By Henry Lamb
web posted July 23, 2001
from World Net Daily
Is there any connection between Klamath Falls, Oregon and
the town of LaVerkin, Utah? Very definitely - but few people
realize it.
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.
U.S. Marshal Reggie Madsen, left, and
Klamath Falls Sheriff Tim Evinger leave after inspecting
the headgate to upper Klamath Lake in Klamath Falls,
Oregon on July 13
Yes, there is a connection between the two towns, and other
towns and cities across the country. That connection also
includes Vancouver, BC, 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.
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.
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.
The fish are listed. The farmers are denied water. And
their land and their livelihoods are literally twisting in the
wind.
Why?
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.
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 government agencies. Six U.S.
federal Departments maintain independent membership in the
IUCN, at an annual membership fee in excess of $50,000 each.
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.
Klamath farmers are victims of public policy that
originated in the international community. 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.
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).
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."
The World Heritage Committee, at the request of the Fish &
Wildlife Service, sent a team of international "experts," one
of which represented the IUCN, which has a consultative
advisory contract with UNESCO, to evaluate the park.
Surprise, surprise! When the team reported to UNESCO, the
park was declared to be "in danger." The treaty, which the
U.S. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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).
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.
The farmers in the Klamath basin do not know that the
U.N.'s policy on land, adopted in 1976 in Vancouver, BC.
says explicitly that:
"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...."
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.
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.
Hold your heads high, LaVerkin, you may prove to be among
the wisest.
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.
Yes to suckerfish. No to humans by Tom DeWeese (July 23,
2001)
The decision to shut off the water in Klamath Falls, Oregon
is nothing less than an attack on the people who have lived
and worked there for decades, writes Tom DeWeese
Tightening the screws by Henry Lamb (May 7, 2001)
Although the Clinton administration is only but a bad
memory, the drive to displace humans from their land
continues in earnest, reports Henry Lamb
The sanction of the victim by Tom DeWeese (April 16,
2001)
Why do environmentalists get away with the evil that they
do? Tom DeWeese says it's because you let them
Environmental slavery by Tom DeWeese (April 9, 2001)
Americans are being choked to death with environmentalist
measures...except that those measures aren't designed to
save the environment. Tom DeWeese says they are designed to
kill off something else
