Dear Earth,
May it live to be 3,000鈥攐r older. Del Norte Titan (Sequoia sempervirens). California. Photo: Brian Kelley
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It hasn鈥檛 been so very long since we took our relationship to a new level.
You were appointed our sole shareholder one year ago, which isn鈥檛 a lot of time on your geologic and cosmic timescales, something that鈥檚 easy to get existential about considering all you鈥檝e done before we were even here. But let鈥檚 stay in the present. 欧博会员入口 see this as a moment of reflection and a moment for a greater human movement to rally on your behalf.
Days after we donated our company to you, we jumped wholeheartedly into the US midterm elections鈥攊t鈥檚 exciting for us to grant money in ways we couldn鈥檛 before. 欧博会员入口 supported campaigns in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia in order to make progress on land and water conservation, as well as to defend our democracy, which we need to protect you and all the life you nurture. Catherine Cortez Masto, who won an important and very tight race in Nevada, has said, 鈥淥ur democracy is precious, and we need to do everything we can to strengthen it,鈥� an attitude that applies as much to votes as it does to conservation. There are many allies in this work, and now, under our new ownership arrangement, we can better support leaders like Cortez Masto.
It鈥檚 not just the most obvious threats of the climate crisis that need to be addressed. It鈥檚 also the protection of a toad that breeds at snowmelt in the Eastern Sierra; the carbon-capture potential of a New England forest; and the safe passage of species through human-impacted landscapes. This is why we were proud to help the Northeast Wilderness Trust in their successful bid to create a 1,400-acre wildlife corridor in upstate New York.
The value of 鈥渂ig little鈥� wins is something our friends in South America have known for years, too. In 2023, the persistence of local and national advocacy groups in Chile and Argentina finally paid off. They won a 33-year-long fight to protect Peninsula Mitre at the continent鈥檚 southern tip.
In Alaska, the Dena鈥檌na people led a successful effort to purchase conservation easements in Bristol Bay. These protect key salmon-spawning rivers and prohibit the building of access roads to the recently halted Pebble Mine project. You have to love that one鈥攊t protects the most vital salmon habitat left in what we call your 欧博会员入口stern Hemisphere.
The list of things to come reminds us of why we鈥檙e here, doing the work every day. 欧博会员入口鈥檙e doing this work so that you can feel cool, clean, undammed rivers on your skin and listen to the sounds of millions of birds as they migrate around your circumference. So that you can watch seasons change in cyclical rhythms, rather than the chaos of too much change at once, and taste snowflakes on your tongue and feel the warmth of the sun on your hair. So that we can continue to experience awe at the things you continue to create, even under so much pressure.
There鈥檚 an election in 2024 that will have a huge impact on the political leanings of the US and, by extension, the climate policies we can enact. There鈥檚 a global biodiversity crisis we鈥檙e working to counter by advocating for marine protected areas and public lands, and by continuing our commitment to so many of the issues and fights we鈥檝e been involved in for years鈥攖he Tongass, Bears Ears, the Vjosa River, the great forests of Australia.
Saving our home planet is still what we鈥檙e most invested in. But we also recognize that your forests and coral reefs and wild creatures will ultimately be fine without us. And that it isn鈥檛 finally about saving you at all, but about saving us. 欧博会员入口 need you. 欧博会员入口 need you to be OK. And we won鈥檛 stop working toward that.
Since the early days of our company, we鈥檝e supported grassroots efforts to protect you. But our new way of doing things hopefully feels more like a partnership and serves to inspire others. 欧博会员入口 all have a role to play鈥攋oin us.
