NEW YORK, New York, September 25, 2008 (ENS) – The first Kids Gorilla Summit, which is happening on Friday in New York City will enlist young people to make a commitment to help endangered mountain gorillas and the people of Africa. The summit will explore the connection between the urgency of wildlife preservation and inter-related humanitarian issues.

This event and the gorilla conservation campaign it spearheads were born out of a commitment to action made at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative shortly after last summer’s massacre of 10 of the world’s remaining 720 mountain gorillas, of which, 380 live in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Virunga National Park.

A project of the William J. Clinton Foundation established by the former U.S. president, the Clinton Global Initiative convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, such as the planet’s dwindling biodiversity.

An endangered mountain gorilla in the
DRC. (Photo by Paul Taggart courtesy
Wildlife Direct)

The gorilla conservation campaign brings together some of the world’s most respected names such as Kenyan conservationist Dr. Richard Leakey, founder of Wildlife Direct, and South African Anglican Archbishop, activist and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu.

Turtle Pond Publications and Scholastic, in association with Dr. Richard Leakey’s Wildlife Direct and the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation through the catalyst of the Clinton Global Initiative, are the partners in this effort to protect the mountain gorillas.

Dr. Leakey started Wildlife Direct in 2005 to raise awareness and funds for conservation in some of the worlds most endangered and dangerous places. Operating deep in the jungles of eastern Congo, blogs written by rangers last year alerted the world to the crisis facing mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Funds raised through the blogs have enabled the Congolese wildlife authority, the Congolese Nature Conservation Institute to continue wildlife conservation activities on the ground despite the ongoing crisis that pits rebels and government troops against each other for control of the area inhabited by the gorillas.

“Wildlife Direct was conceived as a way of facilitating exchanges between the front lines of conservation and the rest of the world, to create a community of people concerned about conservation and to allow for direct interaction with and support to the conservationists on the ground,” Dr. Leakey says on his blog.

The Kids Gorilla Summit will now be part of that community. Participants will discuss the new children’s book, “Looking for Miza: The True Story of the Mountain Gorilla Family Who Rescued One of Their Own, published by Scholastic Press. It was written by the best-selling team of Craig, Isabella and Juliana Hatkoff, photographer Peter Greste, and ecologist Dr. Paula Kahumbu who is in charge of conservation, policy and partnerships at Wildlife Direct.

Some 180 students in grades five to seven will view short videos of the gorillas, as well as special animated “Gorillasodes” that were created by students from the United States and Rwanda to help spread the word about the gorillas’ plight.

The young people will discuss the issues with Leakey, Kahumbu and Hatkoff, and they will meet four reporters who are members of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps, reporting from Africa.

After learning about the gorillas and the region, the students will develop their own ideas for solutions with the help of educational, web-based technological tools.

At the end of the summit, participants will be asked to sign the Kids Global Act Pact, which will declare their commitment to taking action to make a difference.

Students nationwide can participate via a live national webcast at http://www.scholastic.com/miza and will be able to email questions to participants.

In addition, http://www.scholastic.com/miza and http://www.miza.com, created jointly by Turtle Pond and Scholastic, will offer students up-to-date information on the gorillas brought from Wildlife Direct’s field-based blogs written by the Mountain Rangers and other activities and resources.

The new curriculum and online portal will be distributed to a million students to teach them about the gorillas, their habitat and the Mountain Rangers, and is intended to empower them to become advocates for change.

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” —Gen. 1:31

New Bible Shows How God Was the Original Environmentalist —and How the World’s Most Influential Book Urges Us to Sustain Our Planet

The Cover For The Green Bible

In a publishing first this fall, HarperOne will release The Green Bible (NRSV), a Green-Letter Edition that is the definitive Bible for the growing creation care movement (HarperOne, $29.95, October 2008). It shows just how green God is, with green ink highlighting the more than 1,000 passages that speak to God’s love for creation and the scriptural mandate for humans to care for, protect, and heal the earth.

Produced in an eco-friendly printing process with soy-based inks, recycled paper, and a 100% cotton/linen cover, The Green Bible is packed with special features tracing environmental themes woven through Scripture. Essays by a range of voices offer an ecumenical perspective on eco-justice and the Bible’s message for the earth, including a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; author Brian McLaren on the theological shift toward creation care; preacher Barbara Brown Taylor on our responsibility to care for what God loves; the late pope John Paul II on the ecological crisis as a moral problem; Jewish environmentalist Ellen Bernstein on ten principles of creation theology; and Anglican Bishop of Durham, England N.T. Wright on how we must be God’s agents in bringing forth environ-mental renewal today.

“That the Bible has a profound message of sustainability—some might argue, the original message—is not all that surprising. What is surprising is that it is not one of the first things that comes to mind when most folks think about the Bible and its message,” says Mark Tauber, senior vice president and publisher of HarperOne. “This Bible seeks to change that fact. We believe that the unique and specially added features by some of today’s most important thinkers, writers and leaders,across the ecumenical spectrum make it a must-have for those who already find motivation, comfort and inspiration in it and for the many more who might see it freshly as a critical resource in their journey to sustain our planet.”

Get more info at the official website for the book [www.greenletterbible.com].

The Bible “is an ecological handbook on how to live rightly on earth,” says conservationist Cal DeWitt, one of the contributors.

A poem by renowned poet and conservationist Wendell Berry serves as the epigraph. Matthew Sleeth, M.D., Executive Director of Blessed Earth and author of Serve God, Save the Planet wrote the introduction. Sleeth notes that the Bible begins and ends with a tree: “The tree of life forms the bookends of the scriptures; together with branches, vines, leaves and bushes, they punctuate a thousand passages.”

The Green Bible illuminates God’s vision for creation through these unique features:
• an introduction to reading Scripture through a green lens, including what Jesus had to say about the environment;
• a historical overview of Christian teachings on creation, from St. Augustine to C.S. Lewis, showing how these themes have been present throughout church history;
• Green Bible Trail study guides, which lead through Bible passages that touch on six green themes found in Scriptures;
• a green subject index that includes listings of Bible passages that cover such topics as animals, caring for your neighbor, land and water;
• a resource guide with suggestions for how to get involved in the green movement, how to start a group in your church, and simple ways to practice creation care in daily life.

The Green Bible is an edition of The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), the most widely accepted and most accurate translation of the Bible. Used and approved by all three branches of the church, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, it is the official translation for most denominations. A direct descendant of the King James and RSV Bibles, the NRSV passes on the richest and most influential works in the English language while thoroughly updating words, phrases and grammar so contemporary readers will have no difficulty reading the text.

Check out the Green Bible Video on Youtube [www.youtube.com]

About HarperOne
HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers, strives to be the preeminent publisher of the most important books and authors across the full spectrum of religion, spirituality, and personal growth literature, adding to the wealth of the world’s wisdom by stirring the waters of reflection on the primary questions of life, while respecting all traditions.

About HarperCollinsPublishers
HarperCollins, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV). Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups around the world including the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India. HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children’s books, cookbooks, mystery, romance, reference, religious and spiritual books. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins has published some of the world’s foremost authors and has won numerous awards including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott. Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities. You can visit HarperCollinsPublishers on the Internet at www.harpercollins.com.