World Ark Magazine - January/February 2009 - (Page 4)

letters Readers Respond I the roma am stunned. amazed. Personally overwhelmed by this article. My family will celebrate in two days our fourth family anniversary—the day we recognize the beginning of our life together, the day we walked off a plane in Minneapolis with 18-month-old twin boys into the waiting arms of 50 friends and family members. with each year my husband and i try to instill a sense of beginning and belonging for our boys; we talk about their home country, ukraine, and speak kindly of their birth mother. but what is always a challenge is how do we teach them about their culture? My babies, my angels, are roma—not only a people apart, but a people forgotten and ignored. Thank you so much for this article. i will share this with our friends and family during a celebration party, and i will share it with my boys when they are a little bit older. Thank you for putting a face to these people in a way that is honest and insightful but does not completely ignore the real challenges faced by the roma people. i am profoundly touched by the photos, images that match the ones seared into my brain of the small town in ukraine where my boys spent the first 18 months of their life. —becca r ausenberger of so much hatred, and it drew me to study the history of roma in europe. i am glad to see a more balanced perspective based on personal experience represented in World Ark. i will definitely be adding more goats to the heifer herd! Thank you so much for your hard work and cultural understanding! —jennifer illuzzi, Ph.d. this industry. The rape of the southeast asian rain forest is not acceptable no matter what the perceived value of this crop is. humans do not have the right to drive other species to extinction for their own gain. we must put pressure on all the stakeholders and insist that palm oil is only grown in a sustainable way, before it’s too late. —sandi linn Minneapolis, Minn. Orlando, Fla. T Palm oil Cologne, Minn. I just finished reading your excellent article on the roma in slovakia, and i was pleased to see the positive and balanced treatment of the roma population, a rarity in most things i read about roma. i appreciated the way the article dispelled the predominant myths about roma and put a human face on what many europeans consider a “throwaway” population. when i lived in italy, one of the first things italians told me was to “watch out for the gypsies, they’ll steal your stuff.” over time, i came to wonder how a group of people had become the target hanks for making me aware of so many wonderful projects and issues around the world through your magazine. however, i want to point out that palm oil is not quite so beneficial as it came across in “The other oil crisis” (november/december 2008). Palm oil is used in not only biofuels, but also in tons of cosmetics, soaps and snack foods that stock our grocery shelves, and it has provided some income for desperately poor people in the tropics. but its huge profits make it too attractive a crop—rain forests are being decimated and replaced with this monocrop at a galloping rate. some conservationists call for worldwide boycotts of the product; most believe any environmental gains that would come from using the biofuels are far outweighed by the negatives of rain forest destruction. an article in the november issue of National Geographic says that oil palm plantations mean “inexorable death” for the biodiversity of borneo. This is the real crisis of palm oil. — hoPe coulTer Editor’s note: world ark agrees that palm oil production has its downside.The “For the Record” piece on palm oil was meant to be a look at the rising price of palm oil, driven in part by the biodiesel craze, not an endorsement. We agree that oil palm plantations are a blight in the tropics of Southeast Asia. We just returned from Indonesia, where the now-plummeting price of palm oil is having dire consequences for small farmers. M World ark Little Rock, Ark. I was shocked to read your endorsement of palm oil in the november/ december 2008 issue. The conversion of virgin forest to monoculture palm oil plantations in asia is not only destroying an entire ecosystem, it is leading to the extinction of one of our closest relatives, the orangutans. orangutans are predicted to be gone in the wild in less than 10 years because of the boon in y wife barbara and i would like to express thanks to jo luck, Tom Peterson and others on the staff of the World Ark for producing a much needed comprehensive view of the world in the World Ark magazine. we applaud you for your courage to print articles that some people may disagree with, and the fact that some do indicates that your reporting and articles are right on target. it is so important that you prod our conscience on matters of peace, the environment, war, human rights, disease, agriculture and others. Most of all we enjoy reading about all the wonderful people helping to make it a better world by supporting heifer. keep up the good work; it is much needed. —dan and barbar a Pollock Dixon, N.M. T africa he map in your december issue showing countries in africa currently experiencing war omits the democratic republic of the congo, although the accompanying article by www.h ei f er .o r g 4 ja n uar y / feb ruar y 2 0 0 9 | world ark http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - January/February 2009

World Ark Magazine - January/February 2009 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Microfinance: A Lot for a Little Business is Buzzing in Honduras The World Grows Smaller Mixed Media Heifer Spirit Heifer Bulletin Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - January/February 2009

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