Thought tweeters would be interested in this program.


Jim Rosso

Forwarded Message:
Subj: THE ABE TALON
Date: 95-11-01 16:07:44 EST
From: MamaDuck1

T H E T A L O N
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An informational service of the American Birders Exchange.
NHarrierpw, WILDSIDENT, Goldncheek - Editors
November 1, 1995
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As birders, we are all aware of our enviro-social responsibility
to maintain the ecosystems that sustain birds and wildlife.
Unfortunately, all too often, increasing our awareness of the
factors that influence those ecosystems lead us not down
a birding/nature trail, but a money trail. In an effort to fill an
informational niche and share understanding of how political
ramifications actually affect our most precious resources, we at
The Talon would like to submit to you the following announcement.

>---<

Everglades Future to be Featured on World of Audubon TV Special

"Every time you buy sugar to pour into a glass of iced tea or whip
into a batch of cookies, you are also unknowingly buying into a
system of government-sponsored corporate welfare that not only
costs you money but is contributing to the destruction of one of
the most precious and invaluable wildernesses on the planet -- the
Florida Everglades.

The upcoming WORLD OF AUDUBON special, will explore this
story in explosive detail, unraveling a web of greed, influence-
peddling and environmental mayhem. Co-produced with CNN's
"Network Earth" investigative reporting team, it will be telecast
on TBS Superstation. The television special arrives at a critical
time. The Farm Bill is coming up for review in the United States
Congress, as it must every five years.

Within that legislation is a proposed continuance of the sugar
price support system which, with Washington's compliance,
keeps the price of American sugar 35-40% higher than the going
rate on the world market. The majority of the vast profits artificially
generated by this government assistance program end up in the
pockets of a handful of wealthy sugar growers, who keep this
mechanism of bureaucratic complicity generously oiled with
contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. Sugar
magnates take some of these profits and plow them right back
into the cane fields.

As more acreage is planted, more water is diverted from the
unique Everglades ecosystem. And the more sugar that's
cultivated, the greater the runoff of system-choking phosphate
pollution not only into the 'Glades' but into Florida Bay, where
the resulting algae bloom -- the size of the state of Rhode Island
is wreaking havoc on tourism, fishing and the only living coral
reef in North America.

The sugar industry, already lifting dollars out of your pocketbook,
has agreed to contribute money for the clean-up of the Everglades,
but most of the dollars will come out of the Florida taxpayer. For
the growers, it's a sweet deal. For everyday people and the
Everglades, it's just one more indignity to life in these United
States.

Our WORLD OF AUDUBON special will track this trail of money
and politics from the backrooms of Capitol Hill to the mansions of
the sugar daddies, from the mangrove swamps of the Everglades
to the shanties of the Dominican Republic, one of the nations from
which migrant workers travel to work the Florida cane fields,
often under arduous and dangerous conditions."

Premiere: November 19, 1995, 10:00 pm (ET)
Encores: November 20, 1995, 1:05 am (ET)
November 25, 1995, 11:05 am (ET)
November 27, 1995, 2:05 am (ET) (tentative)

Contact
Audubon Public Affairs
(212) 979-3026

This announcement was brought to our attention by MamaDuck1,
who located it at the Audubon WWWsite:
http://www.audubon.org/audubon/

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