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http://alaska.fws.gov/juneau
U.S. National Park Service
PDF FILE: KIMU Proposal
The Autry National Center
The Foundation is currently exploring a project in collaboration with the Autry National Center that will focus on multiple levels with respect to Native Americans, ecological sustainability and photography.
www.autry-museum.org
Wildling Museum
June 22, through September 14, 2008:
The Dancing Star Foundation Challenge Grant
Art Competition Sponsored by the Wildling Art Museum:
The Wildling Art Museum recently received 2 challenge grants from Dancing Star Foundation in support of the Museum's first international juried art competition, exhibition, and book, "Endangered Species: Flora and Fauna in Peril." The Wildling succeeded in raising the matching funds.
In late Spring 2008, the Wildling will open its exhibition. Subsequently, the exhibition will travel to the Museum at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., and to Wildlife Experience in Parker, Colorado.
Michael Tobias has written the lead essay for the catalogue that will accompany the exhibition.
http://www.wildlingmuseum.org/html/exbt.sum_08.html
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Conservation International
Conservation International's President, Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier, is the on-camera host of Dancing Star Foundation's new feature film documentary "Hotspots", based upon Dr. Mittermeier and colleagues' remarkable book, Hotspots Revisited: Earth's Biologically Richest And Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions (CEMEX 2004).
Filmed in Southern California, Washington D.C., throughout Madagascar, Brazil, Peru, New Zealand and on Easter Island/Rapa Nui (Chile), "Hotspots" profiles techniques to save endangered species and habitat across the planet.
See HOTSPOTS on the DSF website for more info.
Smithsonian 2008 Folklife Festival
For ten days beginning the last week in June, 2008, the Smithsonian Institution's annual Folklife Festival (which has been named, in the past, "The Top Event in the United States") will honor the nation of Bhutan on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.. All events are free and are being organized by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, in concert with the Royal Government of Bhutan.
This year, Dancing Star Foundation is proud to be one of the major donors of the Festival. This alliance corresponds to DSF's commitment to Bhutan as a nation which has strived with remarkable success to uphold its own convictions regarding conservation and cultural heritage, in the face of complex 21st century pressures. DSF believes that in many respects, Bhutan represents an ecological model of excellence for other nations. As the leaders of the Folklife Festival have written, "The Festival will celebrate Bhutan's special approach towards life…The Bhutanese have chosen a different path towards development, rooted in deep respect for and protection of the Kingdom's unique resources. The Festival program will place emphasis on the Kingdom's protection of its diverse culture, community and environment, and it comes at a time when the country will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the current monarchy as well as preparing for a new future under a democratic constitution."
A focal point of DSF's involvement with the Bhutan portion of the Folklife Festival will be the various elements within the diverse programs which draw attention to, and commend Bhutanese conservation, as well as that nation's pursuit of what Bhutan's Fourth King called "Gross National Happiness". This "indicator" was devised as a means of better assessing the total quality of life of a people – spiritual, environmental, ethical- as opposed to thinking merely in strictly monetary terms.
DSF's new book, Sanctuary: Global Oases of Innocence, with its final chapter on Bhutan, and a Foreword by Her Majesty Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Queen of the Fourth King of Bhutan, will be officially released at the Festival, with the kind assistance of the Smithsonian Institution.
http://www.folklife.si.edu/center/festival_2008.html
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National Biodiversity Centre - Bhutan
Based in Serbithang, on the outskirts of the capital of Thimphu, the National Biodiversity Centre of Bhutan was created by Dr. Ugyen Tshewang, named a DSF Research Fellow in 2007. As part of its mandate, the National Biodiversity Centre not only maintains the nation's herbarium and gene bank, but is charged with creating the country's national Biodiversity Action Plans, under the Royal Government of Bhutan's signatory obligation to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which first came into being as a result of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
The Convention's BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) are conservation five-year blueprints mandated by the Convention for each of the nearly 190 countries that are signatory to it. Bhutan is now in the process of creating its third BAP, which comes at a particularly critical time for the nation. A new (fifth) King is to have his coronation in Spring 2008 near the time that Bhutan holds its first democratically elected leadership since the country was founded, a century ago. The Biodiversity Action Plan III will thus be a critical blueprint for a new democracy's conservation planning and implementation. With its existing policy of keeping at least 60% of its native forests in pristine condition, the new democracy and economy will provide great challenges and opportunities for Bhutan to maintain its outstanding global example of in situ conservation.
Dancing Star Foundation is working with the National Biodiversity Centre (NBC) as a consultant to the document. Michael Tobias is serving as Advisor for BAP III, working with a team of more than 20 Bhutanese technical experts whose respective research is being coordinated at NBC under Ministry of Agriculture guidance.
The book should provide invaluable conservation data for nations and NGOS hroughout the world and will be published in May 2008 by The Royal Government of Bhutan.
Voice For A Viable Future
Howard Lyman, President and founder of the nonprofit organization Voice For A Viable Future, co-produced and starred as himself in the Dancing Star Foundation co-production, "Mad Cowboy". (Read more about the film on the DSF Website). See www.madcowboy.com.
Population Communication
Bob Gillespie, President and founder of the nonprofit organization Population Communication, is one of the world's leading family planning experts. Dancing Star Foundation is proud to have collaborated with him, as well as his colleague, Producer Elizabeth Hughes at Population Communication, on the production of "No Vacancy," which is hosted by Mr. Gillespie.
For more information on the film, visit No Vacancy on the DSF web site.
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