I’ll be in Washington D.C. from April 19-21st to speak with my congressional representatives on why environmental conservation is important to me. I’ve been invited by the Alliance for Global Conservation through the Pew Charitable Trusts. We will be lobbying on behalf of the Conservation Act, a piece of legislation that – to quote the AGC website:

The Global Conservation Act dramatically enhances the ability of the United States government to address an international conservation crisis that if unchecked will impoverish developing countries, cause runaway climate change, and drive most of the world’s species to extinction.

I’ve been chosen to talk to congress not just because I feel very strongly about conservation and environmentalism, but because my life was saved by a drug derived from nature. Vinblastine is drug made from the Periwinkle flower, and it was a drug that was instrumental in treating my Stage IIIB Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2005. Without that flower I might not be here today.

And what other plants are out there, undiscovered, in the forests of the world? Is the cure for cancer there? AIDS? MS? We don’t know – and that makes blind destruction of the world’s natural areas a medical threat to mankind.

You can read more about the Conservation Act at ActforConservation.org.