It is the month of February, which in Chile means vacation time for most.  As I sit in my office with a cup of green tea (though I wish I were sharing a round of yerba mate with my Chilean colleagues) I can take some time to catch up, reflect and write a bit about the campaign and recent progress on the relevant renewable energy and efficiency fronts.

First and foremost, I'm pleased to draw your attention to our new Patagonia Campaign page on the BioGems website.  The page has everything that it had before, but we hope that it is even more inspiring and convincing as to why Patagonia (and our other BioGems in the Americas) need our BioGem Defenders to take action and support our work.  If you have never been to Chilean Patagonia, I would particularly like to invite you to take a virtual tour.

Finally, if you have not written to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in the past encouraging her to work with NRDC in developing energy alternatives and to reject the HydroAisen mega-dam scheme, please do so now!  Elections for Chile's next president will be in December of 2009.  We have ten more months to build on the relationships with President Bachelet's administration that we have worked hard to develop over the past few years to push for a clean and sustainable energy future for Chile.

We are already working with our Chilean partners and other allies to make energy issues and the HydroAisen project a priority in the presidential debates.  It is certainly going to be an exciting few months and I look forward to your ongoing involvement!