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Governator Targets the California Conservation Corps:
To get the budget out of the red, he wants to expel youth from green jobs |
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EUREKA, CALIFORNIA, Jan. 14 -/E-Wire/-- If you ever wanted to speak up for at-risk youth and/or endangered species, right now is the time. A time-tested and highly productive program called the California Conservation Corps (CCC) is threatened by Gov Schwarzenegger’s budget axe. The 32-year-old environmental restoration and youth development program has been responsible for countless trail, habitat restoration and emergency response projects. This month the California legislature is wrestling with an unprecedented deficit and deciding who and what will be cut to balance the budget. The governor has already proposed to the legislature that the CCC be among the programs to be de-funded. So speak up now--waiting to get involved could result in the elimination of a program that puts youth to work to restore the habitats of endangered wildlife, including salmon and dozens of other species of endangered, threatened, and rare plants and animals. There is no trained workforce that could mobilize to fill the void created by cutting the CCC. And many endangered species may not survive the wait.
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Unfortunately, some people don’t get motivated to support government programs. To them they are mysterious money wasters—defined by stacks of white paper scribed in lawyer-speak. But to really understand the California Conservation Corps, all you have to do is pick the right time to hike into one of the Golden State’s coastal forests and listen. Between bird songs and the sound of wind weaving through branches you would hear logs being hoisted into a river, shovels slicing into earth, and the excitement of urban youth making their first nature discoveries. The endangered coho salmon’s habitat is being restored.
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The California Conservation Corps is a state-program based on the Civilian Conservation Corps—a federal program created during the Great Depression to provide jobs for jobless men and hope for hopeless families. California’s CCC was launched in 1976 for young men as well as women between the ages of 18 and 25. They are
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encouraged to join to meet modern challenges like preventing species extinctions, protecting millions of people from major disasters, and restoring ecosystems denuded after a century of destructive land management practices.
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For the first time since its creation, the youth of the CCC aren’t only swinging axes to help California—they’re trying to dodge the ax being swung at them by California’s governor. In his efforts to close the state’s $43 billion budget gap, Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing to eliminate this oldest and largest youth conservation corps, even though the CCC earns enough money from work projects to support 40% of its own budget. Using the cliché that the CCC’s budget isn’t even a drop in the state’s deficit bucket would be an understatement. The CCC’s budget would be less than a drop; it would be as tiny as the mist particles shooting from the clenched teeth of those of us who are growling over the governor’s short-sighted proposal.
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Youth and the environment may not be a priority to Arnold, but they are to everyone who was encouraged by his rhetoric about creating green jobs and preserving our public trust (nature). The CCC was, is, and will be one of California’s best investments—not only for its youth, fiscal growth, and ecological sustainability—but for its communities’ protection as well. The CCC is one of California’s premier emergency response forces, with more than 9.3 million hours of emergency response since 1976. The CCC has been called out to nearly every major natural disaster since that time—fires, floods, earthquakes, pest infestations, oil spills, search and rescues, and more. CCC crews can be dispatched within hours to anywhere in the state—or in the nation, as they were during Louisiana’s Katrina crisis. A trained youth workforce saves money and lives. If the CCC’s 500,000 corps member hours provided to fire agencies in 2008 were replaced by fire personnel, the cost to the state would have been $20 million.
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While many of us in disaster-prone California appreciate those kinds of statistics, people all over the world can appreciate that the CCC employs 3,300 youth (corps members) each year to restore the habitats of imperiled species. Who better to restore the environment than those who will inherit it? While doing this essential work, these young people spend evenings working toward acquiring diplomas and driver’s licenses (if they
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don’t already have them). On many of their weekends, they volunteer in the communities where they live. Last year corps members gave California’s communities 23,000 volunteer hours. Upon graduation from the program, they’ve earned a $4,725 federal AmeriCorps scholarship and another $2,000 state scholarship for college or trade school.
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The CCC does far more than respond to emergencies, provide educational opportunities, and restore wild habitats—it restores self-worth in those youth who joined to escape toxic patterns and neglected neighborhoods. It gives them the satisfaction of working on a multi-cultural team and sharing in that team’s sense of accomplishment. The CCC restores connections to nature. The current technologically nursed generation needs this more than any previous generation. Through environmental education, wilderness therapy, and months living in landscapes that even the best video game graphics could never create, the CCC is guiding the millennial generation through a rite of passage defined by their motto: hard work, low pay, and miserable conditions. The wilderness may be the only witness to this transformation, but families and society reap the benefits.
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California’s legislators won’t have time to hike out to where the sounds of youth at work in the wilderness can be heard. But they can hear the sounds that you make for those youth. Go to http://www.legislature.ca.gov/ and follow links to find these legislators’ addresses. Write a letter. And do it soon. California’s budget is being crafted now. Tell them the future of our youth and the health of our natural environments are nonnegotiable. Remind them that the wisdom of creating green jobs is as relevant for today’s depression as it was during the Great Depression. In fact, ask them to expand the CCC to offset the unemployment and environmental crises.
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Our youth don’t need to be hopeless, unemployed, and with idle hands on our streets, they need to be engaged in the nation’s economic and ecological recovery. They need to be trained and on-hand to protect our communities. We need their labor for vital projects that benefit everyone. And we all need you to help make sure this happens.
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For more information about the CCC (or how to join) go to http://www.ccc.ca.gov/
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Contact Info: John Griffith
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360 ½ Pleasant ave. Eureka, CA 95503
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(707)268-0962 or (707) 498-8317
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TheNatureNut@aol.com Website :
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