FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Capt. Bill Sheehan or Hugh Carola

Lawrenceville, NJ – Today on the campus of Rider University here in central New Jersey, two of north Jersey's leading environmentalists conducted a workshop designed to help educators teach diverse audiences about the environment. Capt. Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper and Hugh Carola, the organization's Program Director drew upon their many years of experience working with disadvantaged and inner-city youth in presenting "THE MESSAGE, LIKE THE EARTH BELONGS TO ALL".

Given at the annual Statewide Conference of the Alliance of New Jersey Environmental Educators (ANJEE), the workshop was geared to both teachers and non-formal educators alike. The presentation also complimented the theme of this year's conference which is "ARE YOU ENVIRONMENTALLY LITERATE?"

"From the very beginning of Hackensack Riverkeeper, I committed the organization to reaching all the people of my watershed," said Capt. Sheehan, "and that includes people who live in places like Jersey City, North Bergen, Hackensack - places that are better known for pavement, concrete and steel than for water, woods and wetlands." For too long, according to Sheehan, members of minority and immigrant communities have been disenfranchised from the natural world due to economics and indifference.

Efforts to counteract that disenfranchisement include programs like Hackensack Riverkeeper's Eco-Cruise, Eco-Walk and Urban Fishing Programs where students have a hands-on and face-to-face encounter with nature. During the workshop, the two shared stories and observations gleaned from their experiences with those programs. "There are few things in life that give me as much satisfaction as taking kids - especially city kids - out on the water or on walks into the marshes of the Meadowlands or seeing them catch their first fish," said Sheehan.

"It's simple environmental justice," said Hugh Carola, describing Riverkeeper's efforts to bring people and nature together, "It's a proven fact that environmental degradation affects the poor, members of minority communities and other marginalized citizens more than anyone else." Carola, in addition to his Riverkeeper duties has been working for the past year on the New Jersey Catholic Coalition for Environmental Justice (NJCCEJ), a Church-sanctioned initiative to help Catholics and all people of faith come to a deeper appreciation of the Earth.

Sheehan and Carola will be joined by NY/NJ Baykeeper Andrew Willner at Princeton University during the weekend of April 25-27 for NJCCEJ's first conference entitled: "A VISION OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR GOD'S CREATION". At that event, Sheehan and Willner will give a presentation on the Public Trust Doctrine, an ancient law and one of the foundations of the modern Keeper movement. "Under the Public Trust Doctrine, the people are the true owners of our rivers, bays, oceans and the lands they touch," said Sheehan, "That's what environmental justice is all about."

People seeking more information about the NJCCEJ conference can contact Hugh Carola at Hackensack Riverkeeper (201-968-0808 or Hugh@HackensackRiverkeeper.org) or Kay Furlani at the Archdiocese of Newark (973-497-4341 or Furlanca@rcan.org.)