The latest Unification Movement Worldwide News

                   ADDRESS TO THE PARTICIPANTS
                               by
                    Reverend Chung Hwan Kwak

                        February 27, 1999
                       Hyatt Regency Hotel
                         Washington, DC

Honorable chairman, esteemed scholars, scientists, authorities and
specialists. It gives me great pleasure to greet you this evening, and
to share brief reflections.

First please accept our deep and sincere gratitude to each one of you,
not just for your contribution to this historic conference, but also
for your life-long dedication to protecting and preserving this
unreplaceable world treasure, the Pantanal.

We have been blessed with a place of endless beauty that is integrated
into the world's ecology. It may have been safe in earlier times to
take such a place for granted, but present conditions do not allow such
luxury.

If we do not invest all our wisdom, expertise, and cooperation, this
precious treasure will be threatened by all kinds of misuse and
destruction. We must be vigilant every day, and it is your contribution
of scientific study, environmental protection programs, and education,
which are doing just that. I trust this conference is providing
valuable information and relationships which will assist you in this
great cause of protecting the Pantanal

I am sure many of you must have been surprised by the conference
sponsorship; including a university in the distant land of Korea, a
university in Northeastern United States, and a major news conglomerate
in the world's most powerful capital. What possibly could bring such
diverse sponsoring bodies into a joint project focusing on yet another
distant system, namely the Pantanal?

Let me explain how this conference came into being. The founder of Sun
Moon university, and major supporter of the other organizations,
Reverend Moon, asked me to organize this conference on the preservation
of the Pantanal.

But who ever heard of a religious leader requesting a conference
gathering foremost experts from highly specialized arenas of science,
economy, and other human enterprises, which are always thought of as
anything but religious?

Finally let me ask, what could a religious leader from Korea possibly
know about a Latin American ecosystem like the Pantanal? It is hard to
think of any world religious figure who has trod the narrow pathways to
even get to the Pantanal.

Well, for those of you who know anything about Reverend Moon, the one
thing we surely know is that he is not a typical religious leader.

I am sure many of you have read all sorts of articles about Reverend
Moon by people who claim to be experts. Or perhaps you have heard
friends or colleagues speak with great confidence.



If so, have you ever read in any article, or has any colleague ever
told you that Reverend Moon (now nearly eighty years old) spent most of
1998 on the rivers in the Pantanal, virtually alone. He traveled on a
small boat through remote areas where he had to duck his head to get
through the tangled brush over the river. He traveled on this boat so
late almost every night that he would rely on a flashlight to make his
way back watching the red gleam in the eyes of the half-submerged
caimans.

Well, if such supposed experts cannot even tell you what Reverend Moon
did just last year... what kind of expertise is that? What if you read
an article on the Pantanal placing this wetlands system in Nepal? You
would reject the article as nonsense.

No, I'm afraid that the story of Reverend Moon has not been well told.
Many who claim expertise should be checked closely. You in the fields
of science, economics and other refined areas have highly disciplined
patterns of study and investigation of sources. You are well trained to
avoid jumping at any old claim, presuming it to represent accurate
knowledge.

The truth is that Reverend Moon's interest in the Pantanal, and his
enormous investment in its protection and preservation are in every way
a natural outgrowth both of who he is as a person, and what he teaches
religiously.

In his heart, despite his world changing activities, Reverend Moon
remains a boy from the farm. He continues to be informed by his
original love for nature, his love for his childhood places where he
would sit for days secretly watching a bird's nest to see the tiny
chicks be born. And for times when he followed the tracks of a weasel
on the winter snow throughout the night, so single-mindedly that he
found himself several villages away, much to the alarm of his family
and townsfolk. He wanted to understand where the weasel lived and where
it was going.

It is only natural then that such a man eventually would gravitate to a
world of original and pristine beauty like the Pantanal. And once
having witnessed the rapture of its infinite wonder dedicate the full
measure of his influence to preserve and protect this treasure from
harm. And that impulse to protect this precious area means hard work.

If Reverend Moon knows anything he knows that no good comes from mere
intentions. Good can only result from personal investment, heartfelt
self-sacrifice, and systematic and principled actions. Reverend Moon
believes that the Pantanal belongs to God, and that it exists to give
joy and natural education to humanity. It cannot be abused or treated
carelessly.  Future generations must learn God's secrets from this vast
ecology and wonderland.

Unfortunately, I do not have time here to explain more fully how
Reverend Moon's religious teachings naturally led to him giving himself
unconditionally to champion the careful and systematic preservation of
the Pantanal. I hope you will find time and the means to study his
simple but profound teaching. If you understand it, you will see how
his teaching naturally leads to environmentalism.

Briefly the Divine Principle explains that God created humanity to grow
to maturity, receive God's Blessing in marriage, form an ideal family,
and rejoice in God's nature. These three aspects of life are called the
three blessings. No step can be overlooked, and trying to jump over
one, results in disaster. The cause of damage to the environment stems
from human immaturity, and deformed families. Such people do not have
the sensitivity to love and protect nature, even though they may have
the intelligence or skills to control enterprise. The corporate rape of
fragile environments may be seen as stemming from the same sort of
insensitivity as a cruel child torturing one of God's creatures.
Neither could be possible if that child, and later that adult were
raised in an atmosphere and family of True Love.

The only place we can inherit enough loving care and sensitivity is
from mature and harmonious parents. This is why Reverend Moon's
life-long labor is to erect and glorify True Families. And this is why
his passion for environmentalism is a natural outgrowth of this
life-long work.

So far Reverend Moon has taken up two projects to protect the
Pantanal.  The first is the International Family Education Center in
Jardim which is just outside the Pantanal. Here he has plans to
establish an elite education center where experts from all areas can
teach the ideals of True Family, and thereby slowly elevate people from
all countries to live as loving couples and raise children in a loving
way, so that they can inherit a natural sensitivity to God's
environment and ecology. When this is done, it will be far more
effective than external legislation trying to thwart fixed bad
behaviors which lead to environmental violence.

Secondly, he has initiated a project in which all 185 nations take
personal responsibility to protect and preserve a specific designated
sector in the Pantanal. This is not a matter of land ownership or any
such thing. Rather it is a matter of global stewardship, to guarantee
that the pressing matter of preservation is not just left to chance. It
will be at one and the same time a global support system, and a global
watchdog to ensure that the pristine, environmental conditions are
forever preserved.

This would best be served by the establishment of research stations
from which scholars and environmentalists can monitor ecological
conditions on a regular basis. These can be maintained by the World
University Federation.

Also, he recommends nature exhibitions from these designated areas.
These will show all the fascinating elements from that particular
sector, through which the international community can be educated and
have their love for nature sparked within them. After experiencing such
an exhibit people will have a stronger determination to protect this
precious area.  Each nation's government and its appropriate ministries
should assist with the creation of excellent and well thought out
exhibitions of this kind. I hope you will support these ideas and
proposals.

Thank you for your time and attention. Once again we are grateful
indeed for your life's work, and we pray that God may bless all that
you are doing for the Pantanal.