It was an especially beautiful morning on June 16, when at least 15 people participated in a direct action on the San Francisco Peaks that temporarily halted construction of a pipeline on the mountain. Six mostly indigenous youth were arrested during the coordinated action and another was cited for third degree trespassing and released.

On December 1, 2010, Federal Judge Mary Murguia ruled in favor of Arizona Snowbowl Limited Partnership, approving the construction of a 14.8-mile reclaimed wastewater pipeline from Flagstaff to the ski resort, among other developments. The water is to be used at Snowbowl to make artificial snow. While many ski resorts around the world use a percentage of reclaimed wastewater to make snow, many who oppose the plan regard it as an “experiment,” as the resort would be the only one in the world that would use a 100% mixture of wastewater in this way. Prompted by concerns from the scientific community and others who assert the likelihood of health risks associated with the use of reclaimed wastewater, the Environmental Protection Agency is currently conducting a national multi-year study of the water to be completed in 2013.

The case itself, brought on by the Save the Peaks Coalition and nine concerned citizens, is currently under appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Those who engaged in the demonstration are not members of the coalition, nor are they involved in the ongoing lawsuit. The Hopi Tribe has filed their own separate lawsuit citing a first amendment violation of their religious freedoms in association with further development.

The San Francisco Peaks are held sacred to at least 13 regional Native American tribes and the impact of construction has been emotional. A prayer gathering was held at the base of the San Francisco Peaks a few days after construction began. Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly addressed the crowd, “We’ve got to stop the construction.” Kelvin Long, director of ECHOES stated, “We’re going to protect our mountain, we’re not going to allow snowmaking to happen.” Steve Darden of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and former Flagstaff City Council member added a specific message to youth. “In our Hogans and sweat lodges we are offering our prayers, we’re relying on you young ones to step up.”

And so they did.

On the morning of the action, as the full moon faded and the sun rose, two demonstrators chained themselves to the wheel well of a large excavator while two pairs of women sat back-to-back deep inside the six-foot-trench, bound to each other by the neck with U-locks. The action occurred a few miles up Snowbowl Road where construction had been in progress since May 25.

The first to respond to the scene was Snowbowl. The security vehicle, a blue Mercedes, screamed up and down Snowbowl Road apparently trying to locate those involved in the action. By 6 AM more than 15 armed agents arrived on the scene, as well as the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department, City of Flagstaff Police, and the FBI.

At the same time a group of at least eight demonstrators gathered at the bottom of Snowbowl road, blocking access. Five demonstrators wore white hazmat suites in a symbolic “quarantine” of the resort, stretching banners across the road that read, “Protect Sacred Sites” and “Danger! Health Hazard – Snowbowl.” Caution tape was stretched across the width of the road along with other objects, forming a makeshift blockade.

The demonstrators engaged in a multi-varied approach to what is very much considered a multi-layered issue. The complexity of the controversy was illustrated in the diversity of demonstrator’s chants, echoing from the base of the mountain, from those locked to construction equipment, and from voices deep from within the trenches. “Protect Sacred Sites, Defend Human Rights!” “No desecration for recreation!” “Stop the cultural genocide! Protect the Peaks!” “Human health over corporate wealth!” “Dook’o’osliid, we’ve got your back!”

One of the women in the trench, bound to another by the neck described some of the conversation that took place as the police concentrated their efforts on the men chained to the excavator. One said to the other, “Don’t you feel kinda small in this deep trench?” To which one of the women paused, then responded, “Not when I’m doing big things.”

By 7:30, assisted by county Sheriffs, the Flagstaff Fire Department began aggressively cutting demonstrators from their various lockdown devices. “The police’s use of excessive force was in complete disregard for my safety. They pulled at my arms and forced my body and head further into the machine, all the while using heavy duty power saws within inches of my hand,” said Evan Hawbaker, one of the demonstrators chained to the excavator.

Rather than negotiate, as the demonstrators were cut, it was clear that the police and fireman preferred to use scare tactics. “We don’t want to cut your arm off,” repeated one of the fireman several times to which Hawbaker finally responded, “I don’t want you to cut my arm off either.” Hawbaker said the fireman looked dead serious when he said, “well, we will if we have to.”

Hawbaker and Kristopher Barney were chained to the same excavator. The device that bound them to the machine is referred to as a “lock box.” Both arms go through a PVC pipe and from the outside, that’s all anybody can see. Inside, however, their hands gripped a metal rod; a chain around their wrists was also connected to the rod with a strong karabiner. There are many variations of this lockbox, which is commonly seen in nonviolent direct actions around the world.

Hawbaker said after holding on to the rod for a while that his hand became numb. The firefighters used a Sawzall to cut the PVC pipe lengthwise. When the blade hit the metal rod, it rattled the chain violently and Hawbaker described the warm feeling that trickled down his arm. “I thought it was blood; I thought they cut my fingers, “ he said. Those who cut us out endangered our well being ignoring the screams to stop. They treated our bodies the way they’re treating this holy mountain.”

“I’ve done this quite a bit and never have I feared for my safety like this before,” said Nadia Del Callejo, one of the women locked down in the trench. “The whole thing was disorganized and dangerous. There was no communication.”

One of the underage women in the trench described an action taken in which one police officer would attempt to stand them up while another officer moved the other demonstrator another way. Because U-locks bound the women by the neck, they were choked. “Nobody even bothered to ask what it would take to get us out voluntarily. Finally they just started hurting us,” said Ms. Del Callejo. “I’m here to protect the mountain, I said, and you’re hurting me. You’re choking me.” The police responded in a way that did not sugar coat their lack of experience in dealing with nonviolent demonstrators. “That’s your own fault.”

“Our safety was prioritized second to Snowbowl’s demands. I was not aggressive. My lock was sawed through, inches away from both of our heads, secured solely and recklessly by the hands of a deputy. During the process, we were repeatedly asked to chant to reaffirm our consciousness. The police’s response was hasty, taking about ten minutes in total—it was dehumanizing,” said Hailey Sherwood, one of the last demonstrators to be cut out.

One at a time, as demonstrators were removed from their locking devices, they were treated by paramedics, and arrested for trespassing. Those two demonstrators that were bound to minors were also charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” and another charged for “endangerment.”

On the Monday after the lockdown, the Arizona Daily Sun published an editorial reaction entitled, “Monkey-wrenchers Marginalize Cause of Native America.” Besides the fact that the term, “monkeywrenching,” is entirely misrepresented in the editorial, as it is well documented that demonstrators took great care not to damage any machinery, the editorial itself reads more like an attempt by the paper to, in fact, marginalize the history of social and environmental movements.

The editorial explained that demonstrators’ comparison of their actions to Rosa Parks is a false analogy on the grounds that when Ms. Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, segregation was already illegal. Said the editorial, “civil rights activists were seeking to uphold the law.” Here it sounds like the writers of the editorial would not have found the actions of Ms. Park to be meaningful, courageous, or ethically sound if she had acted before segregation laws existed. It would be a curious task for the writers to name one social movement in the history of the world that did not result in illegal actions and arrests. “Throughout history, acts of resistance and civil disobedience have been taken by young and old against injustices such as this. This action is not isolated but part of a continued resistance to human rights violations, to colonialism, to corporate greed, and destruction of Mother Earth,” added Del Callejo.

The editorial goes on, “The Snowbowl protesters are focusing on a religious dispute and don’t have the law on their side.” If the last 40 years of lawsuits have revealed anything, it should be clear that confronting a Eurocentric court system that is structurally incapable of making connections between environmental and human rights concerns has been a challenge for native people since the controversy started. If the Daily Sun thinks the only issue here is “a religious dispute” that has nothing to do with the environmental integrity of the mountain and is not connected to the cultural survival of our native neighbors, they have truly exposed how out of touch they are on this issue. “The Holy San Francisco Peaks is home, tradition, culture, and a sanctuary to me, and all this is being desecrated by the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort,” said one of the underage demonstrators.

And this ill informed paragraph in the Daily Sun concludes. “It’s no wonder the public in general has failed to rally to their cause.” As much as it is clear that the authors of the editorial would prefer that those against further development and desecration on the San Francisco Peaks are part of some lunatic minority fringe group, it is simply not true. Even in the city council meetings related to choosing a water source for Snowbowl last summer, at least ¾ of those hundreds of people in attendance submitted pubic comments in opposition to development, most of which urged the council to cancel the water contract with Snowbowl all together. On the day of the demonstrations, furthermore, if the community did not support the actions of those arrested on June 16, they would still be in jail.

One of the demonstrators who temporarily blocked access to Snowbowl Road that morning reflected on the severity of a jail bond neither he nor anyone he knew could afford. “Oh man, I thought, Ned’s going to jail and I don’t have any money and I don’t know any body that has any money.” Within an hour of sending out a few simple text messages, they raised over $3,000, which was more than enough to pay for all six to be released. And the donations poured in the rest of the day. The extra money was given back, and the money used was paid back.

Also, a Facebook page, originally set up to let people know what was going on with the arrests, became a forum for support. It got over 300 members in less than 24 hours.

Furthermore, early in the morning of the demonstrations, as soon as word got out on KNAU about what was happening, folks from all over Flagstaff came by and offered their support. One demonstrator remarked, “One woman came by with her daughter. She gave us all a bunch of Gatorade and offered to cook us all meals if it went on throughout the day. Many other folks grabbed signs and joined in the rally at the bottom of the mountain.” Furthermore, activists began to call from all over the country, as far away as Hawaii. Specifically, a group from New Mexico said they were on their way to Flagstaff. Inspired by the demonstrations; they wanted to help.

“How can we be trespassers on our Holy Site?” questioned Barney. “I do not agree with these and the other charges; we will continue our resistance.”

For more updates visit Indigenousaction.org.
And here is a direct link to more pictures. I took a lot more photos that aren’t online, so let me know if you would like them for any reason.

*PRESS RELEASE*
On Saturday April 16th, more than 150 people rallied outside of Flagstaff City Hall and held a march for protection of the holy San Francisco Peaks.

The protest was called to address the imminent threat of environmental and cultural destruction by owners of the Arizona Snowbowl Ski resort.

On April 1st the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency motion by the Save the Peaks Coalition to stop Snowbowl ski area and the U.S. Department of Agriculture from cutting down thousands of trees on the San Francisco Peaks, outside of Flagstaff, Arizona.

With no injunction in place bulldozers could be moving any day. The Save the Peaks Coalition estimates approximately 30,000 trees, including old growth, are threatened to be clear-cut.

At Saturday’s protest a cardboard bulldozer with a toilet bowl on top, Forest Service and City of Flagstaff logos, attempted to run down young people holding signs painted like trees. The theatrical bulldozer was stopped by a group in bio-hazard suits who linked arms and chanted, “Protect the Peaks!”

At about 4:00 p.m. the protest shifted to a march and headed into downtown Flagstaff. When the march reached San Francisco street, someone yelled, “Save the San Francisco Peaks, Take the Streets!” and the crowd flooded the road. The crowd later returned to City Hall and rallied with speakers calling for further action to protect the Peaks.

At the end of the rally the American Indian Movement song was sung in support of a direct action occupation currently stopping desecration of a sacred burial site in Glen Cove, California near the Bay Area.

The demonstration was held during the City of Flagstaff’s Earth Day event to draw attention to their role in the development.

Since 1997 Arizona Snowbowl has been attempting to expand current
development on the San Francisco Peaks by clearcutting 74 acres of rare alpine habitat that is home to threatened species, making new runs and lifts, adding more parking lots and building a 14.8 mile buried pipeline to transport up to 180 million gallons (per season) of wastewater to make artificial snow on 205 acres. And since 1997 there has been such fierce community resistance to expansion plans that Snowbowl has been held off until now.

The slopes of the Peaks are central to the ways of life of more than 13
Indigenous Nations. For 5 decades development on the Holy Mountain has been consistently resisted through litigation, direct action and prayer.

In 2002, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, with no real
public process, quietly decided to allow wastewater to be used for
snowmaking purposes. Later that year the Flagstaff Mayor and City Council signed a contract to allow the sale of sewage effluent for snowmaking on the holy mountain. The contract has since been renewed administratively, behind closed doors without any public input.

The sewage effluent has been proven by biologists to contain harmful contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and hormones, yet the Forest Service didn’t consider what the impacts would be if anyone were to consume the fake snow. This point is the basis of the Save the Peaks Coalition’s current lawsuit which is currently appealing a negative District Court decision.

Snowbowl would be the only ski area in the world that would be using 100% wastewater for snowmaking purposes.

In 2010 Flagstaff City Manager Kevin Burke revealed a plan, secretly
negotiated with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), for use of
Flagstaff’s drinking water instead of the sewage effluent. Snowbowl was offered 11 million tax payer’s dollars to subsidize the increased costs of using potable water. Stating that the US government believed drinking water snowmaking to be “less offensive” to Indigenous Nations the plan was pushed, although no consultation with Indigenous Nations had previously occurred.

Needless to say, the Tribes were in consensus in opposing the proposal. More than 700 people, including official Indigenous representatives, showed up to a City Council meeting for consideration of the sale. The majority stated opposition to the plan.

Although the decision by the USDA to subsidize drinking water as a “less offensive” option for snowmaking appeared to be an admission that the wastewater plan was a bad idea, the USDA continues to aggressively battle the Save the Peaks Coalition in court.

Early this year the USDA began listening sessions to hear Indigenous Peoples concerns on the of sacred places. The sessions were initiated, in part, due to the Peaks controversy.

The USDA currently has the power to revoke the Special Use Permit for Arizona Snowbowl for greater public interest.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Contact Flagstaff City Officials and urge them to RESPECT the environment, Indigenous culture, and protect public health by finding a way out of their contract to sell Snowbowl wastewater!
PHONE: (928) 779-7600
EMAIL: council@flagstaffaz.gov

Contact Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and express concern that there was no meaningful public process when the agency approved wastewater for snowmaking. File a complaint and demand full public review!

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
1110 West Washington Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
(800) 234-5677 – Toll Free

Northern Regional Office
1801 West Route 66, Suite 117
Flagstaff, Arizona 86001
(877) 602-3675 – Toll Free

www.azdeq.gov/function/compliance/complaint.html

Contact the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which heads the Forest Service, and urge them to revoke the Special Use Permit for Arizona Snowbowl for greater public interest.
The USDA has been holding hearings on protection of sacred places due to the Peaks controversy. Urge the USDA to immediately place an administrative hold on all development on the San Francisco Peaks!

Tom Vilsack
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Ave., S.W.
Washington, DC 20250

Phone: 202-720-3631

Email: TribalSacredSites@fs.fed.us

For Additional Information:
www.fs.fed.us/spf/tribalrelations/sacredsites.shtml

Send Letters to the Editor of your local papers.
Arizona Daily Sun: rwilson@azdailysun.com

On Sunday afternoon, the Save The Peaks Coalition rallied in front of City Hall in reaction to the Supreme Courts refusal to hear the case. The turn out was great, and there was a lot of support from vehicles passing by. (If you’re unfamiliar with this, the bottom half of this article provides a background, but you should really just go here)

I can only remember one car sitting at the light adjacent to where we were, a group of guys shouting, “Snow making! Snow making! Snow making!” Some really negative and racist comments were directed specifically toward the indigenous population. Klee handled it really well, holding up a sign with an arrow pointing to the automobile. The sign said, “this is what racism looks like.”

Beyond the more obvious racism inherent in bumper stickers like, “Reclaim the Peaks,” (a reference to the sewer water they want to pump up the mountain to make snow, as well as the irony of “reclaiming” land that was flat-out stolen and labeled federal land), this issue has really illuminated deep racial divisions of Flagstaff.

Klee introducing Howard Shanker (who lost the election in November to Ann Kirkpatrick for this districts seat in Congress. Shanker was very supportive of the Save the Peaks coalition)

Attorney Howard Shanker speaking about the legalities of the case

Fourteen regional tribes and scores of local environmental groups have been fighting this issue for decades. Desecrating the Peaks is in direct violation of the Religious Freedom Act. I can’t even begin to explain the emotional impact that all this has on people whose religious and spiritual identity is directly connected to the Peaks. I go to these rallies and I talk with people in town. They have tears in their eyes; they shake when they speak personally about their connection with that mountain. And it’s not always indigenous people, either. I’ve cried over this mountain. My dad has said that his heart lies in the San Francisco Peaks. But I won’t pretend to have the same sort of connection that regional Native peoples do. Everyone who is in love with that mountain, not because of it’s potential for profit and recreation, is hated and vilified by those that just come here to ski.

If the decision went the other way around and the mountain was protected (not shut out to the community, but just left alone and respected for what it is rather than what it could be), do you think any skiers would sob and mourn the loss? Hell no. Most of the skiers don’t even live here. Those that own Snowbowl don’t even live in Arizona. And it wouldn’t be a loss to skiers any way. There are a million places to ski in this country. Leave this mountain alone.

Flagstaff is a 30% second home community; most of its out-of-town residents live in Phoenix; most of the people that ski the mountain are from Phoenix. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out whom the city is catering towards by selling wastewater to Snowbowl. The city caters to visitors over the people that actually live here…and certainly over those that have lived here longer than Flagstaff itself has existed.

Here is more proof. Where did they most recently repave the roads? Downtown. Where do the roads really need to be repaved? Our neighborhoods. They didn’t even bother to repave the southside of San Francisco. Now that street needs it. But they know the tourists and Phoenicians don’t cross the tracks, so why bother?

Klee holds up a bottle of reclaimed water, asking someone to bring it to the next city council meeting and challenge one of them to drink it since they apparently believe it is safe

…and, of course, speaking your mind in Flagstaff would not be complete without a watchful eye looming in the distance.

I have so much more to say about all this. It will have to wait until another time.

This is so fantastic, I’m copying and pasting the whole damn Salt Lake Tribune article. Tim DeCristopher did more in one afternoon than any of us could do with petitions, protests, letter writing, or tree sits.
….

He didn’t pour sugar into a bulldozer’s gas tank. He didn’t spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder’s paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won’t be opened to drilling anytime soon.

Tim DeChristopher, 27, faces possible federal charges after winning bids totaling about $1.8 million on more than 10 lease parcels that he admits he has neither the intention nor the money to buy — and he’s not sorry.

“I decided I could be much more effective by an act of civil disobedience,” he said during an impromptu streetside news conference during an afternoon blizzard. “There comes a time to take a stand.”

The Sugar House resident — questioned and released after disrupting a U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease auction of 149,000 acres of public land in scenic southern and eastern Utah — said he came to the BLM’s state office in Salt Lake City to join about 200 other activists in a peaceful protest outside the building Friday morning. But then he registered with the BLM as representing himself and went to the auction room.

There, he thought about the times he has marched, fired off letters to his congressmen, signed petitions and supported environmental organizations — all to no avail.
“What the environmental movement has been doing for the past 20 years hasn’t worked,” DeChristopher said. “It’s time for a conflict. There’s a lot at stake.”

Plainclothes Salt Lake City police officers were in the room during the auction, the last to be held under the Bush administration. BLM spokeswoman Mary Wilson said the agency requested law-enforcement help due to perceived threats over the hotly disputed sale.

Another man also was detained and questioned about the possibility that he and DeChristopher had committed federal offenses by trying to impede the bidding process, BLM officials said. That man registered as Kent Boardman, of Salt Lake City,
Since the Election Day announcement of the lease sale, preservationists, conservationists, archaeologists, business owners, river runners, anglers and hunters have registered objections to the BLM’s plans to allow drilling in some of Utah’s most scenic redrock desert.

They challenged proposed leases near Arches National Park, the White River, the greater Desolation Canyon region, Labyrinth Canyon, the benches east of Canyonlands National Park, Nine Mile Canyon, the Book Cliffs and the Deep Creek Mountains.

Objections also have come from the National Park Service, members of Congress and John Podesta, the head of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, who said the lease sale should be halted or altered to accommodate environmental concerns.

In the face of the outrage, the BLM pulled back from its original proposal to lease 360,000 acres. Friday’s sale included 149,000 acres in Carbon, Duchesne, Emery, Garfield, Grand and San Juan counties. The BLM said it sold 116 of 131 parcels (including DeChristopher’s bids) for a total of $7.5 million.

Kathleen Sgamma, director of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, said it was unusual to see a lease list trimmed so drastically. “The BLM was under a lot of pressure, unfairly,” she said.

The auction had been under way for a couple of hours when energy company representatives became suspicious of a man wearing an old red down parka after he won bids on more than 10 parcels numbered consecutively, all around Arches and Canyonlands.

They told BLM officials that the man, brandishing bidding paddle No. 70 and unknown to the regular buyers, also seemed to be bidding up on parcels, raising prices on leases that others eventually won.

The auctioneer took a break and police asked the man, later identified as DeChristopher, to leave the room. After questioning him for more than an hour behind closed doors, BLM and law-enforcement officials requested assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The federal attorneys’ spokeswoman, Melodie Rydalch, confirmed the office was conducting an investigation, but declined to provide more details.

During the confusion that followed DeChristopher’s removal, Sgamma said she had seen Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance attorney David Garbett “communicating” with DeChristopher during the auction. She questioned whether SUWA had been acting in concert with the man the BLM dubbed a “nuisance bidder.”

Garbett, however, said he gave DeChristopher his business card and asked him to call SUWA after the holidays because he had won parcels included in a federal lawsuit SUWA had filed against the lease sale.

After the auction, Kent Hoffman, the BLM’s state deputy director for lands and minerals, announced there had been a bogus bidder. But the false bidder was “on the hook to pay,” Hoffman said.

“Good,” said a woman in the auction room. “Make them pay.”

Hoffman said successful bidders who believed their offers had been run up illegally due could withdraw their bids.

BLM official Terry Catlin said the agency didn’t want to reopen the bidding on the parcels DeChristopher snagged unless all interested parties were able to compete for the leases. That means the parcels won’t be available again until at least February — after Obama takes office — during the next scheduled auction.

DeChristopher, who acknowledged upping other bids by about $500,000, said he would be willing to go to jail to defend his generation’s prospects in light of global climate disruption and other environmental threats.

“If that’s what it takes,” he said.

It’s December for The Noise. My contribution this month is an interview with executive director of Ride For the Trees, Sam Hagler.

During his time as a Peace Corp. volunteer in Paraguay, former Flagstaff resident Sam Hagler became intimately acquainted with some of the most breathtaking and bio-diverse regions of the world. Sam fell in love with The San Rafael Reserve, which represents some of the last wild rainforest in all of Paraguay. Like much of the remaining wilderness areas in the world, the San Rafael Reserve is being sold out to those profiting off the destruction of the world.

KB: A 10,000-mile bike ride throughout South America is more bike riding than most people will do in their entire life. You really must like riding your bike, huh?

SH: For some reason, even after knocking out my two front teeth in a bicycle crash at the age of 3, I have always loved being on two wheels. As a boy I spent my afternoons on a Dyno, then in high school I started racing a Gary Fisher mountain bike. I did my first self-supported bicycle tour across the U.S. for multiple sclerosis with a friend when I was 18.

KB: What are you hoping to accomplish with this trip?

SH: I’m hoping to accomplish a lot. I’m not hoping to save the world, but I am hoping to become a small part of a larger movement to live differently and consume less. Environmentally, the mission is to advocate protection for endangered forests worldwide, and to raise funds to support conservation efforts in Paraguay’s San Rafael Reserve. The fundraising goal is $100,000, or $10 per mile. One hundred percent of funds raised will support environmental projects by Guyra and Procosara, two organizations I worked with in Paraguay when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. I also hope to promote bicycles as a healthy and environmentally friendly form of transportation.

If it’s possible to bike 10,000 miles through 13 countries, then certainly a few more of us could ride down the street to the store from time to time. I also hope to promote understanding between countries throughout Latin America, and especially indigenous people, who I think are mistakenly viewed as nothing more than savages by many people in our culture.

KB: Why is Paraguay’s San Rafael Reserve particularly meaningful to you?

SH: This 70,000 hectares of sub-tropical forest is particularly meaningful to me because I used to live near it and work in it as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have smelled the monkeys in the orange trees overhead, met the red and black haired Mbya Guarani indigenous people, and heard the metallic call of a Paraguayan parrot echo through the jungle. I got to experience the last 7% of Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest, which was named one of 34 “Biodiversity Hotspots” by Conservation International. Shared by Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, Biodiversity Hotspots cover just over 1% of Earth’s surface, but are home to 60% of all known species. What’s worse, in order to be called a Biodiversity Hotspot, the area must have lost at least 70% of it’s original habitat. Paraguay has lost 93% of its Atlantic Forest.

KB: What is the biggest threat to the survival of Paraguay’s San Rafael Reserve?

SB: The biggest threat to the San Rafael Reserve is illegal logging. Fires also pose a threat, as they are not a natural part of the ecosystem in the subtropical forest. In my opinion the biggest hope for saving the San Rafael Reserve lies in the conversion of the land from “private reserve” to “national park.” Paraguay has a few national parks and they are relatively well protected. This would require the Paraguayan government to compensate private landowners by buying the land from them. This may never happen, or it may happen next week. The fact is, somebody needs to buy the land because right now it is privately owned in parcels by about 50 individuals. Many of the individuals are uninterested in the protection of the San Rafael reserve, and so they allow or carry out illegal deforestation.

KB: How will the money you raise be used?

SH: The land protected by the Paraguayan Conservation Alliance, including Guyra and Procosara, is less threatened than land owned by individuals; most deforestation occurs on individuals’ private land. This is why 50% of money raised by Ride for the Trees will be used to purchase land as part of the Paraguayan Conservation Alliance’s Land Trust project through Guyra. But currently, as long as most of the land is owned privately by individuals, the next best option is to further develop the forest guard program and continue environmental education in the area, which is what the other 50% of the money will be used to do through Procosara.

KB: What are you most worried about?

SH: I am most worried about getting robbed. The chances of getting robbed are quite high on a trip like this, so I’m going prepared. No, I didn’t buy a gun. I bought insurance. I also have a slight fear of being attacked by a jaguar or getting kidnapped, but I hope that’s like having a fear of being struck by lightening.

KB: I think the jaguar will be on your side. You are, after all, helping to save their home. Why do you think more people aren’t more driven to defend the places they love?

SH: I think people are actually quite eager to defend the places they love. It’s just that many people love restaurants and malls more than Muir Woods or Yellowstone. I remember when the city almost kicked Hooters out of my Phoenix neighborhood a few years ago. It was inspiring how the Hooters supporters rallied together to keep the restaurant and it’s delicious wings within driving distance of our homes.

KB: Not to mention the sexism it promotes. How can people be so willing to defend Hooters while the needs of the natural world, the real world, are ignored?

SH: The problem is forests have been around much longer than Hooters. We take naturally beautiful places for granted because we have always had them. There is also the idea that humans are the most important species on Earth and can survive without the others. Second, money and a production-driven society that favors big business, marketing, and advertising, shift the public’s focus away from the places they love. How many people would give something up for a forest? There is also a fear of judgment by people who disagree and denial by people who value ignorant happiness over grim reality.

KB: To do a trip like this, you have to rely on the kindness of strangers. At the same time, you are a white guy from a country whose politics and economy hasn’t exactly been kind to most of the countries you’re visiting. Are you confidant that people will greet you with open arms along the road?

SH: The people I met in Paraguay were some of the most generous people I’ve ever met. The experience only supported what I have always heard, that Latin culture as a whole is warm and inviting. It’s true, I am hoping for permission to camp on farms, drink tea, and eat meals with families, and even stay in their homes. I don’t think I’ll be let down, but I am prepared for the days when I will be alone. I will travel with a tent, sleeping bag and pad, stove and food, etc. I am sure I will come across some hostility as well. I might be accused of being a spy, a communist, or a friend of George W, but I think most people will be appreciative that I left my home and, out of all the places in the world, ended up in theirs. I hope they understand how thankful I am.