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Media kit long article

CYBER JUKEBOX BENEFIT FOR RAINFORESTS

THE RAINFORESTS

The rainforests are the womb of life. They are home to half of the world's ten million species of plants and animals. They are also home to indigenous peoples who are the only humans who have shown the ability to live sustainably with these forests. Their ancient knowledge of the forests is being lost as the trees fall. Authorities estimate that more than a million species will become extinct in the next 20 years - an average of perhaps 200 species each day. Such a spasm of extinctions is unprecedented in the whole history of evolution. More species will disappear in the next 20 years than in the past million years.

Satellite photos show that unless we stem the relentless tide of destruction, less than a single human lifetime remains before we will see the utter annihilation of the rainforests - except for those areas that we manage to protect in the meantime. We are the last human generation to be able to do anything about this - an awesome responsibility. People all around the world must now work together to try and protect the rainforests and other life-support systems of the living Earth.

As British scientist James Lovelock pointed out, what we're doing to the rainforests is as if the brain were to decide that it was the most important organ in the body and started mining the liver! In other words, unless we come to understand and appreciate the essential interdependence that we humans have with the rainforests and other natural systems, we will destroy ourselves as fast as the misguided brain in Lovelock's example.

Without the rainforests, our future would be impoverished beyond our ability to imagine. They are the primal source of many of the foods, medicines and industrial products that we use now and into the future. To honor our ancestors and make way for future generations, we must protect them in any way we can.

Volunteers from the Rainforest Information Centre (also known as RIC) have been working for 20 years to defend rainforests in many parts of the world. RIC projects are described on their web site: www.rainforestinfo.org.au where you can also find the latest breaking news about rainforests plus action alerts.

Most of RIC's work these days is taking place in Ecuador where RIC volunteers have been active since 1987. In partnership with their indigenous allies, they have protected more than 1.5 million hectares of rainforests. Many RIC volunteers nowadays are "cyber-volunteers" and anyone who would like to contribute via the internet (research, networking, web development, translation etc.) is invited to write to RIC at rainforestinfo@ozemail.com.au

THE JUKEBOX

RIC's latest fundraiser for Ecuador rainforests is a jukebox on the internet. A wide range of Australian artists have donated their CD's and tapes to the jukebox which streams 40 music tracks that you can listen to for free. Funds from the sale of these recordings go to rainforest conservation projects in Ecuador. You can visit the jukebox at www.rainforestjukebox.org

There are about a dozen CD's and tapes on the Rainforest Jukebox. The feature album is a 3-CD compilation called "Where2Now?" which includes 51 tracks from some of Australia's best and most famous artists."Where2Now?" is available from the site for the low price of US$16 plus shipping.

The jukebox includes CD's from some of Australia's most creative and passionate environmental musicians. These musicians have been empowering, harmonising and funding the Australian environmental movement since 1979. There's also a number of great aboriginal artists and bands on the jukebox.

EVERY CLICK COUNTS

Every CD sold from the jukebox helps the benefit. However people don't need to buy anything from the site to help the rainforests. RIC has sponsors who make a donation to the rainforest for each person who visits the jukebox. Each visitor to the site results in a sponsor donating enough money to buy 2 square feet of rainforest to build up corridors where the monkeys and other creatures can roam freely between existing reserves in Ecuador.

RIC encourages those of you readers who are wired to the internet to make www.rainforestjukebox.org the homepage on your browser so that this is the site that opens every time you launch Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. If you want to learn how to do this or other ways to help the rainforest, visit www.rainforestjukebox.org/what_you_can_do.html

THE PROJECTS

As well as supporting aboriginal issues such as the campaign by the Mirrar people to close the uranium mine at Jabiluka in Australia's Northern Territory (which threatens not only their sacred sites and autonomy, but also endangers the World Heritage Kakadu National Park), funds raised by the Rainforest Jukebox go to the following rainforest conservation projects in Ecuador:

1. The PANACOCHA Lagoon is at the heart of the 56,000 hectare Panacocha Reserve in the Ecuadorean headwaters of the mighty Amazon River. In this lagoon we find the endangered Amazon River Dolphin and the surrounding forests echo with the cries of 9 species of monkeys, 400 species of birds, jaguars, ocelots and so much more. The Rainforest Information Centre and their partners were instrumental in Panacocha receiving Reserve status in 1994. Volunteers have also successfully protected the pink river dolphins which were being hunted just to use their teeth as jewelry; Fortunately the dolphins have gradually started recovering. Now RIC is working to stop the oil industry, poaching and illegal colonisation. See www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/panaprop.htm

2. In 1990, RIC and their Ecuadorian partners established the LOS CEDROS BIOLOGICAL RESERVE in western Ecuador with the help of funding from the Australian government Aid agency. This 6,000 Ha. reserve provides habitat for monkeys, bears, armadillos, pumas and jaguars which are now being studied by scientists from around the world. Most significantly, Los Cedros is strategically situated to halt the colonization, poaching and illegal logging that undermine the Cotocachi-Cayapas National Park. The 200,000 Ha. Cotocachi-Cayapas National Park contains the most diverse forest on Earth and represents the crown of the biota of western Ecuador. See www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/ecuador.htm

3. PERMACULTURE AND SEED-SAVING IN ECUADOR. Unsustainable agriculture is one of the main engines driving the slash and burn destruction of the South American rainforest. Poor landless people, displaced from their more fertile homelands are forced to clear and burn the rainforest to grow their crops. But after just a few years the residual fertility is leached from the shallow soil and the people have to cut and burn another piece of jungle leaving nothing but desert behind them. Permaculture teaches them how to grow food while maintaining fertility on their land. Four Australian volunteers from RIC are in Ecuador right now working on food security in the bufferzones of the rainforest - planting organic orchards, teaching permaculture and seed-saving, setting up eco-cities and creating sustainable solutions. See www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/Anja/

4. SPONSOR AN ACRE. RIC's British partners "Rainforest Concern" have a "Sponsor-an-acre" program which is raising money to buy back critical rainforest habitat to create wildlife corridors between existing reserves in an area that has been acclaimed as a world biodiversity "hotspot". Corridors are particularly important as they allow migration of animal and plant species from one area to another and help to maintain viable populations. Rainforest Concern has already raised enough money to buy half the land needed to create such a corridor between the two largest reserves in western Ecuador - the Cotocachi-Cayapas National Park and the Awa Tribal Reserve. This will help protect an amazingly high number of endangered plants and animal species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Each $80 raised by the jukebox for this project protects a hectare of this special rainforest. Lots of schools in England and elsewhere have already organised fundraisers to buy land to add to this corridor. See www.rainforestjukebox.org/rfconcern.html

CAN MUSIC SAVE THE RAINFORESTS?

John Seed, director of the Rain forest Centre says:

"Even though news of the plight of the rain forests and endangered species is now receiving media coverage in newspapers, magazines and television, still something more is needed to awaken people's hearts. I believe that music has the passion to reach people at a more profound and sincere level of their being."

The Rainforest Information Centre invites readers to help protect rainforests by visiting the first ever cyber jukebox benefit at: www.rainforestjukebox.org.

END

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NOTE - jpg images are available from the fabulous Murray Cooper Collection of wildlife and nature slides taken at the Los Cedros Biological Reserve in Ecuador, one of the projects funded by the Rainforest Jukebox. These images suitable for cyber or print publication are available at: www.rainforestjukebox/network/jpgs.html
Permission is given to use any of these images free of charge only in conjunction with a story about the Rainforest Jukebox Benefit.