Groups Work to Save Rain Forest Palms
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=1&u=/ap/20050320/ap_on_sc/eco_friendly_palm_sunday
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By ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA, Colombia - With a sprinkling of holy water, a
priest blessed thousands of palm seedlings in a
ceremony in Bogota's main park, sealing an unusual
Palm Sunday pact between the Roman Catholic Church and
environmentalists to save a critically endangered
parrot.
Thousands of miles away, 22 churches in the United
States are for the first time using environmentally
sustainable palm from Guatemala and Mexico for their
Palm Sunday services this year.
This convergence of religion and ecology is taking
root across scattered areas of the globe amid
heightened environmental awareness among some church
leaders. More than 300 million palm fronds are
harvested each year for U.S. consumption alone � most
of them for Palm Sunday.
"Most Christians wake up on a Palm Sunday, look at the
beautiful greenery but don't think about where it's
being grown and whether forests and people are being
affected," said Glenn Berg-Moberg, pastor of an
800-member Lutheran church in St. Paul, Minn. "The
largest single demand of palm fronds is for Palm
Sunday, so we feel we need to be responsible in how we
are treating the forest."
The effort in America, promoted by the Montreal-based
Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the
Rainforest Alliance in New York, is aimed at
protecting the rainforests in Guatemala and Mexico
whose canopy provides the shade for the shrublike
chamaedorea palms to grow.
The plan is to buy certified palms from communities
using sustainable forestry practices and improve the
communities' profit margins, giving them more
incentive to protect the rainforest instead of
clear-cutting it.
"Someone quipped that this is a palm pilot, but we're
really excited about it," Berg-Moberg said.
The Colombian initiative has a special urgency,
because the survival of a species is at stake.
There are only 540 or so yellow-eared parrots left on
the planet. They exist only in Colombia. Their sole
habitat is the wax palm, which grows on the misty
flanks of the Andes Mountains to heights of 225 feet,
making it the world's tallest palm tree.
But for centuries, Colombians have used the fronds of
the wax palm for Palm Sunday, which commemorates
Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, where residents greeted
him by waving palm fronds.
When Colombian peasants cut off the fronds from the
young wax palms � Colombia's national tree � to sell
to worshippers, the trees die or their growth is
stunted. The practice has led to a dramatic thinning
of the towering palms.
A top Colombian cleric said it's important for the
church to join with environmental groups and
government agencies to promote use of other palms and
save the bright green-and-yellow parrots.
"We have a slogan: God pardons always, man pardons
sometimes, but nature never does. Every abuse of
nature you pay for, sooner or later," said Monsignor
Fabian Marulanda, secretary-general of the church's
policy-making Episcopal Conference.
On a sunny, crisp morning in Bogota's sprawling Simon
Bolivar Park, the Rev. Alirio Lopez stood before
hundreds of people holding 6-inch seedlings of the
Alexandra palm � an alternative to the wax palm � in
paper cups. Schoolchildren, joggers, cyclists and
others streamed into a rotunda in the park to
participate.
"Dear Lord, who created the Earth, the waters, the
plants and the animals, bless these Alexandra palms,"
the white-robed Lopez, who flicked holy water onto
some of the seedlings, said in Friday's ceremony.
Thousands of the seedlings are being handed out, to be
planted for future Palm Sunday observances. Bigger
fronds of the alternative palms will be available for
Palm Sunday services this year.
Marulanda said the church refrained from joining the
campaign earlier because some groups were proposing
that worshippers display handkerchiefs, corn stalks
and an assortment of other items instead of palm
fronds.
"There would have been a burlesque aspect to it all,"
Marulanda said. But the church came on board after the
use of fronds from other palms was suggested.
"Maintain the Tradition. Respect Nature," proclaim
posters that have been sent to churches nationwide to
promote the program.
One of the campaign organizers, Luz Mery Cortes of
Conservation International, said she does not think
all Colombians will immediately abandon use of wax
palm fronds, which are legally protected.
"We cannot expect that such a strongly held tradition
will change overnight," Cortes said. "But if we don't
do something, the wax palm and the yellow-eared parrot
will disappear from the planet."
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