EARTHKEEPERS PHILOSOPHY

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The relentless engine of human reproduction adds a billion more people to the planet every eleven years -an unprecedented rate of growth. Population surges, increases in consumption and the acceleration of ecological changes to the globe have conspired to drastically reduce our time frame for response to environmental threats and human rights in North America and around the world. Consider the following:

*Water- Water scarcity may be the most under appreciated global environmental challenge of our time. Over 1.2 billion people have no drinking water and over 2.4 billion people are without basic sanitation. In the Middle East, China, India, and the United States, groundwater is being pumped faster than it is being replenished, and rivers such as the Colorado and Yellow River no longer reach the sea year round. Over the next quarter century, the number of people in countries unable to meet their domestic, industrial, and agricultural water needs is expected to balloon substantially.

*Urbanization- By the end of this decade, more than half of the world's population will live in cities, making humanity a predominantly urban species for the first time in its history. Most of the world's cities, however, impose a huge burden on the environment and fail to provide decent living conditions for millions of people. For example, fuels burned in cities generate over three-quarters of the global carbon emissions emitted from human activities and some 600 million to 1 billion urbanites lack adequate shelter and are living without easy access to clean water, toilets, or electricity.

*Security- Analysts increasingly recognize that a multitude of social, economic, and environmental pressures underlie many of the world's armed conflicts. Struggles over resources like oil, water, timber, and minerals are often the result of depletion and degradation, or of an unsustainable increase in consumption. Degraded areas may be rendered uninhabitable, creating waves of environmental refugees. And the impacts of resource scarcity often reinforce existing social divisions. While the potential for conflict is particularly pronounced where poverty and inequality are extensive, resource wealth can also trigger conflict: the pillaging of diamonds, minerals, timber, and other resources has financed wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

*Climate Changes- The Earth's atmosphere is now warming at the fastest rate in recorded history, a trend that is projected to cause extensive damage to forests, marine ecosystems, and agriculture. Human communities are also threatened by climate change as seas rise, storms become more intense, and episodes of drought and flooding increase. The scientific evidence is now compelling that recent climate change is caused at least in part by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, which has driven atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to their highest levels in 420,000 years.

These statistics are alarming. This is our wake up call. We are all responsible to participate in whatever way we can to turn this around. WE ARE EARTHKEEPERS. The art of healing is a way of life for Earthkeepers. Long before there was a United States of America , there was Turtle Island. Despite any differences, the people of this place had shared a deep reverence for the Earth. They shared in the rhythms and flows of seasonal changes, waterways, and migrations. They lived in harmony with the Earth. To this day, music, dance, prayer and ceremony are ways of expressing relationships with our earth and are essential to our day-to-day lives.

Our purpose must be to re-awaken this traditional reverence, harmony and balance and bring them into the dreams and visions of all the people of this Earth. This sharing and renewal will be the fundamental strength of Nations that are sincerely interested in being the foundation of the "Thousand Years of Peace." It will happen, as our faith in the "Thousand Years of Peace" vision is happening now.

...MAY THE DREAM BE SHARED BY ALL... SS

CODE OF ETHICS