The famous “Blue Marble” photograph, captured by the crew of Apollo 17 [public domain]
TWH – This week marks the 51st anniversary of Earth Day. The first Earth Day was held in 1970 with 20 million Americans taking to the streets, which resulted in the U.S. enacting a number of environmental protections like the Endangered Species and the Clean Air, Clean Water Acts, as well as creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in July of 1970.
By 1990, Earth Day became a global celebration and awareness campaign and was the precursor for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Over 200 million in 141 countries around the world participated that year.
Support for issues around climate change and preservation has continued to grow, with 192 countries and over a billion people taking part last year. Due to continued pandemic concerns, this year’s celebrations will again be virtual.
This year’s annual celebration to raise awareness will span three days, kicking off on Tuesday, April 20 with the global youth climate summit, led by Earth Uprising, in collaboration with My Future My Voice, OneMillionOfUs, and hundreds of youth climate activists.
Wednesday, April 21 will focus on the crucial role that educators play in combating climate change and the need for immediate climate education.
Thursday, April 22 is officially Earth Day and there are a number of events scheduled by EarthDay .org that include panel discussions, workshops, and performances on a variety of subjects ranging from climate literacy to efforts focused on reforestation and regenerative agriculture to equity and environmental justice.
Selena Fox, who has been involved with Earth Day since the beginning and powerful voice for environmental issues, will be co-facilitating with Bob Paxton Circle Sanctuary’s special live interfaith event on Thursday 5 – 6 pm (CDT) via YouTube.
Circle Sanctuary will be offering a full day of events on Saturday, April 24 that begins at 10 am (CDT) and culminates in a ceremony led by Fox and other members of the Circle community, and then some reflections and resources for Eco-activism and nature spirituality.
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While there has been a lot of environmental news that has been anything but good over the past few months–declining animal and insect populations, higher than normal manatee deaths, and changes to the Atlantic ocean–there have been some encouraging stories that have the potential to have a positive impact on the environment. TWH decided to feature the two stories below in honor of Earth Day.
Amazon river in Brazil -Image credit: Alexander Gerst – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0,
BRASILIA, Brazil – Last week in a unanimous decision Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) accepted an appeal by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people. The Guarani Kaiowá people have been fighting for decades for rights to the Guyraroká land in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul which was recognized as an Indigenous territory in 2004.
In 2009, FUNAI, the federal agency tasked with protecting Indigenous interests, began the lengthy process of identifying boundaries of the territory, which was later stopped by another STF ruling in 2014 that halted the process before the territory could gain full protected status under federal law.
In that ruling, the STF ruled that the Guarani Kaiowá had no legal claim to their ancestral territory because they were not living on it when the Brazilian constitution came into force in 1988. The community tried to appeal the decision several times with no success before the case was closed in 2016.
While last week’s ruling does not overturn the 2014 decision, it does allow for it to be appealed and reviewed since the STF found that the legal proceedings had lacked input from the Indigenous community.
Juliana de Paula Batista, a lawyer with the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that defends the rights of Indigenous and traditional people explained the importance of the decision.
“It wasn’t just any victory, it was a victory by unanimous vote,” she told Mongabay News. “All the judges agreed that, in a legal proceeding that harmed Indigenous people and did not give them the opportunity to participate, the proceeding must be annulled.”
“There is now a possibility for the judgment annulling the demarcation of Guyreroka to be overturned and another judgment to be handed down,” Batista said.
She also pointed out that the ruling could help other Indigenous groups who have been denied participation in legal proceedings that revoked their land rights.
Another case that could complicate or slow down the Guyraroká case involves the Xokleng Indigenous people in Santa Catarina state which also questions whether the government can deny land rights to Indigenous people whose territory was appropriated before 1988.
A ruling on this case is expected to set a precedent that will decide whether the courts can place a time limit, or marco temporal in Portuguese, on the land rights of the Guarani Indigenous people but the case has been stalled since October of last year.
The 1988 Indigenous occupation date has been argued as unfairly arbitrary by attorneys since many Indigenous people’s ancestral lands were stolen long before that date.
“This is a process that will determine whether the ‘marco temporal’ will be applicable to all Indigenous lands or not,” said Batista. “So we’re all watching closely.”
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Amazon Rainforest [Photo Credit: lubasi CC BY-SA 2.0]
As published by the Peruvian Official Newspaper Diario Oficial El Peruano, and reported on by Mongabay News “the Peruvian government has moved to establish a new Indigenous reserve for ‘uncontacted peoples’ deep in the Amazon rainforest.”
Covering 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) the Yavarí Tapiche Indigenous Reserve, in the department of Loreto on the Peru-Brazil border, is home to Matsés, Remo, and Marubo peoples, as well as other Indigenous peoples that have yet to be identified. The plan to create the preserves has been in the works for almost twenty years.
The Aidesep National Program for Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI) “was created in 2003 to promote and carry out actions to protect the physical, territorial and cultural integrity of our indigenous brothers in isolation and initial contact throughout the Peruvian Amazon, hand in hand with the regional indigenous organizations of Aidesep.”
The Peruvian government under its PIACI law has identified ten territories for isolated peoples. Of those ten, four have been categorized as Indigenous reserves by the state, which includes the Yavarí Tapiche.
Two other areas were categorized as territorial reserves before the PIACI law was approved and will require adaptation. The four other areas are still awaiting the formal creation process to be advanced.
The protection plan for the Yavarí Tapiche still must be approved by the Ministry of Culture within 60 days. Angela Arriola, a specialist in policies for Indigenous peoples and PIACI and external advisor to the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep) pointed out the approval process requires resolving a number of complicated concession issues that could impact the deadline.
“The creation of Yavarí Tapiche is a great advance. However, the rest of the tools must be implemented as soon as possible to ensure their protection,” said Angela Arriola. “It is a great step, a great advance, but management measures need to be implemented, only categorization is not a guarantee of protection.”
Crossings of the Veil
Robin Wood, artist and creator of the iconic Robin Wood Tarot deck crossed the Veil early this morning after losing her battle her cancer.
Wood may be best remembered for her artwork depicting the characters of Anne McCaffrey’s literary series, Dragon Riders of Pern, and the cover art for Scott Cunningham’s Wicca and Living Wicca books. She also authored several books in addition to producing a lot of art that is featured on her website, and some of which graced the covers of Llewellyn Books and Dragon Magazine.
Wood identified as a Witch, and one of the books she wrote were on ethics from a Pagan perspective titled, When, Why …If.
She was also heavily involved in creating content within the virtual world of “Second Life.” She created a texture tutorial and a library available within the game, as well as providing templates and other information on her own website.
Her husband, Michael Short posted about her passing early this morning on Facebook.
I have sad news.
My lovely wife Robin Wood lost her battle with cancer this morning just after 3AM. There will be no in person visitation or memorial. At Robin’s request there will be a Zoom meeting (or two or three).
Thank you all for your friendship and support over the last couple years.
-Mike
Some of the remembrances that have been posted online characterized her as a “visionary artist” a “lovely human” and someone who was truly “delightful.”
There is no doubt that she touched many people through her craft and art and will be missed by many but especially those who knew and loved her best.
What is remembered, lives!
In other news:
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- Two more members of the white supremacist group known as “The Base” were indicted on additional charges connected to the theft and eventual sacrifice of a ram that occurred in October of 2019. Brandon Ashley, who also went by the alias “Dima” in the Base encrypted chat room, and Duncan Trimmel are the latest to be charged. According to a report by VICE, “Prosecutors described the alleged sacrifice as a ‘Norse-pagan ritual.'” Luke Austin Lane, Michael Helterbrand, and Jacob Kaderli were charged with the animal’s death as part of the other charges connected to a plan to murder a couple they believed to be connected to Antifa. Brian Lemley, Patrik Mathews, and William Garfield Bilbrough IV who were part of a Maryland cell of “The Base” and were also involved in the attempted murder plot, and the demise of the animal were charged in both crimes. This brings the total of people charged in connection to the death of the ram to eight.
- A new study involving reproduction in the Indian jumping ant (Harpegnathos saltator) has offered up some interesting if unexpected findings. Researchers found that the ants had the ability to shrink and then regrow their brains. Unlike other types of ants, Indian jumping ants possess the ability to mate and reproduce, so when their queen dies, the colony does not die with them. When the queen dies, a small percentage of female ants in the colony are triggered to participate in a dominance competition and fight each other over the course of a month. The most dominant female ants see an increase in the size of their reproductive organs, and the size of the brains shrinks by as much as 19%. While the shrinking of their brains is not that unusual, once a queen is chosen, the other females go back to being worker ants and their brains regrow and increase back to normal size.
- Last Monday night, some Floridians along the state’s Gold Coast from West Palm Beach south to Miami got a surprise celestial display when a meteor entered the atmosphere and lit up the sky. A number of people managed to catch footage of the event and post it on social media.
WOAH! Big flash and streak across sky in West Palm Beach. Happened moments ago while we were on Facebook Live for a @CBS12 story.
Working to figure out what it was. pic.twitter.com/VDl9pFtb3h
— Jay O’Brien (@jayobtv) April 13, 2021
Positively Noteworthy
Markus Buehler, Ph.D. and fellow colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), collaborated with Tomás Saraceno at Studio Tomás Saraceno to translate the structure of a spider’s web into music.
“The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings,” Buehler explained. “They don’t see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies.”
Understanding the arachnid behavior and how they construct their webs have a number of potential applications, like improving 3D printing. The research team scanned a web during the process of its construction and assigned different frequencies of varying length and tonal quality based on the length of the individual strands of spider silk.
Tarot of the week by Star Bustamonte
Deck: Modern SPellCaSteR’S Tarot, by Melanie Marquis, illustrated by Scott Murphy, published by Llewellyn Publications.
Card: Major arcana, (XX) Judgement
The week ahead offers the potential for “a major shift in consciousness,” possibly by choosing to set aside past challenges and losses and turning the page to a new beginning. Conversely, remaining stuck and failing to embrace evolution may result in regression and depletion of spiritual energy.
Decks generously provided by Asheville Raven & Crone.
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