This is an effort to save the most biologically diverse body of water on earth

Ciudadanos Preocupados A.C.
(Concerned Citizens Civil Association, in English)
Warriors of the Rainbow, La Paz, B.C.S., Mexico
E-mail ciud...@gmail.com
Tel. International: 011-54-612-1254459 / Local (612) 1254459
Oct., 2005
Indigenous Peoples Prophecy

When the Mother Earth is sick and the animals dying, there will come a tribe of peoples from all cultures who believe in deeds, not words, and they will restore the Mother Earth to her former beauty,
This Tribe will be called, The Warriors of the Rainbow
Howdy Folks

Just to catch everybody up on all that has been happening here. For those not aware, we have been waging a campaign to save the Bay of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, one of the great bays of the world, and entering into a major campaign to save the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez, the most biologically diverse body of water on the Mother Earth.

Our group has over 3,200 signed supporters, over 200 of whom are Post Graduates, Professors, Research Scientists & Investigators, from the three leading institutes of Marine Biology in Latin America, located here in La Paz.

Many of those have been doing voluntary environmental impact statements to assess the impacts of thoughtless developments in ecologically sensitive/essential areas throughout this region. Primarily the mangrove forest areas, which along with coral reef systems are the primary sources of the life of the sea, have been our major focus and to date we have compiled the most complete studies ever done in this region (and equal to, or more complete, other studies of areas of the worlds eco-systems).

We are legally represented by CEMDA (www.cemda.org.mx), thee leading environmental rights legal association in Mexico and respected worldwide. We currently have actions pending and in progress before the: Municipal, State & Federal Governments and agencies, including direct contact and investigations initiated by the President of the Republic. We are also preparing cases for the Mexican Federal Courts, one of those involving two other attorney groups and groups from each of the five States bordering the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez.

We are working in association with: Greenpeace.mx & OCEANO, Greenpeace ocean operations group (www.greenpeace.org.mx); Waterkeeper Alliance (www.waterkeeper.org); Environment Now (www.environmentnow.org); ConCiencia Mexico http://groups.msn.com/concienciabajacaliforniasur, Global Green Fund (www.greengrants.org) and several other groups from throughout the region, nation and world, with the alliance continuing to grow.

Greenpeace will be stationing a ship permanently for the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez in 2006. Waterkeeper Alliance currently has two projects, Magdalena Bay Baykeeper and Punta Abreojos Coastkeeper and we are working together towards creating a La Paz Baykeeper project.

We have sponsored 15 Public Forums since April of 2004; have had over 250 articles in the local and national press (search Ciudadanos Preocupados A.C., El Mogote, Balandra, Peter Patterson…..) and had several radio and T.V. interviews; we have published numerous information sheets and essays to educate the public to the issues at hand; we currently have five video shorts which we have produced that demonstrate the essential needs to protect the environment, our past forums and public opinion, etc. Those are used for the Public Forums and various other presentations in support of our efforts.

To date, with the exception of a seed grant from the Global Green Fund that provided our office equipment and a couple of months rent, this entire effort has been supported exclusively by local volunteers and supporters, Warriors of the Rainbow whose deeds have made this all possible.

We have officially incorporated as a Non-Profit Civil Association// N.G.O. (Ciudadanos Preocupados A.C.) and are under tax-exempt status review, so can legally accept tax deductible donations in the interim, with the final status approval being expected within the next couple of months.

We presently have over a gigabyte of files on all of our efforts and many of our scientific and legal studies are applicable to similar efforts worldwide.

We are also working to establish a mangrove reforestation project to recoup the more than 50% of the mangrove strands which have already been lost to thoughtless developments in this area. Combined with our experts from the leading universities here, we have a global network of experts from around the world that we can work with.

Everything presented here can be amply documented by us and much can be obtained via the internet from a myriad of sources which have covered our efforts.

All of these things have come into being since August of 2003 when we started preparing for the Spring Equinox Global Gathering of the Tribes here in La Paz (March 15th-30th 2004), and most have come into being since April of 2004.

By any stretch of the imagination, considering:

(1) That we started from Zero and have received no significant outside funding; all work has been on a 100% volunteer basis and we have no paid staff;
(2) All efforts have been opposed via major political corruption by the ex-governor and numerous public officials;
(3) The scientifically based environmental studies done, if we had to pay for them, would have cost us millions of dollars;
(4) The legal cases likewise would have had very high cost;
(5) The publicity we have managed to obtain could have not been better if we had paid for the hundreds of pages of news that we have generated;
(6) We have established and maintained our office since Dec. of 2004 and put into place a 3 computer network with all of the basic hardware (printers, scanners, copier, etc.). And we normally have all three, plus individuals with their own laptops, busy with all of the aspects of things that we are working with.
(7) We have done numerous educational/environmental journeys into threatened areas to teach people about their beauty and essential ecological functions.
(8) We have mounted petition drives, surveys and volunteer sign-ups that has created the strongest ecological group in our region of Mexico.
(9) We have worked continually to reach out to groups, locally, nationally and internationally, which has resulted in our growing alliance dedicated to our common causes.
(10) Our group(s) operates where all participants have equal voices and consensus agreements of two thirds represents a strong consensus that allows each project to proceed in the name of the group. Three quarters agreement, or more, commits the entire group to offering any assistance possible within the overall network.

We have accomplished the most that could humanly be done in such a relatively short period.

This has all come at high, and sometimes extreme, costs to the group members. Mexico is still a “third world economy