It's Earth Week. That may not seem have any connection with the crisis in Darfur. However, back in a March town hall meeting when Tim Walz answered a question about the roots of the conflict, he referenced the impact of the advance of the Sahara Desert into areas where diverse peoples had once lived peaceably in times of greater adundance. Dwindling resources helped ethnic and religious differences become flashpoints.
Thus, it's no stretch to group new material on Darfur and conservation into one post.
First, a press release about Darfur from Walz's office:
REP. WALZ CALLS FOR WORLD COMMUNITY TO MORE URGENTLY PRESS FOR ENDING
GENOCIDE IN DARFUR(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - This week, the Save Darfur Coalition is sponsoring national "Global Days for Darfur." In Darfur, more than 200,000 people are dead and 2.3 million people have been displaced since the genocide began three years ago. Civilian killings are frequent and large-scale attacks,rape and torture are commonplace.
Rep. Tim Walz issued the following statement in support of the international movement to end the suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan. Walz is a past Belfour Fellow at the United States Holocaust Museum.
"The genocide in Darfur is unconscionable and unacceptable. We teach our students about the Holocaust and they repeat the phrase "never again" and yet again and again we as a government fail to prevent genocide. As the most powerful nation on earth, it is our duty to work to prevent genocide, to intervene when genocide begins and to recognize all instances
of genocide, both past and present.We witnessed progress last week when the Sudanese government announced it would accept the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force that is has opposed since November. The United States, in partnership with the rest of the international community must act with urgency to ensure peacekeepers enter and secure the region before the Sudanese government again changes its mind.
The world community has an obligation to the people of Darfur - including millions of suffering children - to not rest until the Sudanese government complies with international agreements and allows the full deployment of this new peacekeeping force.
I am humbled by the citizen activists across the world and in this country who fight daily for justice in Darfur and everywhere. I can only hope that Congress and the international community will follow their lead and work to end the genocide as quickly as possible."
Next, the Rochester Post-Bulletin's coverage of yesterday's belated Earth Day celebration at Whitewater State Park in Blufflands receive renewed attention at Earth Day event:
. . .Trout Unlimited, which sees the streams as some of the best in the country, began its own driftless program a few years ago and now is part of the initiative, along with the NRCS, National Wild Turkey Federation, The Nature Conservancy and many other groups.
That cooperation is critical, said U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, a Democrat from Minnesota. "We are on the cusp of something big here," he said. "It is absolutely the way government should work."
Muedeking said she would like to see more such projects. "This is a precursor for what could be more commonplace," she said. It doesn't create new programs, it just coordinates them better and gives them more money to work, she said.
While the initiative is a way to work in the future, it also gives a nod to the past. The first watershed conservation program in the country was in Coon Valley in the blufflands of Wisconsin. The second was in Burns Valley near Winona and the first large one was in the Whitewater Valley where the Earth Day celebration was Monday. . . .
The crisis in Darfur and the gorgeous, yet fragile driftless blufflands in southern Minnesota are a world apart. Wise use of natural resources in the United States is a way of keeping the peace at home. Good policy may help bring Darfur and its people back from an ongoing catastrophe.
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