(LIVESTREAM VIDEO OF SPEECH BY FAMED ENVIRONMENTALIST AND IN-PERSON PRESS OPPORTUNITIES TO BE ANNOUNCED IN FOLLOWUP RELEASE)

For Immediate Release
January 25, 2019              

Press Contacts:
Sita Rose  sitarose108@gmail.com 262 344 107
Mindy Zlotnick Buckinghamwethepeople@gmail.com  415 752 3041

Preparing for a new year of activism, fifty environmentalists from across Virginia whose actions helped stall the advance of the huge ACP and MVP fracked gas pipelines gather February 1-3, 2019 at Satchidananda Ashram Yogaville in Buckingham, VA. hosted by the group, Buckingham: We the People.

Four years ago, it was widely expected that the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline would be completed by now.  Instead, thanks to lawyers working with the grass roots activists participating in the weekend at Yogaville, the ACP and MVP are tied up in the courts. 

Between organic vegetarian meals and yoga classes at the famed retreat center, the activists convening in Yogaville will hear a call to new action from Thomas Linzey.   Acknowledged as one of America’s most effective environmentalists, and named by Forbes Magazine as one of the world’s top 10 revolutionaries, Linzey is co-founder of CELDF, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.  Over the past 23 years, CELDF has provided free legal services to hundreds of local communities to advance their rights to a healthy environment. 

Linzey is a leading advocate of the growing global movement for the Rights of Nature which supports municipal governments to pass new laws that elevate the rights of people and the land, air and water which nourish them above corporate rights, state preemption and other barriers to sustainability. With CELDF’s guidance, these impacted communities work to protect their local areas against “legalized harm” to the environment. 

Buckingham: We the People, the local group which is hosting the environment protectors’ weekend event, issued this statement:

“The process of community-based solutions that challenge a system designed to exploit us is what is needed here.  This is all about our families’ and planet’s physical life and death. We are fully committed to this struggle against corporations who ignore the inherent Rights of Nature which, when recognized and upheld, protect us all. The Rights of Nature movement is spreading around the world.  Over three dozen American communities have already adopted this type of framework in their municipal codes and hundreds more have adopted a Community Bill of Rights.  We want to bring this type of protection to every county in Virginia.”