When my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer, in a tearful conversation, she told me that she was entrusting to me, and me alone, the precious forest she had bought with the money left to her by her mother and farther. She had bought the forest to protect it for its beautiful nature. She hoped I would love and care for it and leave it to my daughter, Anneke, with whom my mother had a special relationship.

My mother's cancer was a shocking surprise. Losing her in just under a year was devastating.  The picture above was taken during that last year - you can see that even as her hair thins and the cancer ravages her body, she is beautiful and emanates love, strength and care.

My mother and I had a special relationship. Losing her nearly broke me. But being able to care for her special forest and carrying out her dreams for the property nurtured me in my pain.

But then the fossil fuel frackers came to the area and ruined it all.

After loving, careful, and deep thought, my husband and I decided it was time to return the property to its original owner and to find another piece of special nature we could preserve in my mother's vision - a property that could not be overrun by the fracking industry because it was prohibited - that meant the New York portion of my Delaware River watershed.

We now have double the forest to care for and a lovingly crafted sign by my husband announcing this is "Wijsmuller's Woods" - that was my mother's last name, handed down to her by the father she adored.

It would be a few years later that I, in my role as the Delaware Riverkeeper, working with my Delaware Riverkeeper Network staff and attorneys would defeat the pro-fracking Act 13 law and in so doing would breath legal life into Pennsylvania's long ignored constitutional environmental rights amendment (what I now call PA's Green Amendment). It was this victory that fueled my vision for a national Green Amendment movement.

The power of this movement is beyond my wildest dreams. New York's Green Amendment is helping communities who NY State had long-ignored now have the constitutional and legal strength they need to get attention and protection (this is the FAFE case I write about on the Green Amendments For The Generations website).

People, communities and caring legislators from across the nation are reaching out for help and partnership. And it is very satisfying to help them back down the fossil fuel industry and the organizations supported by the infamous-anti-environment Koch brothers.

While communities, activists, lawyers, environmental justice leaders, youth and progressive activists get it, foundations that fund environmental causes do not. They have refused to provide the essential funding we need to provide the best and most robust help needed to ensure all communities nationwide get the power of Green Amendment protection.

My family and I contribute every penny and minute we can. Please help me support the most powerful environmental, democracy, environmental justice, and generational protection movement advancing nationwide.

Every dollar counts.

Please donate what you can.

Please encourage your friends and family to donate too.

My mother and I are so very grateful for your support. Here is my Mum before the cancer came: