Dolphin & Whales afflicted by morbillivirus (akin to human measles)

"Dolphin-Killing Virus Spreads South, May Be Infecting Whales Too" 
2013-11-11 by Nadia Drake [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/dolphin-killing-virus-spreads/]:
A viral outbreak that’s killing bottlenose dolphins is moving down the U.S. East Coast as the animals migrate south for the winter. Between July 1 and November 3, at least 753 animals have died. The outbreak began along the coast between New York and Virginia this summer. Now, carcasses are washing ashore in the Carolinas and Florida. Researchers have identified the cause as dolphin morbillivirus, a pathogen that’s related to human measles and canine distemper. Morbillivirus infects dolphins’ lungs and brains, causing weird behaviors and skin lesions and pneumonia (but the marine mammals can’t pass it on to humans).
In a normal year, during this same timeframe and in the same geographic area, the average number of dolphins recovered from the beaches would be 74.
So far, Virginia has been the hardest hit by the outbreak, with more than 330 dolphins retrieved from its mid-Atlantic shores. New Jersey takes the dubious honor of second place, with 131 dolphins. In the last month, the Carolinas saw their total spike to more than 120.
And last week, Florida had its first confirmed fatality. That makes marine biologist Megan Stolen nervous. She and her team at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute respond to marine mammal strandings along miles of northern Florida coastline – and from her lab in Melbourne Beach, she’s been tracking the outbreak and its slow march south.
It’s kind of like preparing for a hurricane: You know something bad is heading your way, but you don’t when it will arrive, or where, or how bad it could be. “We don’t know if we’ll get one a week or 10 a day,” Stolen said.
The die-off has already been classified as an Unusual Mortality Event by the federal government – a designation that frees up resources and sends investigators and responders to the hardest-hit areas. It’s already exceeded the pace set by the last major morbillivirus outbreak on the East Coast, an event that lasted for 11 months, between June 1987 and May 1988, and ultimately claimed 742 dolphins.
“We are less than halfway through that time frame, and we have surpassed the number of cetacean strandings reported in the 87-88 die-off,” said Teri Rowles, the coordinator of NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. “There is no vaccine that is developed that can be deployed for a large, wild population of bottlenose dolphins. Or any cetacean species.”
Indeed, there’s something in the mix this time around that could be even more worrying. Other species have been showing up dead with dolphin morbillivirus in their tissues. Since July, three out of four dead humpback whales (in Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina), and a two out of three dead pygmy sperm whales (in Georgia and Massachusetts) have tested positive for the pathogen.
Dolphin morbillivirus isn’t often reported in these species. Whether the whales are dead because of a morbillivirus infection – or simply exposed to it – is still unknown.
“We don’t yet know if we do have, indeed, an outbreak of morbillivirus in those species,” Rowles said. “We know we have the presence of virus, but we’re waiting on other tests to confirm that it was causing clinical disease or death.”
Marine mammals on beaches are usually in very bad shape – that’s why trained teams of responders come to deal with them. With death rates at least 10 times higher than normal this summer, local response teams have had to call in reinforcements: Veterinarians and scientists have been coming to help from all over the country, from as far away as California and Hawaii. When the morbillivirus outbreak was peaking in Virginia in August, teams there responded to as many as 18 animals in a single day.
“It was very unreal dealing with the numbers of animals that were coming in at the peak in August,” said Mark Swingle, director of research and conservation at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. “But we are still dealing with very high mortality levels.”
It’s not a trivial task to learn everything you can from an animal on the beach as the decomposition clock rapidly ticks. Teams process the dolphins as fast as they can, recording observations, investigating what’s inside, and taking out brains. Samples are collected, labeled, and stored quickly, filling freezers in multiple states with bags of tissues or tubes full of fluids. Some of these are sent to labs, like the one at the University of Georgia, where virologists helped determine that morbillivirus was the culprit behind the recent deaths.
In Florida, Stolen is busy getting her team ready for what could be the worst holiday season in years. For the last couple of weeks, they’ve been ordering supplies and getting protocols in order, in case they’re dealt the worst of it. It’s not the first time this year they’ve been dealt a tough hand: Since March, they’ve retrieved 74 dolphins from the Indian River Lagoon, a besieged and beautiful estuary that laps at the lab’s backyard. Unlike the die-off in the water to their east, though, the lagoon deaths remain unsolved.
Stolen doesn’t know if that event is over yet. She doesn’t know if the Atlantic Ocean will begin depositing dolphins on her other doorstep – or if those dolphins will mix with the lagoon population and infect them. But if the Atlantic outbreak does arrive, and if the dolphins in her backyard continue dying, she does know she’ll be overwhelmed with carcasses.
“We’ve done what we can do,” she said. “Now we just wait and see.”

The Great Republic of Rough & Ready

A secessionist project during 1850, no longer in operation, whose anniversary is celebrated every year.

Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce

Post Office Box 801, Rough & Ready, California 95975
(530) 797-6729
[http://www.roughandreadychamber.com/RoughandReadyChamber.com/Welcome.html]
Rough and Ready is located in Nevada County, California, just a short drive west of Grass Valley. Rough and Ready provides ideal country living, and yet we are reasonably close to metropolitan areas. Our proximity to outdoor recreational activities seems to appeal to home-based business entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals who, along with conventional working and retired families, now enjoy living in Rough and Ready.
Rough and Ready has a population of 963 souls (2010 Census) and is proud to have an alert, responsive and highly skilled Volunteer Fire Department that operates with up-to-date fire fighting and rescue equipment.
Rough and Ready’s climate has an average summer temperature in the 80’s and winter average is in the 40’s. The average annual rainfall is slightly over 52 inches.
With an approximate altitude of 1,885 feet above sea level, Rough and Ready is usually, as we like to say, “above the fog and below the snow!”
Just 63 miles from Sacramento and 140 miles from San Francisco, Rough and Ready is conveniently located only 95 miles from Reno and 65 miles from the ski areas of Truckee.



The Great Republic of Rough and Ready
[http://www.roughandreadychamber.com/RoughandReadyChamber.com/The_Great_Republic.html]:
By the late 1840s, the population of the town of Rough and Ready had exploded to over 3,000.  The town suffered the effects of general lawlessness and a growing resentment for the government having imposed a Mining Tax on all claims.  On April 7th, 1850, a mass meeting of the townfolks was called to propose seceding from the Union.  The town  reacted by shaking its collective fist at the government with all its taxes and non-existent law and order.  The Great Republic of Rough and Ready was formed that day as a free and independent republic.  In the heat of the rebellion, they elected Col. E.F. Brundage as President. The new President issued Brundage’s Manifesto, which read in part: “We...deem it necessary and prudent to withdraw from said Territory (of California) and from the United States of America to form, peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must, the Great Republic of Rough and Ready.” Along with his Secretary of State, Justice of the Peace Hans Q. Roberts, they signed a constitution similar to that of the United States.
The Great Republic of Rough and Ready lasted only three months as one of the world’s smallest nations.  On July 4th, swept by a patriotic fervor, maybe feeling a little guilty (and possibly, according to some accounts, reacting to the refusal of Nevada City and Grass Valley saloons to sell liquor to the “foreigners” from Rough and Ready) another meeting was held.  The town gave resounding consent to immediately rejoin the Union.  Old Glory went up the flagpole and the whole episode slipped into history.
Or did it? On July 28, 1851, Rough and Ready became the third town in Nevada County to establish its own post office. For about five years during World War II, however, the Rough and Ready Post Office was discontinued. When citizens reapplied for a post office, officials tried to restrict the name to either “Rough” or “Ready” but not both “Rough and Ready.” “Too long!” they said. Local citizens stood their ground, insisting the name Rough and Ready had unique historical significance. In 1948, the post office officials relented, and Rough and Ready retained it’s “and.” During the search of the old records, however, it was discovered that Rough and Ready had never been officially allowed to rejoin the Union! A letter, dated June 16, 1948, from Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Vincent Quinn, resolved the issue and Rough and Ready was welcomed back into the United States...almost a century after seceding!



"Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers leave beloved palace"
2010-06-23 by Michelle Rindels [http://www.theunion.com/article/20100623/NEWS/100629917/1001&parentprofile=1053]
It's Sunday morning, and hands are raised high into the warm air in a run-down building in Rough and Ready.
A band of amateurs is leading the chorus; the audience is singing at the top of their lungs, and an errant note rings out above the rest.
It's not church. But for some residents, the Rough and Ready Fruit Jar Pickers' weekly shows are almost as powerful as an old-fashioned Southern revival.
“There's more to it than the Pickers. There's more to it than the music,” said Uhl “Red” Sagraves, who plays an instrument called a banjitar, a blend of a banjo and a guitar. “It brings people together from every walk of life.”
Sing-a-longs are a decade-old ritual for the eclectic group of more than two dozen guitarists, fiddlers, dobro and mandolin players.
But plans to demolish the 1960s-era former gasoline station they crowned “The Opry Palace” — set to be replaced with a new fire station — mean times are a-changin' for the Picker family.
This Sunday will be the group's final show in downtown Rough and Ready, and after a break for Independence Day, the band that embodies the town's scrappy spirit will reconvene at the picnic area of Western Gateway Park, at least for the summer.
“It'll never be the same unless we can find a place we can call our own,” Sagraves said.
Humble beginnings -
The Fruit Jar Pickers were born in 1999 when a couple Rough and Ready residents, bored on a Sunday, decided to play music at a secondhand store in town. As word spread, a few more joined, and the band moved out to a patio.
Before they knew it, the band had grown to more than 20 people, with more than 100 in the audience, and they co-opted a vacant gas station on the town's main drag as their palace.
Nobody remembers exactly where their name came from.
“We don't know why we're so popular, because we're really not that good,” said Sheridan Loungway, who plays the washboard as the band's sole percussionist; the man who played the bones has since passed away. “We're a bunch of ragtags.”
Singing along is highly encouraged; practice is unheard of. Most of the music is from the 1930s, '40s and '50s and includes bluegrass, country and gospel music for a genre the band dubbed “Rough and Ready bluegrass.”
“We're playing the music the old folks like to hear,” Sagraves said. “It's the only venue available to the people of the AARP age. They can come and be comfortable, there's no alcohol, and they have friends there.”
Everyone is welcome on stage ... almost.
“If they couldn't leave their ego, they wouldn't fit in,” Loungway said.
Visitors come from around the world to join the sing-a-long, members said. It's hard to resist the homespun songs, clown glasses, sombreros and silly costumes band members don during the sets.
“We feed off (the audience's) energy,” Loungway said. “They can sing their hearts out if they want.”
A new home on the range -
As the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department prepares to break ground on a long-awaited fire station funded by federal stimulus money, the Pickers are moving to other pastures.
Western Gateway Park isn't home like the dusty, chipped-paint Opry Palace they have haunted for years. The park's open-air setting doesn't have good acoustics. Musicians can't store their instruments behind roll-up garage doors.
They're hoping someone can help them find a new home in the same spunky town that brought them to life.
“It was ideal for us,” said director Everette Burkhard, “but all things must come to an end.”
To contact Staff Writer Michelle Rindels, e-mail mrindels@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4247.
KNOW & GO
Rough and Ready will celebrate Secession Day from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, 27. starting with a pancake breakfast benefiting the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department. Event includes crafters and merchants, work at the blacksmith's forge and performance of the melodrama, “The Saga of Rough and Ready.”
The Fruit Jar Pickers give their last downtown performance from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in front of the Rough and Ready Opry Palace.
Rough and Ready is on Rough and Ready Highway, about 3 miles west of downtown Grass Valley.


"Rough and Ready celebrating Secession Days"
2010-06-24 [http://www.theunion.com/article/20100624/PROSPECTOR/100629856/1080&parentprofile=1055]
Residents and friends of Rough and Ready will gather once again to celebrate the 1850 secession and three month life of The Great Republic of Rough and Ready.
This year's celebration, the town's 54th annual Secession Days, will be held Sunday in downtown Rough and Ready, beginning at 8 a.m. with a pancake breakfast hosted by the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department.
At 10:30 a.m., the Rough and Ready Rascals will take to the stage for another raucous performance of the musical melodrama, The Saga of Rough and Ready. This perennial favorite covers early Rough and Ready history with humor and fun.
Throughout the morning, the locally infamous Fruit Jar Pickers will play their special blend of music and banter. This performance will be bittersweet as the group will be performing for the final time at the Picker's Palace before it is demolished in July to make room for the new Rough and Ready VFD Fire Station. Prof. Richard Gill and his Original Medicine Man Show also is set to perform and share his stories.
Throughout the celebration, visitors will be able to enjoy a display of beautifully restored classic and antique vehicles shown by members of the Gra-Neva A's.
Along with the musical entertainment, visitors can browse through the crafts and peddler's booths, enjoy food and beverages, and learn about blacksmithing from our official Rough and Ready blacksmith, who is scheduled to fire up the forge in the historic Fippin Blacksmith Shop.
Kids will enjoy free face painting and a free jump house. Guests can also take a chance on the big raffle drawing, enjoy the delicious treats of the Grange Bake Sale or stock up on genuine “Great Republic of Rough and Ready” apparel and souvenirs in the Blacksmith Shop. Secession Days promises fun for the entire family.
All proceeds benefit nonprofit Rough and Ready organizations: The Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce, Grange #795, and the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Department.

KNOW & GO
WHAT: Rough and Ready Annual Secession Days Celebration
WHEN: 8 a.m. Sunday
WHERE: downtown Rough and Ready, five miles west of Grass Valley on Rough and Ready Highway
TICKETS: Free admission, free parking. Pancake breakfast, $6, $4 for children
INFORMATION: (530) 797-6729

G-D Nation

(HBIC) QUEEN DIANE HOOVER...
"CHANGING THE THINGS WE NO LONGER ACCEPT"  
FREE LARRY BERNARD HOOVER!!!! FREE JEFF FORT!!! FREE LIL BOOSIE!!! FREE EM ALL!!!

Unist'ot'en

"Unist'ot'en camp site of late night bombing"
2013-10-29 by Jerome Turner from "Smithers Interior News" [http://www.interior-news.com/breaking_news/229751661.html]:
Several visitors at the Unist'ot'en Action camp, which happened last July, answer protocol questions. The sign in the foreground was lit on fire at approximately 10:20 p.m. on Oct. 28. by unidentified arsonists (photo by Jerome Turner).

An attempt to destroy the main Unist’ot’en sign with a home-made explosive accelerant occurred last night at approximately 10:20 p.m., according to on-site residents.
The Unist’ot’en camp located around 70 kilometres south of Houston has been in place since 2010 in response to proposed pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Pacific Trails’ liquid natural gas line.
Last night individuals living at the camp heard what sounded like a gunshot and they immediately took steps to make sure they were protecting themselves.
“We were in the main cabin and a soon as we heard the bang we shut off our lights, grabbed firearms, went outside and fired a warning shot,” Toghestiy (Warner Naziel) said.
Toghestiy investigated the scene on the north side of the bridge where he could see fire burning. He found a few canisters of ‘accelerant’ bound together with bright green surveyor tape and a long trail of ‘accelerant’ leading north along the road away from the bridge, which was used to reach the canisters, he said.
“When I was approaching the site I could see headlights heading away from the bridge,” Toghestiy said.
The Unist’ot’en have renewed the traditional protocol of free, prior and informed consent in regards to accessing Unist’ot’en territory for any reason.
To accomplish the protocol a soft blockade has been employed on a bridge crossing the Morice River, where every person wishing to enter Unist’ot’en land has to answer questions. One such question is: How will your visit benefit the Unist’ot’en? Failure to give satisfactory answers gives the Unist’ot’en grounds to prevent access for whatever purpose sought.
One group of young men from the Houston area have reportedly taken issue with the Unist’ot’en protocol, Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en member and resident of the camp, said.
“A group complained to the RCMP about our protocol,” Huson said, but she’s not sure if it’s the same group responsible for last night's event.
RCMP have yet to investigate the scene.
A hunter from the Tumbler Ridge area, who answered the protocol questions properly, shared that he heard a group of young men were angrily talking about the Unist’ot’en and the group claimed they were going to ‘do something about it’, Huson said.
“It may have been the people who honked at the bridge but didn’t wait for us to come ask the protocol questions,” Huson said. “I believe it’s the same group that destroyed our sign at the 44 kilometre mark.”
The Unist’ot’en are asking anyone with information about who is responsible for last nights events to please contact the Houston RCMP at 250-845-2204.

Somali

The Somali nation is administered by 4 national governments recognized by the United Nations Security Council:
* Jurisdiction of Ethiopia - Zone Five: Somali National Regional State
* UN TNC - Republic of Somalia
* Djibouti
* Republic of Kenya


However, within the jurisdiction of the UN TNC - Republic of Somalia are numerous governments acting as administrative units with jurisdictions not recognized by the UN:
* Puntland
* Republic of Somaliland
* Republic of Kenya - Jubaland
* The Islamic Courts
* in addition to administrative units who do not have a presence on the internet or world wide web!

2007-01-12 map showing the political divisions of the Somali nation (click for larger version):



The Somali nation is the majority population within the Ogaden region, which is administered by the Empire of Ethiopia...
"Real wildcatters go to Ethiopia to hunt for oil"
2013-10-25 from "UPU" newswire [http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/10/25/Real-wildcatters-go-to-Ethiopia-to-hunt-for-oil/UPI-35291382718509/]:
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Amid East Africa's oil and gas boom, the more adventurous oilmen are starting to gravitate toward the vast Ogaden desert region of Ethiopia, where drilling activity has been sparse since rebels attacked an exploration team in 2007, killing nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopians.
 Oilmen believe Ethiopia lies on the same oil-bearing strata as the massive discovery in Kenya by British-based Tullow Oil in early 2012.
 Initial estimates are that Ethiopia has oil reserves of around 2.7 billion barrels.
 That's a modest enough total in global terms, but it's a potential bonanza for an impoverished state like Ethiopia, which has been land-locked since Eritrea broke away to form an independent state on the Red Sea in 1991 after a 30-year separatist war.
 The Horn of Africa country has not produced any oil in commercial quantities since its first oil seep was reported in 1860.
 There was some exploration 1915, which continued fitfully until the 1940s without any serious finds.
 Gas was discovered in 1972, but the wars and insurgencies prevented development until the recent strikes in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique to the south.
 Tullow is currently drilling in western Ethiopia on what is considered an extension of its Kenya concessions, deemed to be part of East Africa's Tertiary Rift that also embraces Uganda and its rich Lake Albert field.
 Other companies are gearing up to follow Tullow and its partner, the Africa Oil Corp., based in Canada, into the Ogaden, a Cold War battleground that remains contested between Ethiopia and troubled neighbor Somalia.
 "Exploration in the Ogaden Basin, as well as newer activity in the Omo and Gambella basins, will continue to face challenges due to relatively remote operating environments these areas represent," Oxford Analytica observed.
 Unlike in most countries where oilmen go exploring, the government in Addis Ababa is not keen at all on promoting expectations of vast oil and gas wealth, for now anyway.
 It's downplayed reports that Tullow, a trailblazer across East Africa, has struck oil in the southwestern Omo Basin -- apparently to avoid stirring political unrest and aggravate territorial disputes, both internally and with its neighbors.
 Ethiopia's longtime strongman, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in 2012, "was famously skeptical of the benefits of hydrocarbons, a policy stance which -- rhetorically at least -- his successor, Hailemariam Desalegn has maintained," Oxford Analytics noted.
 Major oil or gas discoveries could transform the country's economy, which is totally reliant on energy imports.
 Tullow too has been circumspect about its Ogaden operations because of exaggerated expectations triggered by the major strikes elsewhere in East Africa, particularly the large gas fields found in the Indian Ocean off Tanzania and Mozambique.
 The Omo region, says James Phillips, Africa Oil vice president for business development, "is frankly the end of the Earth. It hasn't had any attention from oil and gas exploration ever."
 The Ogaden is a rough neighborhood, and has been a battleground in several conflicts, including Eritreans' war of independence against Ethiopian rule that ended in Eritrea breaking away, cutting Ethiopia off from the Red Sea.
 Between May 1998 and June 2000, the two states, among the world's poorest countries, fought a brutal but inconclusive border war in which, by conservative count, 70,000 people were killed. The disputed border remains tense.
 In early 2013, rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front -- which took up arms in 1994 and was responsible for the April 2007 massacre that eventually drove out Malaysia's Petronas -- warned Africa Oil Corp. to halt exploration.
 It warned the company not to pay "blood money" to Addis Ababa and declared "the Ogaden is a battle zone that is not safe for an oil company to operate in."
 Africa Oil went on drilling and signed a new agreement with Addis Ababa that gives it exploration rights over 35,000 square miles in the Ogaden and Omo regions.
 SouthWest Energy, an Ethiopian exploration outfit, has rights on 17,600 square miles of the Jijiga Basin on Ethiopia's eastern border with Somalia.
 It estimates that region, where the 2007 massacre occurred, holds 1.5 billion-3 billion barrels of oil.
The prospects likely extend to Eritrea, which lies at the southern end of the Red Sea. It has the geological characteristics of a major hydrocarbon bonanza, particularly offshore.


"ETHIOPIA: UN ambassador rejects idea of greater Somalia"
2002-02-12 [http://www.irinnews.org/report/30228/ethiopia-un-ambassador-rejects-idea-of-greater-somalia]:
Abdul Mejid Hussein (Photo: IRIN)

ADDIS ABABA, 12 February 2002 (IRIN) - Ethiopia's ambassador to the UN, Abdul Mejid Hussein, has rejected the possibility of a "greater Somalia", along with other senior political leaders from Ethiopia's Somali National Regional State.
"There should be no ambiguity on the issue of being Ethiopian," Ambassador Hussein, former head of the Somali People's Democratic Party (SPDP), told a press conference in Addis Ababa on Tuesday. "The vision of the new Ethiopia is one that Somalis in Ethiopia should be very clear about, and there should not be any confusion about being part of what is being called the greater Somalia."
"We are not part of a greater Somalia," he stressed. He was speaking after Somali faction leader Hussein Aideed was accused of calling for a greater Somalia. In a recent interview with IRIN, Aideed said he wanted to "bring back" Ethiopian and Kenyan Somalis, otherwise "you have a population divided who are in the same family".
Ambassador Hussein said Aideed was a guest of Ethiopia. "He is welcome of course, so long as he does not interfere in our affairs...Those who still believe that they would like to join Somalia can do so constitutionally, they can do so peacefully, we have no objection to that."
But he said the SPDP – which holds power in Ethiopia's Somali state - had "voluntarily" agreed to be part of Ethiopia, stressing that the Somali people in Ethiopia had their rights enshrined in the constitution. "So nobody has forced us, we have our own MPs who have continued to support our position, and the programme of this party is not for secession," he stated.
Hussein had been called in to an emergency meeting of the political party to help iron out "squabbling" within the SPDP. He said in-fighting had led to the "paralysis" of the party and the government in the state. The Somali National Regional State – also known as Zone Five – is one of the largest areas in Ethiopia.

"Aboriginal Hunting Practice Increases Animal Populations"

More about the traditional communities of "Australia" [link]

2013-10-23 by Rob Jordan [http://woods.stanford.edu/news-events/news/aboriginal-hunting-practice-increases-animal-populations]:
Burning approach mixing practical philosophy and knowledge leads to near doubling of lizards and improves habitat

In Australia’s Western Desert, Aboriginal hunters use a unique method that actually increases populations of the animals they hunt, according to a study co-authored by Stanford Woods Institute-affiliated researchers Rebecca and Doug Bird [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1772/20132297]. Rebecca Bird is an associate professor of anthropology, and Doug Bird is a senior research scientist.
The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, offers new insights into maintaining animal communities through ecosystem engineering and co-evolution of animals and humans. It finds that populations of monitor lizards nearly double in areas where they are heavily hunted. The hunting method – using fire to clear patches of land to improve the search for game – also creates a mosaic of regrowth that enhances habitat. Where there are no hunters, lightning fires spread over vast distances, landscapes are more homogenous and monitor lizards are more rare.
“Our results show that humans can have positive impacts on other species without the need for policies of conservation and resource management,” Rebecca Bird said. “In the case of indigenous communities, the everyday practice of subsistence might be just as effective at maintaining biodiversity as the activities of other organisms.”
Martu, the aboriginal community the Birds and their colleagues have worked with for many years, refer to their relationship with the ecosystem around them as part of "jukurr" or dreaming. This ritual, practical philosophy and body of knowledge instructs the way Martu interact with the desert environment, from hunting practices to cosmological and social organization. At its core is the concept that land must be used if life is to continue. Therefore, Martu believe the absence of hunting, not its presence, causes species to decline.
While jukurr has often been interpreted as belonging to the realm of the sacred and irrational, it appears to actually be consistent with scientific understanding, according to the study. The findings suggest that the decline in aboriginal hunting and burning in the mid-20th century, due to the persecution of aboriginal people and the loss of traditional economies, may have contributed to the extinction of many desert species that had come to depend on such practices.
The findings add to a growing appreciation of the complex role that humans play in the function of ecosystems worldwide. In environments where people have been embedded in ecosystems for millennia, including areas of the U.S., tribal burning was extensive in many types of habitat. Many Native Americans in California, for instance, believe that policies of fire suppression and the exclusion of their traditional burning practices have contributed to the current crisis in biodiversity and native species decline, particularly in the health of oak woodland communities. Incorporating indigenous knowledge and practices into contemporary land management could become important in efforts to conserve and restore healthy ecosystems and landscapes.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Demand Sovereignty for the Captive Nations of the "Indian Country"

More information about Indian Country (Captive Nations held by the USA Federal Government) [link]

"American Indian Nations demand fulfillment of the federal government's trust and treaty obligations during the US government shutdown"
* Quanah Brightman, Executive Director of United Native Americans Inc. [510-672-7187]
* Linda Orannhawk, President of United Native Americans Inc. [505-603-2908]
Video Footage of Press Conference:
Sacramento, CA -United Native Americans, in solidarity with Idle No More Global Day of Action will host a peaceful rally and press conference Monday, October 7, 2013 at the John Moss Building, Central California Agency / Bureau of Indian Affairs located at 650 Capital Mall, Sacramento, California to address the issues regarding the government shutdown and its effects on the American Indian community. The event will begin at noon and end at 2:00 PM.
We, as the Indigenous community demand that the humanitarian crisis that our people are suffering from be acknowledged and resolved immediately.
We demand that the federal government continue to honor all treaties made between the United States government and the Indigenous people of North America before the shutdown.
Many people around the globe are currently unaware of the humanitarian crisis that is affecting America's First Nations people and that it is due to the US federal government shutdown. The federal government has all but cut its aid to the American Indian community.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, was originally founded under the United States War Department on March 11, 1824. As of now, with the status of this nation's government in limbo, the BIA being deemed a nonessential government agency, thus our people's needs are not a priority.
Tribes are unfairly suffering from an ongoing pattern of neglect by the federal government. These drastic cuts harm crucial and critical services to American Indian / Alaskan Native children, students, and families; the most poverty-stricken community here on American soil.
Tribes need adequate resources to exercise their self-determination and serve as affective nations. For many tribes, a majority of tribal governmental services are financed by Federal sources. Most tribes lack the tax base and lack priority tax authority to raise revenue to deliver services.
Public Safety and Justice is funded by the BIA. The public safety problems that plaque tribal communities are a result of decades of gross under funding and negligence for tribal criminal justice systems and a century's old failure by the federal government to fulfill its public safety obligations on tribal lands. Interrupting tribal revenue flow will increase unemployment and increase poverty rates.
Many of our Indian Health Services, workers, and Health Clinics are being hit extremely hard with furloughs and many lack resources to pay for staffing and operations of our health care facilities. The last thing we want our IHS workers to do is to be concerned about getting a paycheck. The fiscal year 2013 sequester has already cut $500 million from federal programs in Indian country.
Although some tribes have implemented strategies that enhance economic development for our communities to supplement federal sources, such as lucrative Indian Gaming, that does not supplement the federal government's duty to fulfill its treaty responsibilities and continue American diplomacy and development to the American Indian / Alaskan Native tribal communities by fulfilling its treaty obligations.
We demand President Obama execute an immediate executive order to begin distributing our promised budget through the US Assisted Development USAID to continue good working relations of diplomacy and continue development to American Indian / Alaskan Native tribal communities.
If President Obama and Congress will not honor it's treaty commitment to the American Indian community, we can file sanctions with the UNSCSC and demand return of all stolen land.
Under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, we demand mandatory sanctions against the United States Government for violations of all American Indian treaties and the cuts to tribal programs undermining Indian treaty rights and obligations, which were ratified under the Constitution and considered the "supreme law of the land".