh, I am not brave enough for politics. :P Nah, I just have not been paying attention, though I definitely should.
Heyyy there, friend! It's been a while, how have you been? Another rainy Monday morning, work is from home today, so that is okay.
Zheng Yi Sao, Singapore no2, and Bathor
Hi folks!
The judges of the Forest Interregional Writing Contest 2021 have considered each entry and have chosen a deserving winner for each category. I'd like to take this opportunity to extend to them my sincerest thanks for taking the time to collaborate with me on this project; they not only assessed each entry but also provided a substantial amount of carefully considered feedback for each piece.
So, without further ado, you can find out the winners of this year's contest in the dispatch below - as well as the winning entries, feedback from the judges, and a personal message from me to all of our entrants.
Forest Interregional Writing Contest 2021
- The Winners -
.
The esteemed judges of the writing contest, Verdant Haven, Chan island and Uan aa Boa, have carefully read and considered each (anonymised) entry and together have chosen a winner for each category. They considered a number of metrics, not limited to word choice, structure and originality, as well as how each writer interpreted this year's theme, "Anthropocene", within their work.
Congratulations to the winning entrants, each of whom has been awarded the Forestian Literary Prize; while these honours are awarded to the OOC players for their writing skill, I have no issues if the winners want to also RP/worldbuild it as an IC interregional prize received by one of their citizens. Furthermore, all the entrants are invited to publish their own entry (or entries) now that the contest is over for all to enjoy as unfortunately it's not possible for me to share everyone's work.
Forestian Literary Prize for Poetry
.
is awarded to
Duby
for the work
"Attachment"
Verdant Haven said... "While it exhibits no attempt at a rhyme scheme, the author definitely made some decisive word choices and wielded them effectively. The recurrent usage of specific words is done to great effect - words, rather than structure, define this piece. The message is the important thing, and everything else is in support of that message, rather than aesthetics." | Chan Island said... "I checked this one in a plagiarism software because it felt like it came straight from a Buddhist text! There's a religious chant style that nonetheless conveys the deepest insecurities of the Anthropocene's most prominent species. Rereading this palpably enhances it too, reinforcing in the reader the call to passion, care and ultimately action!" | Uan aa Boa said... "From the title and opening lines I was expecting a criticism of attachment in the spirit of Buddhism and its self-help offspring, but instead we get a celebration of weakness as essential to humanity that leads to a kind of call to arms, ending with the declaration that despite appearances the Earth is protected. Simple, yet intriguing; I’m won over." |
Forestian Literary Prize for Drama
.
is awarded to
NO AWARD GIVEN
Will anyone be able to claim this honour next year?
Forestian Literary Prize for Prose
.
is awarded to
Yahlia
for the work
"Eight Drowning Together"
Verdant Haven said... "This story captures the plight of people facing terrible circumstances in a very real way. The pent-up frustration, sorrow, and anger filtered through the narrator's limited understanding is a powerful tool, and the glimpse into the grinding of bureaucratic wheels, where even the best intentions can lead to bad results, is well-handled." | Chan Island said... "Tuvalu has sunk under the sea, as predicted by scientists studying the rising sea levels, and while New Zealand has taken in the refugees, it's clear that the conditions are less than stellar. This story paints a bleak world of climate refugees, sea walls, discrimination and hot debates on the politics of it all." | Uan aa Boa said... "Having described one futile, preventable death it builds to a climax of anger and another sudden death... and then returns to its beginning with nothing having changed. It also deftly throws in the rhetorical question of how one how one can be defined as being a Tuvaluan despite having no actual connection to the place. Masterful stuff." |
Attachment is what gives us the greatest of dread
Fearing to lose what we are attached to is the greatest of fears
We are attached to our Earth
We are afraid to lose our Earth
Attachment is what gives us the greatest of love
Fearing to lose that love is the greatest of fears
We love our Earth
We are afraid to lose that love
Those who hold no attachments feel neither love nor dread
They are not afraid to lose our Earth
They are strong but not human
All humans feel attachment
All humans fear losing that
All humans have that weakness
All humans are amazing for that
All humans try and fight to protect what we love
All humans do that out of fear
Earth is protected by attachment because of that fear
Attachment gives us the dread that motivates us
Tupuna fafine tells me stories about Tuvalu. She tells me of her childhood, of the hot days splashing around in the sparkling blue sea, of lounging on the white sand in the shade of the coconut trees, of seagull cries and waves crashing into the shore. I've never seen Tuvalu, and I never will. For the last fifteen years - for my only fifteen years - my world has been concrete and iron. I haven't seen the sea, sparking blue or otherwise. I haven't felt sand between my toes nor drank from a coconut. We have seagulls though, they paint our little concrete boxes white, which I suppose is better than the grey. We also have hot days, we only have hot days really.
Tamotu says it's ironic, ironic that they keep us in concrete.
"Concrete's made from sand," he's told me more than once. "And that's part of the problem. Entire beaches disappear overnight... people taking the sand. Of course, that didn't happen to Tuvalu. But it's like what happened to Tuvalu, the sand disappearing."
I should be thankful. Or that's what the wardens say. They get sick of the complaining, many of us complain. I don't. Tupuna fafine says I'm too young to complain.
"Keep those thoughts in that messy little head of yours!" she orders before smiling her gappy smile and winking at me.
We should be thankful. The wardens tell us of the Tuvaluans down Dunedin way where they still sometimes have winter, and of the ones "six feet Down Under." They laugh.
Miss Manaia tells us the same thing, but more quietly. "I know it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternative."
"Better than being outside the bloody fence?" Iosua growls.
Miss Manaia doesn't say anything.
Iosua likes to make himself big. He's older than me, tupuna fafine says he's nineteen, but Iosua swears he is "basically twenty-one." Iosua looks after us younger ones, he only scares the agency people, like Miss Manaia. But we, all the other kids and me, we should look after each other, he tells us, "‘cause no one else will."
Miss Manaia is the sixth agency person I can remember. Iosua scared off the three before her. The one before Miss Manaia only visited once. Iosua made her cry and she didn't come back.
They all introduce themselves the same way: "Hello, my name is Their-Name. I work for the Climate Refugee Integration Agency, and I'm going to get you all out of here."
The wardens call them CRIAs. Since Iosua scared off the last one, we call them criers.
***
I spend my days playing with the kids. There's a hopscotch court painted onto the concrete, but the numbers have all worn away. There's a netball hoop as well, but we only have a football that doesn't bounce.
Iosua often asks Miss Manaia why we only have one netball hoop, not two. "Them netball courts are meant to have two, y'know? Where's the other?"
Every time Iosua asks, Miss Manaia looks over at the hoop and frowns. "That's a good point, Iosua–"
"I'll make sure to look into it," Iosua interrupts, finishing her sentence, before kicking some gravel and walking away.
Tupuna fafine taught me how to braid my hair, so all the little girls, and some of the boys too, will sit in a line and let me braid their hair. Sometimes I weave in some of the dandelions that grow in the cracks of the concrete.
Iosua told me that I stick my tongue out when I'm braiding the girls' hair, so I work extra hard to make sure I keep it in my mouth.
I play with the kids until 3 o'clock. The cartoons come on the TV at 3. The criers make sure we have a TV. It never gets turned off. We get two channels: Channel 1 and Channel 2. The adults watch Channel 1 most of the day, Channel 1 has the news and stuff. But at 3, Channel 2 gets the cartoons, so the kids get the TV until they're over. I like to watch the cartoons as well, but not when Iosua's around, he thinks they're dumb.
The adults watch Channel 1, but they don't like it. The news makes them mad. Tupuna fafine says I shouldn't watch the news, "it's for the grown-ups." But they sometimes talk about us on the news. I like to listen to what they say about us.
There's a room with a lot of people sitting in chairs, and the people are always yelling at each other. Tamotu says that's parliament.
The Blues say that we need to go away. To Australia or America or Japan. "Japan needs more workers! And we need fewer costs!" Mrs Blue says.
Mr Red is in charge of New Zealand. He says that they're being "good Pacific citizens" by having us here. He uses the word 'duty' a lot.
When I asked Tamotu what 'duty' means, he said it's "something they have to do."
Iosua snorted at that. "Have to keep us trapped in here?"
Tamotu shrugged and continued to watch the people yell at each other.
Eventually, Mr and Mrs Green were allowed to talk. They agree with Mr Red about duty, but say he's letting us Tuvaluans down.
Iosua always growls at Miss Manaia after they talk about us on the news.
"Why do we gots to stay in here?" he asks her.
Miss Manaia puts on her glasses. She sighs and takes them off again. "Aotearoa New Zealand has taken in ten thousand Tuvaluans. Finding homes for you all is difficult, not to mention expensive."
"No one's left here though, miss, 'cept for Big Pu'a, but the wardens say he went to jail. Can't you find even one house?"
Miss Manaia pursed her lips.
Tupuna fafine shuffled over in her sandals. "Leave the poor woman be, Iosua," she smiles. "She's not the Prime Minister."
Miss Manaia looks at tupuna fafine. Her lips smiled, but her eyes didn't. "Thank you, but I'm quite alright."
The crier turned her attention back to Iosua. "Homes are hard to come by these days, ours are being threatened by the sea," she explains.
Tupuna fafine's gappy smile disappeared as her face collapsed into a frown, eyes narrowing into a glare. She shook. "So were ours!" she hissed at Miss Manaia.
The woman mumbled something about the time and seeing us all again sometime next week before she hurried out the gate, past a pair of wardens, and back to her small silver car.
I couldn't remember the last time I had seen tupuna fafine so mad. I rushed towards her, but she smiled at me, waving me away, before toddling back to the shade of our concrete box while Iosua whooped and hollered at her, a massive grin stuck to his big face.
***
I like Mr and Mrs Green from the TV, they always say good things about us Tuvaluans. That's what they call us, "Tuvaluans." Miss Manaia calls us Tuvaluans as well, so do the wardens, but the wardens spit when they say it. Even tupuna fafine calls me a Tuvaluan.
Inside the room with the TV, the flag of Tuvalu hangs on the wall. Tupuna fafine tells me that the blue is the same colour as the sea she swam in and that the nine stars represent the nine islands of Tuvalu.
"It's funny," Tamotu says. "Tuvalu means 'eight standing together,' as in the eight islands emerging from the sea, but Tuvalu had nine islands. When it was named, only eight of the islands were inhabited, but the flag has nine stars for the nine islands. People eventually moved to the ninth island, but the name, Tuvalu, wasn't changed and still means 'eight together.'"
The flag hangs on the wall and I'm told stories about the islands by tupuna fafine and Tamotu and others, but I haven't seen them, or stood on them. I wasn't even born there. I was born in these chainlink fences. They tell me my mum and dad were Tuvaluan. They lived on the islands, but they didn't die on them. Mum died in the TV room, on the floor. Tupuna fafine doesn't like to talk about it.
Tamotu knows about this too.
"We tried to get the wardens to call the criers, to call a doctor, but they didn't. Not even when your mum started screaming. Big Pu'a got mad. Big Pu'a never got mad. He was always smiling and laughing, Big Pu'a was. Never even seen him squash a fly. But Big Pu'a grabbed one of the wardens, by the neck he grabbed him. Told him that if he wanted to see his kids again he was gonna call a doctor. The warden did call a doctor when Big Pu'a let him go, but he didn't get here quick enough. Your mum died, but the doctor managed to save you!"
Tamotu had smiled at me. The smile faded. "They came for Big Pu'a the next day. They told him to go with them and he did. He didn't try and run or fight or talk his way out of it. They pushed him into a car and drove him away. Big Pu'a never came back."
My dad was taken to Australia, Tamotu thinks. "But it's like the wardens say..."
Six feet Down Under.
Like Tamotu says, I was born in the TV room. I've never seen Tuvalu and I never will. No one will ever see Tuvalu again. Tamotu says that only four of the islands are still above water, but that the yearly typhoons are washing away what's left. But they still call me Tuvaluan.
***
Sometimes I hear the wardens talking. They talk to each other a lot, but never to us. They complain a lot. We complain about the heat, about our clothes, about the food, about the dirt. They complain about different things. They talk about banks and the climate and traffic. But they most often complain about the Wall.
"Waste of time and money," one of the wardens says.
The others nod.
I asked Tamotu about the Wall. "They mean the Auckland Seawall."
Auckland's a big city, more than two million people live there, Tamotu told me a while back. Three hundred of us Tuvaluans live in our concrete boxes and chainlink fences.
"Is two million a lot more than three hundred?" I frowned.
"A lot more, yes. More than you could ever imagine."
Tamotu says they're building a wall to keep the sea out of the city, like the sea came into Tuvalu.
I don't know how they're going to do that. Tupuna fafine told me that Tuvalu had a building with three floors. Like one of our concrete boxes, but with two more levels. The government building, she said. But Tamotu said that the sea and wind have been knocking that down for years. "It's probably not even standing anymore." I don't know how the Seawall could try and stop the sea if even a building with three whole floors couldn't stop it.
Now, whenever Miss Manaia comes, tupuna fafine starts shaking. She's never done this before. I've never seen anything bother her like this.
Tupuna fafine mutters to herself about "that stupid woman" and "the empty-headed crier". We try to take tupuna fafine away from Miss Manaia when she comes now, but she refuses. "I've got to keep an eye on that one," she says. "Don't want her teaching our kids more of her nonsense."
So tupuna fafine would sit in the shade, under a blanket, glaring as Miss Manaia would talk to us all.
Iosua talks to tupuna fafine a lot. She never used to talk to him before, but they're always together now. Whenever I try to talk to Iosua or tupuna fafine now, they tell me to go play with the other kids, but I've already braided their hair and played three games of netball.
Two months after tupuna fafine first scolded Miss Manaia, the crier visited us again.
Iosua was still eating breakfast, spooning his oats from his plastic bowl into his mouth.
"I'm sick of oats," he said. Then he tipped the last of his food onto the ground.
"Iosua!" Miss Manaia exclaimed. "Why on Earth did you do that? You're lucky to have that food!"
Iosua glared at the woman. "Every day since I could remember, you's fed us oats for breakfast. I want something else."
Miss Manaia pursed her lips. She put on her glasses and then took them off again. "You have the news on your TV, yes?"
"Yeah, so what?" Iosua grumbled.
"Then you must have seen all those poor people in India, starving in their camps, millions of them. You could be like that."
"This isn't India."
"No, and you have food, you should be grateful for it!" Miss Manaia hmphed.
"How dare you!" Miss Manaia's eyes widened as we watched tupuna fafine throw off her blanket and struggle to her feet. I could hear Iosua laughing.
"Grateful?" tupuna fafine screeched. "More than seventeen years we've been pent up in this cage!"
"Mere, please."
"Do not use my name, woman!" tupuna fafine spat, shuffling nearer. "For seventeen years we've been treated like pigs, penned up in here with nothing to do all day!"
Miss Manaia wrung her hands. "The TV," she stammered. "The netball court..."
"Two channels and half a court!" tupuna fafine was face-to-face with the trembling, white-faced crier.
"You say your job is to get us all out of here? No one's left. I bet none of us ten thousand Tuvaluans have ever left these camps! Even dear, old Pu'a! Prison, not freedom! Do you believe it's your duty to keep children locked up here until they're old and wrinkled like me?!"
Miss Manaia opened her mouth.
"Be quiet when you're being spoken to, Miss Mania! If I have to hear one more word about how this torture is good for us, I'm going t–"
Tupuna fafine collapsed. Iosua stopped laughing. Miss Manaia gasped and stumbled back. People rushed forward. Tamotu yelled at the wardens to call a doctor. The wardens listened this time.
I stood there. I watched people crowd around tupuna fafine as she wheezed on the concrete ground.
A few minutes passed while I watched and a wailing sound got louder and louder. Soon, two people dressed in bright yellow rushed into the camp and knelt next to tupuna fafine. The crowd backed off. They rolled her onto her back, pressed down on her chest, blew into her mouth, they even zapped her a couple times. But when I blinked, they began packing tupuna fafine into a bag and zipped her up. The bag was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled back to their ambulance.
"They said it was a heart attack," Tamotu told me. "They tried everything they could."
I watched Miss Manaia run back to her little car and drive away, eyes red, while Iosua swore and kicked a concrete wall.
***
A week later, a man walked through the gate in the fence. He was tall, with grey hair and a long nose.
"Hello, my name is Mr Rudd. I work for the Climate Refugee Integration Agency, and I'm going to get you all out of here."
"All who?" I asked Mr Rudd.
He looked at me, confused. "All you Tuvaluans."
Lastly, I would like to express my own personal gratitude to everyone who took part in the contest! I think I speak for both the judges and myself when I say we thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the entries and were very impressed by the wide range of thought-provoking interpretations of this year's theme.
Thank you all so much for getting involved; we hope you'll join in again for next year's contest!
.
Terrabod
Culture Minister of Forest
.
I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and publish the August edition of the Voice of Forest at the same time. This issue tells the story of Dame Dr Jane Goodall, the primatologist who became the first (and only) human ever to be accepted into chimpanzee society. Happy reading!
The Voice of Forest - Issue III | August 2021 | She Lived Among the Apes
.
(b. 1934)
Known For:
Expert primatologist
Conservation activism
Animal welfare activism
Selected Awards:
Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
Named UN Messenger of Peace
Numerous international honours
including the French Legion of
Honour and Japan's Kyoto Prize
"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you
want to make."
.
Background
As a young woman, Goodall was interested in African animals; she was able to move to Kenya after finding work as a secretary to Dr Louis Leakey, an eminent archaeologist and palaeontologist. After Leakey obtained the approval of his co-researcher and wife, paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, he laid out his plans to Goodall; he believed that the study of existing great apes could provide clues to the behaviour of early hominids and was looking for a chimpanzee researcher.
Leakey sent Goodall back to Britain to study primate behaviour and anatomy, and in 1960 he acquired the funds to allow Goodall to begin a research project at the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Thus, Goodall became the first of three women, later known as "The Trimates" (or "Leaky's Angels"), chosen by Leaky to study great apes (alongside Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas, and Birutė Galdikas, who studied orangutans). In 1962, Leaky sent Goodall to the University of Cambridge, where she became the eighth person to be allowed to complete a PhD there without first having obtained a BA or BSc degree. Her thesis, which was based on the first five years of her research at Gombe Stream, was completed in 1966 under the supervision of Professor Robert Hinde.
Goodall's research is well known within the scientific community for challenging two long-standing beliefs held at the time: firstly, that only humans had the capacity to construct and use tools; and secondly, that chimpanzees were exclusively herbivores/insectivores. When observing the Kasakela chimpanzee community at Gombe Stream, she noted that some chimpanzees would stick long blades of grass into termite holes, then remove them when covered with termites, effectively "fishing" for the insects. Goodall also discovered that chimpanzees regularly hunt smaller species of primates such as colobus monkeys and share the carcass among the troop. Years of observation led Goodall to identify violence within chimpanzee communities, including the deliberate killing of other females' young by the troop's dominant females in order to maintain their place in the troop hierarchy.
Of course, one of Goodall's most significant feats is her acceptance into chimpanzee society. After many months of long-distance study, the Kasakela chimpanzee community gradually began to adjust to Goodall's presence – rather than fleeing when she was within 500 yards of the group, they allowed her to watch them from a distance of 100 yards. She began the long process of being able to recognise individual troop members and learned the basic behaviour patterns of the group. It was during this stage that Goodall started recording how members of the troop communicated with each other – both through body language and vocalisations. The fear towards her reportedly turned to curiosity, then to defiance at her intrusion. After a year, her arrival was greeted with excitement or indifference. At one watershed moment, a new member of the troop (whom she named "David") took bananas that Goodall brought from her camp and ate them; thereafter, he would accept bananas from Goodall and would sit with her as he ate them. This proved to be Goodall's entry point into the Kasakela troop – David eventually brought other members of the troop to share the bananas, and soon a trio of chimpanzees was stealing pieces of cloth from Goodall's camp! For a period of 22 months, Goodall was the lowest-ranking member of the troop. She would groom and be groomed by other members, and she would communicate with them in a rudimentary fashion by mimicking their calls and gestures.
Goodall credits the 1986 Understanding Chimpanzees conference at the Chicago Academy of Sciences with shifting her focus from chimpanzee observation to a broader interest in conservation. In recent years, Goodall has focused on her writing, which has produced several international bestsellers, a number of educational initiatives and a career as a conservationist. She received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 for her dedicated and ground-breaking research, as well as for her conservation efforts and wider activism.
Activism
Kasakela chimpanzee community. Flint was the first infant born
after Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream (c. 1960).
Regarded as a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, Goodall has founded a number of conservation projects in Africa. These include the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in the Republic of Congo, which cares for orphans of the bushmeat trade, and the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education project, which protects chimpanzee territory around the Gombe Stream through reforestation and the education of local communities on sustainability.
Goodall is also a committed vegetarian; she advocates the diet on the basis that it is ethical, healthy and good for the environment. She is an outspoken proponent of farm animal welfare, criticising industrial farming techniques that she believes are painful, degrading and inhumane as well as extremely harmful to the environment. Her opposition to hunting animals for sport and the use of animals for medical experimentation is also notable, although she has attracted criticism for her views of the latter from scientific experts who contend that ethical animal experimentation is a crucial part of lifesaving research.
To date, Goodall continues to work alongside several conservation and animal welfare organisations, including the Nonhuman Rights Project, Advocates for Animals and Population Matters. She was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2004, and is an honorary member of the World Future Council. In 2020, Goodall vowed to plant five million trees as part of the World Economic Forum's one trillion tree initiative and in February 2021 she, along with over 140 scientists, called on the EU Commission to ban the caging of farm animals. At present, Goodall devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy on behalf of chimpanzees and conservation of the environment, travelling nearly 300 days a year.
Best wishes,
Terrabod
Culture Minister of Forest
Zheng Yi Sao and Bathor
Ha ha, I'm still in NS for now, so things are rather boring I guess.
Ahahah, I see, I see!
Two years of our time, ah? I already played my part. :P I need to do IPPT soon, haha.
Zheng Yi Sao, Singapore no2, and Bathor
Hey guys. Some weeks, or rather month ago, I left real-life Singapore. Back home now. But it was a great time in SG. : )
(My nation will stay here though).
Best regards to all!
Zheng Yi Sao, Singapore no2, Bathor, Baja cali, and 1 otherGarden at 6th Mile Road
Nice seeing you back on the RMB again Tink. :)
Singapore no2, Bathor, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
Hellooo and welcome back! Oh man, it's been so long, hope you have been well!
Zheng Yi Sao, Bathor, and Baja cali
Hello Singaporeans! And thank you all so much for building an embassy with us here in Sunland!
No Worries.
Bathor, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
Hello Singaporean friends!
Forest's seventh annual Photo Contest is beginning, and as has been the case in past years, submissions are open to anyone from our embassy regions. We'd love to see some submissions from y'all! :)
You can find more information here:
Forest Photo Contest 2021
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The seventh iteration of something is about the point at which one starts really feeling like it's been around for a long time. That's especially true of an event in NationStates, a game where few communities last that long, let alone the traditions they start. When then-Culture Minister Frieden-und Freudenland introduced the first Forest Photo Contest in 2015, they wrote of their hope that it "will one day be referred to as an annual tradition." Well, here we are, with not just any annual tradition, but perhaps the most widely-known event in Forest's calendar. So let's keep that tradition running: it's time for the seventh annual Photo Contest! Here's what you need to know: 🌲 We have four categories once again this year:
🌲 You may submit up to 12 photos total. You may choose how to divide those among the different categories, but please do not submit more than 12. 🌲 Please post your photos in the appropriate thread on our forums, located 🌲 The photos must be taken by you, but can be taken at any time (not just during the contest). 🌲 Anyone in Forest or in a region which has an embassy with Forest may submit photographs for the contest. 🌲 Timing: Submissions will be open from December 6 at 20:00 GMT (3:00pm Dec 6 EST) to December 23rd at 23:59 GMT. Voting will begin on December 24th at 23:59 GMT and end December 31st at 23:59 GMT, so that we will select the winners in the first minutes of 2022! 🌲 Voting will take place on a Google Form. Needless to say, please no puppeteering! 🌲 The photographers with the top three photographs in each category will have their photos acknowledged on our RMB, on our World Factbook Entry, and potentially in our next foreign update. A banner will also be created with a collage of the top photos to applaud the winners, and participants in the competition will be encouraged to add it as their nation's custom banner. Forest's flag will also be changed to the 1st place photos in each category for a week after the Contest. Now it's time to head out and start photographing! Good luck to everyone! Any questions about the Contest should be directed to Mount Seymour.
Trees (this category is permanent each year)Micro (close-ups, tiny subjects, and other photos that show things bigger than life-size)Macro (grand landscapes, wide views, and other large subjects - macro in the sense of "big", not "close up", since that's Micro!)Water (photos that display water in any of its forms)here. You may also submit photos via a link to an image hosting site in a telegram to Mount Seymour.
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Happy photographing!
Zheng Yi Sao, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
Happy 2022, everyone Hope you all have been doing well and great! Please do take care of yourselves! ♥
Vintage Teenagers, Zheng Yi Sao, Bathor, and Baja cali
Sorry for my absence. I went home to spend the Holidays with my family and unfortunately had no net access. Happy New Year to one and all.
Vintage Teenagers, Bathor, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
Peeks in
Oh this really does work. I was backreading board posts and saw that we could post here
Hello!
Happy CNY folks!
Vintage Teenagers, Zheng Yi Sao, Baja cali, and Garden at 6th Mile Road
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