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Jeanette McDermott
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Started Nov. 18, 2008
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Eco Networking for Social Change
Jeanette McDermott's Blog
Bear Bile Tourism in Vietnam
There is a dirty little secret in Vietnam, and it's called Korean Bear Tourism.
ENV, a wildlife watchdog group in Vietnam, has documented busloads of Korean tourists visiting bear farms where they witness a bear bile extraction, taste bear bile wine, and buy products made from bear body parts. T… Continue
Posted on September 10, 2009 at 8:47pm —
Seeking Creative Bioneers
Art by Lupe Fiacre, Art Action Union
ATTENTION ALL CREATIVE BIONEERS: Without you the media won't tell the story of Miracle. She needs a face, an identity. Her story awes and inspires. Read on ...
Miracle was born on a Korean bear bile breeding farm in the spring of 2… Continue
Posted on August 25, 2009 at 10:30am — 1 Comment
Crude: the real price of oil
Watch this riveting trailer in the ecopaparazzi video lounge
Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise L… Continue
Posted on August 23, 2009 at 1:33pm —
It's time to act
There are 9,000 bears locked in crush cages and being tortured daily for their bile in China and Vietnam. Let's be true bioneers and help get the bears out of these ho… Continue
Posted on March 20, 2009 at 3:18pm — 1 Comment
Benefit for the Bears Music Concerts
For 15 years Caesar was locked in a crush cage too small for her large body. Today this is Caesar at the Animals Asia sanctuary. The intention of the Ursa Freedom Project is to liberate 9,000 bears who are still living in crush cages.
Work is underway to organize concerts in… Continue
Posted on March 7, 2009 at 11:44am —
A LITTLE ABOUT ME AND WHAT I DO
My efforts to end bile bear farming
My Work in Costa Rica
My Work in Nicaragua
My work in video production for social change
My work fostering Earth healing
Visit ecopaparazzi
Visit Eco Paparazzi
Hi Friends, this is the site where all of us, who love Mother Earth and care about her health, share our photos of the beautiful and the shocking. Our aim is to take action through pictures – show the world what is happening where we live and use these photos to build change. We work in support and solidarity across social networks to build strength and increase numbers for Earth healing.
Visit Eco Paparazzi
Profile Information
- Hometown:
- St. Louis, Missouri USA
- About Me:
- I"m a conservation media maker and environmental activist. The one thing I am most passionate about in life is nature and wildlife. I'm on a lifelong quest to help make our world a better place by taking whatever small actions I can to reduce my human footprint. As a media maker I use tools that also help me raise public awareness about environmental issues that affect us all.
- What are you working on?
- conservation videos in Costa Rica's rainforests and social justice and poverty issues in Nicaragua.
- Website:
- http://ecopaparazzi.ning.com
- Favorite Book(s):
- Every single one of 'em that's ever been written well.
- Favorite Musician:
- Gypsy bands and Mexican and Irish balladeers
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Thanks for your comment and interest in the Encyclopedia of Life! I checked out ecopaparazzi and you have some great stuff up there. If you haven't already, you might want to check out the images at the EOL group on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/encyclopedia_of_life/). People can submit photos of species to the group and they are harvested every night and uploaded to EOL species pages. This is a very exciting user contribution tool that may be of interest to you and your colleague and contributors at ecopaparazzi. We also now have commenting and tagging features and improved maps which may be of interest as well. What other features of EOL do you think your audience would be interested in? We are always looking for user feedback to help build a better Encyclopedia of Life!
Thank you for promoting EOL on ecopaparazzi!
Best wishes,
Tracy
I am working on a vermi-composting post for next week, yes! I'll send you something soon. Thanks for the feature! It looks great.
What a wild ride this month is . . .
Blessings,
NSB
Thanks again for the help!
I just reread my first post, and it's ALL over the place.
I've been working on increasing my environmental activism, particularly since it came to me that's time to stop waiting for someone to create the group I want and then join, but need to create the group I want. So I've begun working with 1Sky.org. I need some advice on learning how to ramp my environmental activism skills. I found a book list that Greenpeace uses, I know also of Green Corps and their training, but I can't attend it right now, even if they did accept me. I'm aware of Antioch's graduate program in environmental activism. I'm open to suggestions about books to read and/or other sources of knowledge, skills and abilities in effectively campaigning on environmental issues.
I was thinking about you today, Jeanette, I knew it was time to get started responding to your request. Then you confirm that intuition by sending me a message about it. :0)
I'm not as connected as I really need to be, but there are some basics that can be offered.
It really IS about connecting with the Earth. Spend time in Nature. Still. Silent. No IPOD. No laptop. No cameras (before you ask). No books. No kidding.
That seems like a NuAge cliche, but it's a fundamental that bears repeating (but I won't repeat it). It is not only an art form but once we learn how to do this by offering ritual respect to the unseen world, the bounty we reap increases uncountable-fold (think I just invented a word; or broke the English language).
That brings up the second lesson, one that also must be experienced (and learned from others, really). Connecting with Nature must involve ritual, the more ancient the ritual, the more deeply we can connect.
(I had given some thought to this, but it's starting to go in unexpected directions, so there is no real plan here.)
There are many teaching/performing rituals, but there are few who can do so with authentic depth and genuine connection (I'm still a beginner). Generally, the more you pay for such things, the more you are getting screwed. At least prior to the economic meltdown, this kind of thing was a booming business. Now, I don't pay so much attention because I have my teacher, and just go with that.
The more often the ritual, the more deeper and stronger the connection. But it's really about 'intention', heart. NOT to be confused with rationalization. Westerners don't get this vitally important distinction. But as it says in Beowulf, 'Those with a sharp mind will take note of two things: What is SAID, and what is DONE.'
The 'unseen world' is alive, animate. Ritual offerings and ceremony allow us to shift our consciousness to be more easily attuned to the unseen world and work with it, not as if it didn't exist. The more deeply connected, the less we have to 'think'. Understanding BECOMES. It just IS at some point, with greater and greater frequency and ease.
This reminds me a conversation with a friend currently practicing permaculture in Peru. We wouldn't need all these scientific studies showing how we were poisoning the Earth if we just LOOKED. It's THERE, the understanding IS, if we are connected.
You opened the floodgate, Jeanette, I guess it really was time. I hope this is in a place you can see.
I still be a communication elf... though through the 'net I've had my woes lately. Just lost bandwidth where I live in the mountains so I have to drive a mile down the road to use my little USB modem- and it's getting to be mighty cold at night up here in the Sierras. Talk about living in the stone ages! Getting satellite would solve it but I'd rather spend my money on traveling somewhere for my birthday at the New Year.
Hmmm...You know, what I think I really want to do is get connected with sailing folks– folks with boats and environmentally lovely, radical hearts. I want to make sure I have a good community of free spirits to move about the world footloose with and I used to sail in my youth, as well. I remember those days as very internationally represented and very fun-loving, if a bit much party-oriented. Maybe it was my age and the like I attracted back then. Anyway, as the States get stranger and stranger, I want to keep my options open as to how I can keep my river flowing. Including spreading stories of great people, what works, what's gorgeous and inspiring!
I guess I'm meandering this thread your way because I just spied a headline outside this 'net cafe, "Gun owners stock up since Obama's victory." That's out of the Reno Gazette, which is the next big town down the hill from heaven (heaven- that's the Sierras spelled backwards). It's definitely not heaven in Reno (unless you judge heaven by the number of retail centers in one condensed area-probably the highest per capita in the US)!
Methinks we need at least 2 or 30 types of printed journals akin to your "Ecopaparazi," this world surely does. I really like what you've got going with it and spread your link to my European pals who were wondering what was going on out here with the Republican candidates appearing on Saturday Night Live in the middle of their campaign. I just told them what's going on is this single party system we have is finally being more honest than it's ever been and admitting that our political system is little more than entertaining distraction while the real stuff goes unreported. I included your link as part of a group of meaningful news publications. I think beauty and affirming the spirit of humanity is a heckuva lot more inspiring than what's being offered to most Americans.
Keep up the good work, Jeanette. And as soon as my recent flurry of life adjustments get tucked in, I'll surely be spinning some tales for your publication, small, though they may be. Just simple stories of people I meet in my wanderings all over the state who are doing the good work and pursuing their vision be it in farming, eco-restoration or holistic healing.
So me, specifically, aside from battening down for winter, these times for me are largely about getting a lot of hours spent practicing my developing skills in Chinese medicine. And somewhere very soon I'll be starting a book blending Eastern and Western views on disease, Science and the lyrical expressions of human experience and the importance of storytelling in healing. Wow... that's a mouthful. Working title, "...of Stardust, Organs, Energies and the Symbolic Languages that Embrace Them"
Boy, howdy– think my green tea's kicked in. What I meant to ask you is what got you to working in Costa Rica? And have you traveled/worked in other parts of Central/South America? And does your video work ever travel northwards? I'm definitely wanting to point my antennae southwards as my travel itch calls for scratchin'.
Sigh... time to do some organizing.
Cheers to you! :)-c
Thank you very much for your hello. Likewise, your work sounds great- you are a storyteller, too. I worked in film and animation when I was younger and will never lose my passion for the medium though I work in somewhat less technological modalities now. It is very exciting to learn of your work, I have high admiration for our world's communication elves. Thanks to all who spread word and image of how many people are planting passion seeds for a thriving, regenerating, new world community. People who are over rabid consumerism (or who never got there to begin with) and on to bring a new vision into being... we are not working alone, we are all weavers on a very strong and beautiful web! Thank you for your part in catching the dreams of people who are doing something with their passion.
I am not always near places with bandwidth but today I am and I will check out paparazzi.
Cheers!
Camila
I'm a bit disconnected from the Earth at the moment, owing to a back injury from moving that prevents me from doing the rituals I need to. I'll have to sit with this at my altar, when I'm able to set it up again.
What comes to me now is that we are all ONE, all interconnected, all interrelated. The Hindu/Buddhist teaching of Indra's Net is also the same teaching.
More when I'm able. Right now it would just be gobbledegook. :0)
Jeff
I must admit... your eco-paparazzi and the bioneer community will definitely keep me reading with the limited time I have at times.
Plus, it will encourage a new take on my photography pictures... no tricks, just reality as I see it. :) I look forward to this. Thank you again. ~hugs!
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