WA Delegate (non-executive): 
The Rogue Nation of Kalmarth (elected )
Founder: 
The Confederacy of Undivulged Principles
Last WA Update:
Embassies: Forest, The Axis of Evil, The Maritimes, Pony Lands, Tareldanore, Capitalist Libertarian Freedom Region, Philosophy 115, The Vast, Holy Lands, United Empire of Islam, The Illuminati, Sonnel, Vissella, Union of Nationalists, The Erviadus Galaxy, Austritaria, and 39 others.League of Sovereign Nations, Empire of Andrew, Avadam Inn, The Savage Garden, Hollow Point, Turkic Union, Barbaria, The Bar on the corner of every region, Yarnia, Groland, The KuK Patriarchy, The World of Remnant, Future Earth, The Warden World, Crodown, International Debating Area, Remnants of Hyrule, Regionless, Sikh Empire, Dauiland, The Antichrist Trump, Gypsy Lands, The Dank Meme Alliance, Universal Pact, The Great Universe, Hoshizora, Glass Gallows, Fredonia, Kingdom of Adonai, League Of Allied Powers, Monarchist and Democratic Alliance, The LCRUA, The Slide Countries, The New Dogecoin Union, Greater Mediterranean Union, Usea, The Bunny Fire, New Augrativan Kingdom, and The Cult of PCHS.
Tags: Fantasy Tech, Featured, Free Trade, Future Tech, Independent, Magical, Map, Medium, Mercenary, Multi-Species, National Sovereigntist, Outer Space, and 1 other.Regional Government.
Regional Power: Moderate
Eladen contains 26 nations, the 659th most in the world.
Today's World Census Report
The Most Efficient Economies in Eladen
Nations ranked highly are the most ruthlessly efficient at translating raw resources, including people, into economic output.
As a region, Eladen is ranked 3,778th in the world for Most Efficient Economies.
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| 1. |  The Empire of Little Flowers | Capitalizt | “Roses have thorns!” | |
| 2. | The Confederacy of Undivulged Principles | Left-wing Utopia | “What goes around, comes around.” | |
| 3. |  The Holy Empire of Klesh | Iron Fist Consumerists | “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” | |
| 4. |  The CUP Federal Syndicrats of RightWingConservatives | Free-Market Paradise | “Outta my way!” | |
| 5. |  The CUP Imperial Province of The CUD | Inoffensive Centrist Democracy | “Me ne frego, je m'en fous, Mei guan shi, I don't care” | |
| 6. |  The Decadent Opulence of Gray Mouser | Capitalizt | “Molte nemici, Molto onore” | |
| 7. |  The Barbaric Magnificence of Fafhrd | Compulsory Consumerist State | “è l'aratro che traccia il solco, ma è la spada difende” | |
| 8. |  The Intergalactic Consortium of Corporate Investors | Anarchy | “ROI is King” | |
| 9. |  The Sinister Sadistic Satrapy of Lorx | Right-wing Utopia | “Cor Enladen is Divine” | |
| 10. |  The Fact Is Marble Was Queen of The World of Ares | Corrupt Dictatorship | “I'm The Coolest Thing There Ever Was.” |
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Regional Happenings
- : Umquay ceased to exist.
- : Embassy cancelled between POLATION and Eladen.
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The Republic of Bam 25 of the region POLATION ordered the closure of its embassy in Eladen.
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The United Socialist States of Larger Green Plants departed this region for Cheese.
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The Memleket of Qazaq Eli of the region Turkic Union cancelled the closure of its embassy in Eladen.
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The Republic of White Hawks Invader 1 of the region Turkic Union ordered the closure of its embassy in Eladen.
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The Holy Empire of Poll Maker of the region Turkic Union cancelled the closure of its embassy in Eladen.
- : The United Socialist States of Larger Green Plants arrived from Tasmanian Trailer Park.
- : The Republic of White Hawks Invader 1 of the region Turkic Union ordered the closure of its embassy in Eladen.
- : Embassy cancelled between Montealba and Eladen.
Eladen Regional Message Board
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Hello all! It is I, the Culture Minister of Forest! I'm pleased to announce the launch of our new-look environmental agenda; The Voice of Forest is a monthly bulletin that covers the life and work of a notable environmental activist. With this project, I aim to inspire you folks and nations across the NSverse to get involved with environmentalism in a way that's personal to them, as well as to celebrate those Atlantean figures who laid the groundwork of the environmental movement we champion today. It's not something that's meant to be prescriptive; I won't tell you what is important about each activist, but instead hope each reader will come away with their own perspective on the individual and the issues discussed. So, without further ado, I've published the very first issue of the Voice of Forest, entitled "The First Lady of Flowers". It focuses on the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson to beautify urban areas in the US and conserve native flora for the enjoyment of people across the country. Please have a read, if you can spare the time, and know that you're always welcome to discuss what you read either here or on the Forest RMB! Lady Bird Johnson The Voice of Forest - Issue I | June 2021 | The First Lady of Flowers . LADY BIRD JOHNSON
(1912-2007) Known For:
Selected Awards:
"Where flowers bloom, so does hope." . Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (1912-2007) was an American socialite and First Lady of the United States of America from 1963 to 1969. She was also a successful investor, becoming a millionaire in her own right before her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was elected to office. A pioneer First Lady, Lady Bird was the first to interact directly with Congress, employ her own press secretary and campaign independently from her husband. She is also well known for both her civil rights activism and advocacy for beautifying America’s urban centres and highways. Background Claudia Alta was born in east Texas in 1912 to Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Minnie Lee Pattillo, although she was raised by her aunt Effie Pattillo after her mother's death in 1918. When she was a baby, her nursemaid decided she was as "pretty as a lady bird", and the nickname stuck. In 1930, after a brief stint at a women's Episcopal college in Dallas, Lady Bird decided to apply to the University of Texas. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history with honours in 1933 and a bachelor's degree in journalism with distinction in 1934. A friend in Austin introduced Lady Bird to Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a 26-year-old Congressional aide, who proposed after their first date. She did not want to rush into marriage, but thanks to his persistence she accepted his proposal ten weeks later. It was Lady Bird's inheritance that funded the launch of her husband's campaign to become a Congressman; when he enlisted in the navy at the start of the Second World War, Lady Bird ran his congressional office. During the war, Lady Bird spent $17,500 of her inheritance to buy a small local radio station in Austin and later expanded to buying a television station in 1952 (in spite of her husband's objections). Lady Bird managed both of those enterprises and in doing so she became a self-made millionaire. As Second Lady of the United States of America, she acted as a substitute for the First Lady, Jaqueline Kennedy, at a number of events which she would later say prepared her well for her time as First Lady. That time arrived sooner than Lady Bird could ever have expected - after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 she found herself looking on as her husband was sworn in as President on Air Force One. During her time in the office of First Lady, Lady Bird employed her own press secretary and chief of staff (being the first First Lady to do so). In 1964, she defied death threats during a 1,682-mile tour of the Deep South aboard a chartered train, the Lady Bird Special, to speak directly to those who opposed her husband's recent passage of the Civil Rights Act. In doing so, she became the first President's spouse to campaign independently of her husband; as a native Texan, she later said she had thought it important that someone speak to Southern voters with respect while trying to change as many minds as possible about the necessity of desegregation and the importance of ending racial discrimination. After the death of her husband in 1973, Lady Bird continued working on a number of personal projects and managing her investments. She spoke out for women's rights at the 1977 National Women's Conference alongside notable activists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, and her environmental activism continued into her later years. Lady Bird died in 2007 at the age of 94 and was buried next to her husband at the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall, Texas. Activism At a time when environmentalism was beginning to enter the American consciousness, Lady Bird was the driving force behind the first administration to concern itself with environmental issues. A staunch nature-lover, she is undoubtedly best remembered for her efforts to beautify America's cities  Lady Bird Johnson watching over her husband, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, as he signs the Highway Beautification Act into law (1965). and highways with the ultimate goal of teaching a nation to treasure and preserve the natural world. As First Lady, she supervised the cleaning of monuments and the planting of flowers in the US capital in an attempt to draw tourists and improve the lives of residents. Her efforts to protect wildflowers and plant millions of them along America's highways inspired many similar programmes across the country. Lady Bird was also the driving force behind the 1965 Highway Beautification Act, a piece of legislation that aimed to replace highway billboards and junkyards with trees and wildflowers - so much so that the legislation was nicknamed "Lady Bird's Bill". As the first First Lady to lobby congress for the passage of a bill, she gained a reputation as a trailblazer who strongly believed that clean streets and a beautiful environment would make the US a better place to live. The Act brought nature back into the daily lives of millions of citizens, and Lady Bird's campaigning brought the subject of conservation to the public sphere. Even after her time in the office of First Lady came to a close, Lady Bird continued to campaign for several beautification projects, including Town Lake in Austin (which would later be renamed in her honour), and served on the advisory board of the National Park Service. Together with actress Helen Hayes, she founded the National Wildflower Research Center near Austin, Texas, in 1982 which would later be renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Today, the wildflower centre is still dedicated to the preservation and use of native plants through research and education. It is often seen as an embodiment of Lady Bird's vision to protect and preserve the natural beauty of the US, both taking care of nature and communities while integrating the two. After founding the centre, Lady Bird would go on to write: "I'm optimistic that the world of native plants will not only survive, but will thrive for environmental and economic reasons, and for reasons of the heart." The Voice of Forest - Issue I - "The First Lady of Flowers" Thanks For Reading! Published June 2021 - Written and Edited by Terrabod Undivulged Principles and Ave lucifer | ||||||||||||
Hi folks! I'm pleased to announce the first annual Forest Interregional Writing Contest, an opportunity for writers from Forest and our embassy regions to share their creativity and battle it out for one of our region's most prestigious honours. That's right, there are some brand new interregional accolades up for grabs - the writers of the best entries submitted to the contest will be awarded the Forestian Literary Prize! No more spoilers from me - I've created an extraordinarily useful guide that sums up everything you need to know about the contest and you can read the details there for yourself, including important dates, this year's theme, the rules and the members of the judging panel. Any unanswered questions can be telegrammed to me or posted on the Forest RMB. Please share this dispatch on any offsite forums or chats if they're active so as many people as possible are able to join in! . . . Forest Interregional Writing Contest 2021 . . . Forest's Ministry of Culture is proud to present the first annual Forest Interregional Writing Contest, an opportunity for writers from Forest and its embassy regions to share their creativity and compete for one of our region's highest accolades. This handy guide should cover everything you need to know about how the contest will play out. There's lots of important information, including the lowdown on this year's theme, the rules, the members of the judging panel and (perhaps most importantly) the prestigious prizes available. Please take the time to have a read, then maybe read it again - and then read it one more time, just to be sure - before putting your thinking cap on and letting your creative side run wild! The Categories Entries can be submitted under one of three categories:
Writers will be able to submit a maximum of one entry per category, so submitting a poem, a one-act play and a short story is allowed, but submitting two poems or two short stories is not allowed. There is no expectation that writers will submit multiple entries, and doing so won't improve your chances of winning as all entries are anonymised before being assessed by the judges. Writers should be sure to submit only their best work. This Year's Theme Is... ANTHROPOCENE For better or for worse, we're living in an epoch defined by human impact on the world around us. With vast improvements in quality of life comes microplastics and greenhouse gases. With social media connecting us to friends across the globe comes online abuse and privacy concerns. With more people fighting for social justice than ever before comes culture wars and far-right extremism. With the longest era of peace in human history comes the threat of nuclear annihilation. While all entries must address this theme, we expect each writer will interpret the theme in a different way. Other themes may be examined within each entry so long as the above theme is central to the work. The Rules With great writing comes a bunch of rules:
Submitting An Entry The submission period will open on Thursday the 15th of July (00:00 UTC) and will close on Sunday the 15th of August (23:59 UTC) - late entries will be discarded. Submissions must be sent to me, Terrabod, by telegram. If you choose to submit multiple entries, you can send them all at once (as long as each is clearly delimited) or in separate telegrams. Be sure to include a title for each entry! Each entry will be anonymised by me and passed on to the judges who will work together to select the best entry in each category. This process is expected to take roughly two weeks, so I hope to be able to announce the winners on Wednesday the 1st of September. The winning entries will be published in the announcement dispatch for all to enjoy. While I wish I could publish all of the entries, this isn't possible - I encourage entrants to instead publish their own entry (or entries) within a dispatch after the contest is over. The Judges This year's judging panel consists of not one, but three Forest Keepers who have each played an esteemed role in Forest's history.
The Winners The writer of the single best entry in each category will be awarded one of the following:
While these prizes are awarded to an OOC player, I don't mind if winners want to also RP/worldbuild it as an IC interregional prize received by one of their citizens. If you have any unanswered questions, feel free to telegram me or tag me in a post on the Forest RMB. Best of luck to all entrants, and have fun writing! . . . Good luck to everyone who wants to get involved, and happy writing! Best wishes, Undivulged Principles and Ave lucifer | ||||||||||||
Hello, I hope you're all well! The second issue of the Voice of Forest (yes, I forgot to actually publish the dispatch last month) is entitled "Death in the Amazon". It chronicles the efforts of pioneering conservationist Chico Mendes, who gave his life protecting the Amazon rainforest and its peoples. As always, please have a read (if you can spare a couple of minutes) and know that you're always welcome to discuss what you read either here or on the Forest RMB! And yes, the August issue will be published later this month - I've already started researching the activist it will be focusing on. Here's a little hint: the activist in question rocked the zoological world and pushed the boundaries of what we thought was possible for humans to achieve. Chico Mendes The Voice of Forest - Issue II | July 2021 | Death in the Amazon . CHICO MENDES
(1944-1988) Known For:
Selected Awards:
“At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.” . Francisco Alves Mendes Filho (1944-1988), better known as Chico Mendes, was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and activist. He is well known for his efforts to preserve the Amazon rainforest and defend the rights of Brazil’s poor and indigenous populations. Mendes’ assassination in 1988 brought the struggle for the conservation of the Amazon rainforest to the world stage with impacts including lasting changes in government policy and the emergence of multiple grassroots environmental movements. Background Chico Mendes was born in the Brazilian state of Acre in 1944 to Francisco and Iracê Mendes; only six of Francisco and Iracê’s seventeen children survived into adulthood. Aged nine, Mendes began working alongside his father as a rubber tapper (“seringueiro” in Brazilian Portuguese) at a time when the rubber tapping industry was in decline. Swathes of the Amazon rainforest were frequently sold and burned to make way for cattle pastures, with cattle ranchers and the Brazilian government expelling many seringueiros from their land. Schools were often made deliberately inaccessible to seringueiro communities as the landowners did not want their workers to be able to read or do arithmetic. Mendes was taught to read by activist-turned-seringueiro Euclides Fernando Távora at the age of 18; he would later describe how practising with newspaper clippings covering social and political issues opened his eyes to the injustices surrounding him. Inspired by his experiences, Mendes decided to become a literacy teacher to educate his community and so raise awareness of the seringueiros’ unjust treatment. The Rural Workers Union Movement, founded during the political turmoil of 1960s Brazil, became the principal political representative of peasants, small farmers and rural labourers. Mendes himself played a central role in the creation of the Rubber Tappers’ Union in 1975 and served as its secretary, returning to his hometown of Xapuri to establish a union branch there with Marina Silva in 1977. In 1979, Mendes introduced a scheme to establish schools on rubber estates. Originally aimed at educating adults, the programme quickly expanded to include children, aiming to improve the living standards of the seringueiros which would, in turn, incentivise them to protect their land and way of life. Despite the overwhelming success of the initiative, all was not well for the union movement; in 1980, the president of the Rural Workers Union and a close colleague of Mendes, Wilson Pinheiro, was assassinated by ranchers who opposed the work of the Union. While the union movement continued to pick up speed in the following years, acts of police brutality against union members increased and several key union leaders were murdered by ranchers in targeted attacks. In 1988, a rancher named Darly Alves da Silva bought part of a rubber reserve in Xapuri where members of Mendes’ family lived. Mendes clashed with da Silva in October of that year when he convinced the Brazilian government to declare a 61,000-acre tract of traditional seringueiro territory on da Silva's land to be off-limits to logging. This was the world’s first extractive reserve – an area of publicly-owned land where unsustainable land use is forbidden but local communities have the right to perform traditional extractive practices like fishing and rubber tapping. This major victory sparked a wave of murders of the union movement’s leaders. In the last few years of his life, Mendes received a constant barrage of death threats. After months of being watched by gunmen hired by da Silva, Mendes predicted on his 44th birthday that he would not live to see Christmas. The gunmen disappeared completely following his birthday, leading to a feeling of impending doom within the seringueiro community. One week after his birthday, on the 22nd of December 1988, Mendes was shot dead in his Xapuri home by da Silva’s son. Mendes was the 90th rural activist murdered that year in Brazil. Activism Mendes was, in many ways, a pioneer of the conservation movement. His fight to protect the seringueiro way of life led him to organise peaceful protests called empates (“stand-offs”), human barricades that prevented those who planned to destroy seringueiro territory, including ranchers and loggers, from accessing the land. The tactic was not without its risks; participants faced severe beatings from military police who were often called by Newspaper clipping from the Jornal do Brazil reporting the assassination of Chico Mendes (1988). ranchers, although the protesters retaliated peacefully (frequently by singing hymns). As the campaign evolved, so too did the empates, moving to encompass the entire seringueiro community. Women and children would move to the front of the group, discouraging the police from shooting into the crowd. The formation of extractive reserves is perhaps the greatest testament to Mendes’ tireless efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants. The reserve created on what was then da Silva’s land was the first of many - thanks to the efforts of Mendes’ contemporaries, including Marina Silva, 13% of the Amazon is now protected as extractive reserves. The reserves are funded in part by the World Bank, which had previously financed roads to make deforestation of the Amazon easier; this change of heart is directly attributed to Mendes’ personal lobbying of the organisation. The Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, created after Mendes’ death, continues to protect one million hectares of rainforest to this day. Mendes' launch of the Alliance of Forest Peoples (representing the Amazon’s indigenous peoples and the Rural Workers’ Union) in 1986 signified a dramatic change in the fight to protect the rainforest. Both groups had historically been at odds with one another, so the fact that they were able to unite and work together to protect their cultures and way of life sent a powerful message to their opponents and the Brazilian government. Three months after Mendes’ death, 27 demands on environmental and human rights protection were released, along with the Declaration of the Peoples of the Forest, which concludes: “This Alliance of the Peoples of the Forest, bringing together Indians, rubber tappers, and riverbank communities, and founded here in Acre, embraces all efforts to protect and preserve this immense but fragile life-system that involves our forests, rivers, lakes and springs, the source of our wealth and the basis of our cultures and traditions.” The idea that environmental protection was compatible with sustainable land use in a way that did not ignore thousands of years of indigenous land use within the Amazon changed the way the global environmental movement considered conservation. Of Mendes’ death, associate Gomercindo Rodriquez said: “Those who killed Chico got it wrong. They thought by killing him, the tappers' movement would be demobilised, but they made him immortal.” Thus, in life and in death, Chico Mendes lit the fires of the Amazon conservation movement; that fight continues to this day. Please, if you can, take a moment to recognise the sacrifices made by Mendes and activists like him to protect his people and our planet. The Voice of Forest - Issue II - "Death in the Amazon" Thanks For Reading! Published July 2021 - Written and Edited by Terrabod Oh, and I also want to remind everyone that the submission period for the Forest Interregional Writing Contest closes on the 15th. Good luck to everyone involved, and happy writing! Best wishes, Undivulged Principles and Ave lucifer | ||||||||||||
Hi folks! The judges of the Forest Interregional Writing Contest 2021 have considered each entry and have chosen a deserving winner for each category. I'd like to take this opportunity to extend to them my sincerest thanks for taking the time to collaborate with me on this project; they not only assessed each entry but also provided a substantial amount of carefully considered feedback for each piece. So, without further ado, you can find out the winners of this year's contest in the dispatch below - as well as the winning entries, feedback from the judges, and a personal message from me to all of our entrants. . . . Forest Interregional Writing Contest 2021 . . . The esteemed judges of the writing contest, Verdant Haven, Chan Island and Uan aa Boa, have carefully read and considered each (anonymised) entry and together have chosen a winner for each category. They considered a number of metrics, not limited to word choice, structure and originality, as well as how each writer interpreted this year's theme, "Anthropocene", within their work. Congratulations to the winning entrants, each of whom has been awarded the Forestian Literary Prize; while these honours are awarded to the OOC players for their writing skill, I have no issues if the winners want to also RP/worldbuild it as an IC interregional prize received by one of their citizens. Furthermore, all the entrants are invited to publish their own entry (or entries) now that the contest is over for all to enjoy as unfortunately it's not possible for me to share everyone's work. The Forestian Literary Prize for Poetry . is awarded to for the work
The Forestian Literary Prize for Drama . is awarded to Will anyone be able to claim this honour next year? The Forestian Literary Prize for Prose . is awarded to for the work
Attachment is what gives us the greatest of dread Tupuna fafine tells me stories about Tuvalu. She tells me of her childhood, of the hot days splashing around in the sparkling blue sea, of lounging on the white sand in the shade of the coconut trees, of seagull cries and waves crashing into the shore. I've never seen Tuvalu, and I never will. For the last fifteen years - for my only fifteen years - my world has been concrete and iron. I haven't seen the sea, sparking blue or otherwise. I haven't felt sand between my toes nor drank from a coconut. We have seagulls though, they paint our little concrete boxes white, which I suppose is better than the grey. We also have hot days, we only have hot days really. Tamotu says it's ironic, ironic that they keep us in concrete. "Concrete's made from sand," he's told me more than once. "And that's part of the problem. Entire beaches disappear overnight... people taking the sand. Of course, that didn't happen to Tuvalu. But it's like what happened to Tuvalu, the sand disappearing." I should be thankful. Or that's what the wardens say. They get sick of the complaining, many of us complain. I don't. Tupuna fafine says I'm too young to complain. "Keep those thoughts in that messy little head of yours!" she orders before smiling her gappy smile and winking at me. We should be thankful. The wardens tell us of the Tuvaluans down Dunedin way where they still sometimes have winter, and of the ones "six feet Down Under." They laugh. Miss Manaia tells us the same thing, but more quietly. "I know it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternative." "Better than being outside the bloody fence?" Iosua growls. Miss Manaia doesn't say anything. Iosua likes to make himself big. He's older than me, tupuna fafine says he's nineteen, but Iosua swears he is "basically twenty-one." Iosua looks after us younger ones, he only scares the agency people, like Miss Manaia. But we, all the other kids and me, we should look after each other, he tells us, "‘cause no one else will." Miss Manaia is the sixth agency person I can remember. Iosua scared off the three before her. The one before Miss Manaia only visited once. Iosua made her cry and she didn't come back. They all introduce themselves the same way: "Hello, my name is Their-Name. I work for the Climate Refugee Integration Agency, and I'm going to get you all out of here." The wardens call them CRIAs. Since Iosua scared off the last one, we call them criers. *** I spend my days playing with the kids. There's a hopscotch court painted onto the concrete, but the numbers have all worn away. There's a netball hoop as well, but we only have a football that doesn't bounce. Every time Iosua asks, Miss Manaia looks over at the hoop and frowns. "That's a good point, Iosua–" "I'll make sure to look into it," Iosua interrupts, finishing her sentence, before kicking some gravel and walking away. Tupuna fafine taught me how to braid my hair, so all the little girls, and some of the boys too, will sit in a line and let me braid their hair. Sometimes I weave in some of the dandelions that grow in the cracks of the concrete. Iosua told me that I stick my tongue out when I'm braiding the girls' hair, so I work extra hard to make sure I keep it in my mouth. I play with the kids until 3 o'clock. The cartoons come on the TV at 3. The criers make sure we have a TV. It never gets turned off. We get two channels: Channel 1 and Channel 2. The adults watch Channel 1 most of the day, Channel 1 has the news and stuff. But at 3, Channel 2 gets the cartoons, so the kids get the TV until they're over. I like to watch the cartoons as well, but not when Iosua's around, he thinks they're dumb. The adults watch Channel 1, but they don't like it. The news makes them mad. Tupuna fafine says I shouldn't watch the news, "it's for the grown-ups." But they sometimes talk about us on the news. I like to listen to what they say about us. There's a room with a lot of people sitting in chairs, and the people are always yelling at each other. Tamotu says that's parliament. The Blues say that we need to go away. To Australia or America or Japan. "Japan needs more workers! And we need fewer costs!" Mrs Blue says. Mr Red is in charge of New Zealand. He says that they're being "good Pacific citizens" by having us here. He uses the word 'duty' a lot. When I asked Tamotu what 'duty' means, he said it's "something they have to do." Iosua snorted at that. "Have to keep us trapped in here?" Tamotu shrugged and continued to watch the people yell at each other. Eventually, Mr and Mrs Green were allowed to talk. They agree with Mr Red about duty, but say he's letting us Tuvaluans down. Iosua always growls at Miss Manaia after they talk about us on the news. "Why do we gots to stay in here?" he asks her. Miss Manaia puts on her glasses. She sighs and takes them off again. "Aotearoa New Zealand has taken in ten thousand Tuvaluans. Finding homes for you all is difficult, not to mention expensive." "No one's left here though, miss, 'cept for Big Pu'a, but the wardens say he went to jail. Can't you find even one house?" Miss Manaia pursed her lips. Tupuna fafine shuffled over in her sandals. "Leave the poor woman be, Iosua," she smiles. "She's not the Prime Minister." Miss Manaia looks at tupuna fafine. Her lips smiled, but her eyes didn't. "Thank you, but I'm quite alright." Tupuna fafine's gappy smile disappeared as her face collapsed into a frown, eyes narrowing into a glare. She shook. "So were ours!" she hissed at Miss Manaia. The woman mumbled something about the time and seeing us all again sometime next week before she hurried out the gate, past a pair of wardens, and back to her small silver car. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen tupuna fafine so mad. I rushed towards her, but she smiled at me, waving me away, before toddling back to the shade of our concrete box while Iosua whooped and hollered at her, a massive grin stuck to his big face. *** I like Mr and Mrs Green from the TV, they always say good things about us Tuvaluans. That's what they call us, "Tuvaluans." Miss Manaia calls us Tuvaluans as well, so do the wardens, but the wardens spit when they say it. Even tupuna fafine calls me a Tuvaluan. Inside the room with the TV, the flag of Tuvalu hangs on the wall. Tupuna fafine tells me that the blue is the same colour as the sea she swam in and that the nine stars represent the nine islands of Tuvalu. "It's funny," Tamotu says. "Tuvalu means 'eight standing together,' as in the eight islands emerging from the sea, but Tuvalu had nine islands. When it was named, only eight of the islands were inhabited, but the flag has nine stars for the nine islands. People eventually moved to the ninth island, but the name, Tuvalu, wasn't changed and still means 'eight together.'" The flag hangs on the wall and I'm told stories about the islands by tupuna fafine and Tamotu and others, but I haven't seen them, or stood on them. I wasn't even born there. I was born in these chainlink fences. They tell me my mum and dad were Tuvaluan. They lived on the islands, but they didn't die on them. Mum died in the TV room, on the floor. Tupuna fafine doesn't like to talk about it. Tamotu knows about this too. "We tried to get the wardens to call the criers, to call a doctor, but they didn't. Not even when your mum started screaming. Big Pu'a got mad. Big Pu'a never got mad. He was always smiling and laughing, Big Pu'a was. Never even seen him squash a fly. But Big Pu'a grabbed one of the wardens, by the neck he grabbed him. Told him that if he wanted to see his kids again he was gonna call a doctor. The warden did call a doctor when Big Pu'a let him go, but he didn't get here quick enough. Your mum died, but the doctor managed to save you!" Tamotu had smiled at me. The smile faded. "They came for Big Pu'a the next day. They told him to go with them and he did. He didn't try and run or fight or talk his way out of it. They pushed him into a car and drove him away. Big Pu'a never came back." My dad was taken to Australia, Tamotu thinks. "But it's like the wardens say..." Six feet Down Under. Like Tamotu says, I was born in the TV room. I've never seen Tuvalu and I never will. No one will ever see Tuvalu again. Tamotu says that only four of the islands are still above water, but that the yearly typhoons are washing away what's left. But they still call me Tuvaluan. *** Sometimes I hear the wardens talking. They talk to each other a lot, but never to us. They complain a lot. We complain about the heat, about our clothes, about the food, about the dirt. They complain about different things. They talk about banks and the climate and traffic. But they most often complain about the Wall. "Waste of time and money," one of the wardens says. The others nod. I asked Tamotu about the Wall. "They mean the Auckland Seawall." Auckland's a big city, more than two million people live there, Tamotu told me a while back. Three hundred of us Tuvaluans live in our concrete boxes and chainlink fences. "Is two million a lot more than three hundred?" I frowned. "A lot more, yes. More than you could ever imagine." Tamotu says they're building a wall to keep the sea out of the city, like the sea came into Tuvalu. I don't know how they're going to do that. Tupuna fafine told me that Tuvalu had a building with three floors. Like one of our concrete boxes, but with two more levels. The government building, she said. But Tamotu said that the sea and wind have been knocking that down for years. "It's probably not even standing anymore." I don't know how the Seawall could try and stop the sea if even a building with three whole floors couldn't stop it. Now, whenever Miss Manaia comes, tupuna fafine starts shaking. She's never done this before. I've never seen anything bother her like this. Tupuna fafine mutters to herself about "that stupid woman" and "the empty-headed crier". We try to take tupuna fafine away from Miss Manaia when she comes now, but she refuses. "I've got to keep an eye on that one," she says. "Don't want her teaching our kids more of her nonsense." So tupuna fafine would sit in the shade, under a blanket, glaring as Miss Manaia would talk to us all. Iosua talks to tupuna fafine a lot. She never used to talk to him before, but they're always together now. Whenever I try to talk to Iosua or tupuna fafine now, they tell me to go play with the other kids, but I've already braided their hair and played three games of netball. Two months after tupuna fafine first scolded Miss Manaia, the crier visited us again. Iosua was still eating breakfast, spooning his oats from his plastic bowl into his mouth. "I'm sick of oats," he said. Then he tipped the last of his food onto the ground. "Iosua!" Miss Manaia exclaimed. "Why on Earth did you do that? You're lucky to have that food!" Iosua glared at the woman. "Every day since I could remember, you's fed us oats for breakfast. I want something else." Miss Manaia pursed her lips. She put on her glasses and then took them off again. "You have the news on your TV, yes?" "Yeah, so what?" Iosua grumbled. "Then you must have seen all those poor people in India, starving in their camps, millions of them. You could be like that." "This isn't India." "No, and you have food, you should be grateful for it!" Miss Manaia hmphed. "How dare you!" Miss Manaia's eyes widened as we watched tupuna fafine throw off her blanket and struggle to her feet. I could hear Iosua laughing. "Grateful?" tupuna fafine screeched. "More than seventeen years we've been pent up in this cage!" "Mere, please." "Do not use my name, woman!" tupuna fafine spat, shuffling nearer. "For seventeen years we've been treated like pigs, penned up in here with nothing to do all day!" Miss Manaia wrung her hands. "The TV," she stammered. "The netball court..." "Two channels and half a court!" tupuna fafine was face-to-face with the trembling, white-faced crier. "You say your job is to get us all out of here? No one's left. I bet none of us ten thousand Tuvaluans have ever left these camps! Even dear, old Pu'a! Prison, not freedom! Do you believe it's your duty to keep children locked up here until they're old and wrinkled like me?!" Miss Manaia opened her mouth. "Be quiet when you're being spoken to, Miss Mania! If I have to hear one more word about how this torture is good for us, I'm going t–" Tupuna fafine collapsed. Iosua stopped laughing. Miss Manaia gasped and stumbled back. People rushed forward. Tamotu yelled at the wardens to call a doctor. The wardens listened this time. I stood there. I watched people crowd around tupuna fafine as she wheezed on the concrete ground. A few minutes passed while I watched and a wailing sound got louder and louder. Soon, two people dressed in bright yellow rushed into the camp and knelt next to tupuna fafine. The crowd backed off. They rolled her onto her back, pressed down on her chest, blew into her mouth, they even zapped her a couple times. But when I blinked, they began packing tupuna fafine into a bag and zipped her up. The bag was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled back to their ambulance. "They said it was a heart attack," Tamotu told me. "They tried everything they could." I watched Miss Manaia run back to her little car and drive away, eyes red, while Iosua swore and kicked a concrete wall. *** A week later, a man walked through the gate in the fence. He was tall, with grey hair and a long nose. "Hello, my name is Mr Rudd. I work for the Climate Refugee Integration Agency, and I'm going to get you all out of here." "All who?" I asked Mr Rudd. He looked at me, confused. "All you Tuvaluans." Lastly, I would like to express my own personal gratitude to everyone who took part in the contest! I think I speak for both the judges and myself when I say we thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the entries and were very impressed by the wide range of thought-provoking interpretations of this year's theme. Thank you all so much for getting involved; we hope you'll join in again for next year's contest! . . . I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and publish the August edition of the Voice of Forest at the same time. This issue tells the story of Dame Dr Jane Goodall, the primatologist who became the first (and only) human ever to be accepted into chimpanzee society. Happy reading! Jane Goodall The Voice of Forest - Issue III | August 2021 | She Lived Among the Apes . JANE GOODALL
(b. 1934) Known For:
Selected Awards:
"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." . Dame Dr Jane Morris Goodall (b. 1934) is a British zoologist, conservationist and animal welfare activist. She is considered to be the world's foremost expert in chimpanzees, with a research career spanning six decades, and was the scientist who broke primatology's glass ceiling, a discipline that was male-dominated when her career began. Goodall is well known for her activism but is probably best known for her 30-year study of chimpanzee behaviour throughout which she recorded a number of significant findings. During this project, Goodall became the first (and only) human ever to be accepted into chimpanzee society. Background Jane Goodall was born in 1934 to businessman Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and novelist Margaret Myfanwe Joseph in Hampstead, London. As a child, Goodall's father gave her a chimpanzee stuffed toy instead of the traditional teddy bear. Although her mother believed the toy would frighten her and give her nightmares, Goodall was fond of the toy, and she would later say it sparked her lifelong love of animals. As a young woman, Goodall was interested in African animals; she was able to move to Kenya after finding work as a secretary to Dr Louis Leakey, an eminent archaeologist and palaeontologist. After Leakey obtained the approval of his co-researcher and wife, paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, he laid out his plans to Goodall; he believed that the study of existing great apes could provide clues to the behaviour of early hominids and was looking for a chimpanzee researcher. Leakey sent Goodall back to Britain to study primate behaviour and anatomy, and in 1960 he acquired the funds to allow Goodall to begin a research project at the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Thus, Goodall became the first of three women, later known as "The Trimates" (or "Leaky's Angels"), chosen by Leaky to study great apes (alongside Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas, and Birutė Galdikas, who studied orangutans). In 1962, Leaky sent Goodall to the University of Cambridge, where she became the eighth person to be allowed to complete a PhD there without first having obtained a BA or BSc degree. Her thesis, which was based on the first five years of her research at Gombe Stream, was completed in 1966 under the supervision of Professor Robert Hinde. Goodall's research is well known within the scientific community for challenging two long-standing beliefs held at the time: firstly, that only humans had the capacity to construct and use tools; and secondly, that chimpanzees were exclusively herbivores/insectivores. When observing the Kasakela chimpanzee community at Gombe Stream, she noted that some chimpanzees would stick long blades of grass into termite holes, then remove them when covered with termites, effectively "fishing" for the insects. Goodall also discovered that chimpanzees regularly hunt smaller species of primates such as colobus monkeys and share the carcass among the troop. Years of observation led Goodall to identify violence within chimpanzee communities, including the deliberate killing of other females' young by the troop's dominant females in order to maintain their place in the troop hierarchy. Of course, one of Goodall's most significant feats is her acceptance into chimpanzee society. After many months of long-distance study, the Kasakela chimpanzee community gradually began to adjust to Goodall's presence – rather than fleeing when she was within 500 yards of the group, they allowed her to watch them from a distance of 100 yards. She began the long process of being able to recognise individual troop members and learned the basic behaviour patterns of the group. It was during this stage that Goodall started recording how members of the troop communicated with each other – both through body language and vocalisations. The fear towards her reportedly turned to curiosity, then to defiance at her intrusion. After a year, her arrival was greeted with excitement or indifference. At one watershed moment, a new member of the troop (whom she named "David") took bananas that Goodall brought from her camp and ate them; thereafter, he would accept bananas from Goodall and would sit with her as he ate them. This proved to be Goodall's entry point into the Kasakela troop – David eventually brought other members of the troop to share the bananas, and soon a trio of chimpanzees was stealing pieces of cloth from Goodall's camp! For a period of 22 months, Goodall was the lowest-ranking member of the troop. She would groom and be groomed by other members, and she would communicate with them in a rudimentary fashion by mimicking their calls and gestures. Goodall credits the 1986 Understanding Chimpanzees conference at the Chicago Academy of Sciences with shifting her focus from chimpanzee observation to a broader interest in conservation. In recent years, Goodall has focused on her writing, which has produced several international bestsellers, a number of educational initiatives and a career as a conservationist. She received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 for her dedicated and ground-breaking research, as well as for her conservation efforts and wider activism. Activism In 1977, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which to this day supports research into the great apes of the Gombe Stream. The Institute is widely recognised for establishing many community-centred conservation and development programs across Africa. Today, the organisation focuses Jane Goodall reaches out to Flint, a juvenile member of the Kasakela chimpanzee community. Flint was the first infant born after Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream (c. 1960). on the conservation of primates, as well as promoting gender equality, improving health outcomes and championing sustainable livelihoods. Regarded as a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, Goodall has founded a number of conservation projects in Africa. These include the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in the Republic of Congo, which cares for orphans of the bushmeat trade, and the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education project, which protects chimpanzee territory around the Gombe Stream through reforestation and the education of local communities on sustainability. Goodall is also a committed vegetarian; she advocates the diet on the basis that it is ethical, healthy and good for the environment. She is an outspoken proponent of farm animal welfare, criticising industrial farming techniques that she believes are painful, degrading and inhumane as well as extremely harmful to the environment. Her opposition to hunting animals for sport and the use of animals for medical experimentation is also notable, although she has attracted criticism for her views of the latter from scientific experts who contend that ethical animal experimentation is a crucial part of lifesaving research. To date, Goodall continues to work alongside several conservation and animal welfare organisations, including the Nonhuman Rights Project, Advocates for Animals and Population Matters. She was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2004, and is an honorary member of the World Future Council. In 2020, Goodall vowed to plant five million trees as part of the World Economic Forum's one trillion tree initiative and in February 2021 she, along with over 140 scientists, called on the EU Commission to ban the caging of farm animals. At present, Goodall devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy on behalf of chimpanzees and conservation of the environment, travelling nearly 300 days a year. The Voice of Forest - Issue III - "She Lived Among the Apes" Thanks for Reading! Published August 2021 - Written and Edited by Terrabod Best wishes, Undivulged Principles and Ave lucifer | ||||||||||||
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