"[The road dispute] has an effect on the credibility of the current government and of course undermines the image of the president who is no longer seen as a defender of the environment or as a defender of indigenous rights," Pareja said.
It presents to the world the unEDiFying spectacle of the greedy pursuing the selfless, of the rich pursuing the poor, of world-wreckers pursuing the defenders of the environment.
It is community-based defenders of the environment who know only too well what undermines or strengthens their livelihoods, that are like environmental bomb disposal experts, risking their lives in the field, on the frontline.
As his term runs out, those conservation steps and other achievements are being cited by environmental groups as worthy enough to rank Mr. Clinton among presidents as "one of the great defenders of the environment," as Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, put it.
Implicit in that argument is the seemingly hard-hearted notion of "fungibility": that natural resources, whether petroleum or giant pandas, are substitutable.Rio's fatal flawChampions of development and defenders of the environment have been locked in battle ever since a UN summit in Stockholm launched the sustainable-development debate three decades ago.
"Disney Springs makes a mockery of Florida's natural springs and the rural lifestyle it intends to mimic," said Karen Ahlers, executive director of Florida Defenders of the Environment.
But on Tuesday, like that fictional defender of the environment, they spoke for the trees.
Today, Anthony J. Dignoti, 86, a 30-year incumbent and lifelong Republican, conceded that he had lost to Michael A. Uhl, 42, a political novice and defender of the environment.
This time, a defender of the environment, Michael A. Uhl, who had never run for office before, is clinging to a 393-390 lead over Anthony Dignoti, a 30-year incumbent, for one of three water board seats.
There's someone else who will shape that future, a leader of character and courage, a defender of the environment and working families, the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Lieberman.
