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President: Lewis Seiler
Executive Director: Dan Hamburg
Board Members: Lewis Seiler, Martin Litton, Michael Rosenthal, Peter Camejo, Michael Wyman, Robin Collier
Webmaster: Ed Ellsworth
Ukiah office:
1330 Boonville Road; Ukiah, CA 95482
Marin office:
270 Beach Road; Belvedere, CA† 94920
Phone:
Ukiah office: 707-467-0329
Marin office: 415-435-2007
Lewis Seiler, an environmentalist for twenty-five years, is the founder of Voice of the Environment. He is a rancher, businessman, and sculptor whose work has been shown across the country. From 1980-1990, he served as president of the Farallon Foundation which was instrumental in forcing the US government to stop dumping radioactive waste off the coast of California and resisting attempts by the US Navy to dump decommissioned nuclear submarines off the same coast. Mr. Seiler owns and actively manages a 1000-acre ranch in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana which is held in a conservation easement in perpetuity.
Martin Litton has been called "the great American conservationist of the 20th century."† A member of the Sierra Club national Board of Directors for eight years, he was the 1993 recipient of the Club's highest honor, the John Muir Award. He has led countless campaigns to establish wilderness areas and national parks including Redwood National Park in northern California, to halt the construction of dams, highways, and nuclear power plants in environmentally-sensitive areas.† He is currently working to protect the legacy of the Sequoia National Monument.
Michael Rosenthal is the principal owner and CEO of Instant Replay, a video security contractor based in Santa Monica, California. He is also publisher of a weekly newspaper, The Santa Monica Mirror. Michael is a member of the Audubon Society, Friends of the River, American Rivers, The Nature Conservancy, The Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club.
Peter Camejo is a first generation Venezuelan-American who has fought for social and environmental justice since his teens. Peter is chair and co-founder of Progressive Asset Management, Inc., a broker-dealer firm which promotes socially responsible investments. He created the Eco-Logical Trust for Merrill Lynch, the first environmentally screened fund of a major firm, and a top performer. He served three years as trustee of the Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association. He has also been appointed by the Lt. Governor of Hawaii to be an advisor to the Hawaii Capital Stewardship Forum. Peter was the Green Party candidate for governor of California in 2002, garnering a highly respectable 5.3% of the vote and gaining national exposure for the party.
Michael Wyman is an attorney, specializing in non-profit and business law. He has also worked as a business administrator, editor and writer. He sits on the board of Progressive Asset Management and is currently state treasurer for the California Green Party.
Robin Collier is the owner of Cheesecake Momma, the largest retailer of cheesecake in the United States.††
Contact us at vote@pacific.net
For more information on The VOTE Action Committee, go here.
Go here for information about our recent accomplishments.
Since our founding in 1992, Voice of the Environment has . . .
. . . run fifteen full-page advertisements in the New York Times titled America Betrayed ; these hard-hitting ads have spoken that to the betrayal of our most hallowed national principles, and to the many threats to both our natural resources and our constitutional freedoms;
. . . helped defeat two bills, HR 2473 (Williams-MT) and S 2137 (Baucus-MT) that would have severely compromised 60 million acres of pristine Montana wilderness; Voice of the Environment saturated the airwaves with television in the weeks prior to congressional votes on these bills, raising in-state opposition that eventually led to their defeat; Voice also ran full-page ads in the New York Times to draw public attention to the giveaway of public funds that these bills would have allowed;
. . . inspired a national outpouring against the signing by President Clinton of the timber salvage rider, a measure that perpetuated the decimation of old growth in our national forests; Voice drew together a large coalition that included the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Wilderness Society, and local grassroots organizations that, according to the Scott Sonnen of the Associated Press, succeeded in delivering over 200,000 blocks of wood to the White House in protest;
. . . worked in the struggle to preserve the 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest ecosystem in Humboldt County, California; Voice produced television spots and New York Times ads that were signed on to by over 50 organizations, as well as environmental leaders like David Brower, Ralph Nader, and Medea Benjamin; these ads urged the Clinton administration to save the entire Headwaters ecosystem and aimed to expose the then-pending Headwaters Deal for the appalling giveaway that it was. While we applaud saving of 7,500 acres pf ancient forest, too little was saved at too great a cost (nearly $500 million); the political turmoil and litigation that continues to this day is indicative of the Deal’s many inadequacies;
. . . led the fight against the Quincy Library Group bill and managed to bottle it up in Congress, only to have Senator Dianne Feinstein use parliamentary chicanery to move it to the president’s desk. We were successful, however, in encouraging Senator Barbara Boxer to withdraw her support which has helped to bring much greater public scrutiny to this ill-conceived plan and stall its implementation.
. . . worked closely with tribal leaders throughout northern California on the trial of Eugene “Bear” Lincoln, a Wailacki Indian man accused of murdering a Mendocino County deputy. After being pilloried nationally on “America’s Most Wanted” and after then-Governor Wilson offered a $100,000 reward for his capture, Lincoln is today a free man, acquitted on all charges. Without the vigorous community education efforts of Voice staff, Lincoln could have ended up on death row.
. . . worked with the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance, the American Indian Movement (AIM), EarthFirst!, Greenaction and many other groups to halt construction of the Ward Valley radioactive waste dump. Voice staff members were leaders in the 113-day occupation that forced the federal Bureau of Land Management and the state Department of Health Services to withdraw from the project. In 2001, the plan for a Ward Valley dump was finally abandoned by the state of California.
. . . with the Center for Voting & Democracy, sponsored a series of workshops and seminars to advance electoral reform including instant runoff voting (IRV), preferential voting, proportional representation and other measures to open up the political process. Our work is now culminating in the introduction of a bill before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling for IRV in the election of county officials.
. . . commissioned and broadly distributed several studies of logging and grazing practices on federal lands.
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The first, titled “Employment Impact of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act” (Tom Powers, 1992) dealt with economic impacts of the NREPA in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. It made a significant contribution to changing the debate about the timber-cutting program of the US Forest Service by demonstrating conclusively, for the first time, that timber land was worth more with trees standing rather than cut. It also outlined a net loss to taxpayers of nearly $1 billion annually from the USFS program.
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A second study “Chainsaw Justice: The Forest Service out of Control” (Steve Taylor, 1995) shows what happens when a reform-minded administration runs into a brick wall of “old guard” bureaucrats, industry lobbyists, and entrenched legislators. “Chainsaw Justice” demonstrates the extent to which the USFS is politically corrupt, fiscally irresponsible, and environmentally destructive in its abject failure to protect our treasured national forests.
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A third, titled “Deranged: The Bureau of Land Management and the Plight of the American West” (Steve Taylor, 1998) details the Clinton administration’s failure to commit fully to true reform of the BLM, an agency that manages more federal land than any other entity in the nation. In its refusal to take on livestock, oil, and mining interests, the administration violated the public trust, and its own campaign promises.
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. . . worked successfully with northern California native communities, and with local and state government, to change the text on State Historical Marker 754 in acknowledgement of the many contributions made by those communities. This two-year process won accolades from the state Office of Historic Preservation, CalTrans, and many other groups.
. . . co-authored and worked for the passage of the Heritage Tree Preservation Act, SB 754, a bill to ban the cutting of selected species of old growth trees (Coast Redwoods, Giant Sequoia, Port Orford Cedars, Douglas-firs and hardwoods) in California on non-federal forestlands that were alive in 1850. The bill, which would help to fulfill some of the promises left unkept by the Headwaters Deal, passed the State Senate in 2003 and will go before the Assembly in 2004; tie up with the Headwaters Act. |
