- Is there any connection between Klamath Falls, Oregon,
and the town of LaVerkin, Utah? Very definitely - but few people realize
it.
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- The LaVerkin City Council adopted a "U.N.-Free Zone"
on July 4th. The media and other vociferous liberals have had a field day
ridiculing the town officials for their "black-helicopter" paranoia.
But had Klamath Falls adopted such an ordinance some years ago, the farmers
in the Klamath basin might not be battling for their very existence today.
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- Yes, there is a connection between the two towns - and
other towns and cities across the country. That connection also includes
Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro and other cities around the world. The connection
is the public policy which now places a higher value on a sucker fish than
on human beings. LaVerkin, Utah, has good reason to try to protect its
citizens from the intrusion of similar policies that can disrupt and destroy
their way of life.
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- Let's back up a moment. The Endangered Species Act of
1973 is the legal authority by which the federal government must withhold
water from the farmers - to protect the bottom-feeding sucker fish, which
is said to be endangered or threatened.
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- There is a vigorous debate about the validity of the
listing, since the listing came as an "emergency," which avoided
any scientific review of the evidence, or any deliberate input from those
who are directly affected. But that's another battle.
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- The fish are listed. The farmers are denied water. And
their land and their livelihoods are literally twisting in the wind.
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- Why?
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- Section 2, paragraph (4) of the Endangered Species Act
provides the answer. It says the law is enacted "pursuant to: the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora," and five other international treaties.
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- Most of the treaties were actually drafted by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in Gland, Switzerland. This
IUCN's membership consists mostly of environmental organizations and governmental
agencies. Six U.S. federal departments maintain independent membership
in the IUCN - at an annual membership fee in excess of $50,000 each.
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- The same NGOs (non-government organizations) which, as
members of the IUCN, helped draft the international treaties, are on the
ground in the United States, lobbying Congress to ratify the treaties and
enact laws such as the Endangered Species Act, to implement the treaties.
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- Klamath farmers are victims of public policy that originated
in the international community.
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- Citizens of LaVerkin, Utah, are directly in the path
of public policy which threatens their land and livelihoods. These policies,
too, originated in the international community.
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- LaVerkin is in Washington County, Utah. So is Zion National
Park, less than 10 miles from the small town. LaVerkin is within 100 miles
of four other properties inventoried for future nomination as U.N. World
Heritage Sites, according to a federal register notice of January 8, 1982
(Vol. 47, No. 5).
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- What does this have to do with anything? Ask the people
who live within 100 miles of Yellowstone National Park - a World Heritage
Site. Throughout the early 1990s, a gold mine near the park spent more
than $30 million trying to satisfy federal permit requirements. Months
before the process would have been completed, environmental organizations,
many of which are members of the IUCN, petitioned the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service, which is also a member of the IUCN, to declare Yellowstone to
be a World Heritage Site "in danger."
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- The World Heritage Committee, at the request of the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service, sent a team of international "experts,"
one of whom represented the IUCN, which has a consultative advisory contract
with UNESCO, to evaluate the park.
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- Surprise, surprise! When the team reported to UNESCO,
the park was declared to be "in danger." The treaty, which the
United States has ratified, requires that when a site is declared to be
"in danger," the host nation must take "protective"
measures, even beyond the boundary of the site.
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- One proposal advanced by the environmental organizations
called for protecting 18-million acres around the 2.9 million-acre park,
much of which was private property. The gold mine was not allowed to mine
the gold.
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- It is more than a coincidence that many of the environmental
organizations which signed the letter urging UNESCO intervention in Yellowstone,
also signed a similar letter to U.S. and Mexican government agencies, urging
that "international" standards be established to govern water
rights in the Colorado river. The Sierra Club and the National Audubon
Society are among the several organizations which signed the Colorado River
letter and the Yellowstone letter. Two Audubon Society affiliates, along
with the Glen Canyon Institute, are headquartered in Utah, and have an
interest in the five sites near LaVerkin, as well as the Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument, all of which are subject to land-management policies
that originate in the international community.
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- The letter calling for international standards to govern
water rights on the Colorado River, cites as authority: the RAMSAR Convention
on Wetlands, Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the
Rio Declaration - all products of the United Nations.
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- It is especially significant that the Audubon Society
is among the NGOs clamoring for more international control. The Audubon
Society, along with The Nature Conservancy, funded the work of Dr. Reed
Noss, known as "The Wildlands Project."
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- This is the land management scheme that starts with core
wilderness areas - off limits to humans - connected by corridors of wilderness,
surrounded by government-managed "buffer zones," which are surrounded
by "zones of cooperation." Each of these zones is designed to
continually expand as the result of "restoration and rehabilitation"
projects. Restoration means returning the land to the same condition as
it was before Columbus arrived. There are 47 such U.N. Biosphere Reserves
in the United States, and more than 380 around the world.
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- The Wildlands Project is described as "central"
to the effective implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity,
according to the U.N.'s Global Biodiversity Assessment (page 993).
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- The LaVerkin City Council is not afraid of black helicopters,
or blue-helmets, or white tanks - as shallow-minded media masters would
like people to believe. LaVerkin officials have a genuine concern about
the silent, sinister expansion of U.N. influence over domestic land-use
policies, especially as they relate to land in Washington County, Utah.
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- The farmers in the Klamath basin do not know that the
U.N.'s policy on land, adopted in 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia,
says explicitly that:
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- Land ... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled
by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market.
Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and
concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice;
Public control of land use is therefore indispensable
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- The Klamath basin is an area that environmental elitists
want to "restore" to its pre-Columbian condition. The sucker
fish, like the spotted owl and the red-legged frog, is simply a surrogate
- an excuse - to invoke the Endangered Species Act, to force people off
the land.
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- Virtually every area of the United States is under siege,
from policies that originate in the international community, which are
incorporated into law or rule, and imposed upon unsuspecting citizens.
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- Hold your heads high, LaVerkin, you may prove to be among
the wisest.
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- Hold on as long as you can, Klamath farmers, your courage
is helping to reveal the sinister, ulterior motives of the environmental
extremists who think they know best how everyone else should live.
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- Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23738
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