Center for Biological Diversity

Protecting endangered species and wild places of western North America
and the Pacific through science, policy, education, and environmental law.

For immediate release
contact: Sonya Diehn, Center for Biological Diversity, 520.623.5252 x300

TUCSON GREEN GROUPS UNITE FOR EARTHWAKE

Rally around local and national environmental issues puts hope into grassroots activism

The Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) is touring various cities in the US to bring light to the Bush assault on the environment. The Center for Biological Diversity is co-sponsoring this event as they stop in Tucson this Friday.

11:30 am: concerned citizens will meet at the corner of 4th Ave. and Congress/Toole (train station parking lot)
12:00 noon: funeral procession to the federal building, 300 W. Congress
12:30 pm: rally/press conference for environmental protection, eulogies from local environmentalists
We will place our own personal messages to the White House into a casket which will tour several other cities and be delivered to the White House in Washington, DC on Earth Day.

The Center for Biological Diversity is one of many local environmental groups that is deeply concerned about the environmental impacts of the Bush administration, which in addition to recent rollbacks such as lowering the arsenic standard and suspending the roadless rule, also presents threats to the environment more locally in the form of off-road vehicle policies, border militarization, public lands grazing policies, impacts on endangered species in the Southwest, and removing protection for federal lands with Monument or Park designation in Arizona.


"Bush's Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has asked Governor Hull what 'multiple uses' she envisions for National Monuments and other protected federal lands in Arizona. This from an Interior Secretary who has stated she believes in 'polluter's rights!' Norton has made a blatant bid for federal/state collaboration to undue conservation on public lands in Arizona. In a similar move, Hull is now pushing for state veto power over County and citizen-initiated conservation measures. This has become a government of and for special interests! The time has come for Arizona environmentalists to unite and put forth a strong green front, in order to preserve wilderness and wildlife habitat, biological diversity, and clean air and water for all," says Sonya Diehn, spokesperson for the Center for Biological Diversity.


The event begins with a solemn funeral procession down Congress Street. Mourners for the environment will walk in a solemn procession alongside a hearse to the Federal Building. There, speakers on issues from environmental justice to endangered species will eulogize George W. Bush's killing of the earth, linking local and national struggles and advancing the need to forge new alliances. Speakers will commence at 12:30 pm. The event should end around 1 pm.


Speakers, in order of appearance:
Susan Ash, Oregon Natural Resource Council
Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity
Carolyn Campbell, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection
Rose Augustine, Tucsonans for a Clean Environment
Tim Lengerich, Coronado Cougar
Raul Grijalva, Pima County Board of Supervisors
Al Decker, Earth First! Journal*
Jimbo Watson, AFL-CIO*
Randy Serraglio, Southwest Alliance to Resist Militarization/SOA Watch SW*
Scotty Johnson, Defenders of Wildlife
* = speakers not confirmed as of 4/4/01

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