by Henry Lamb
Environmental Conservation Organization
Hollow Rock, Tennessee
November 4, 1994
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The Convention on Biological Diversity is presented by its proponents as a benign document designed to help protect the global environment. The treaty is masterfully written in "soft law" expressly to avoid debate, before ratification, on the hard, binding commitments that must be confronted. Instead, it creates a mechanism called the Conference of the Parties (COP) which is empowered by the treaty to translate soft law into binding protocols - long after the public spotlight has moved to new issues. The Convention on Biological Diversity is not a benign document. Nor is it just another treaty to help protect the global environment. It is the culmination of 15 years of strategic planning and the result of untold billions of dollars invested in a vision of how the world ought to be. The world, as envisioned by the treaty strategists, ought to be dramatically different from the world most Americans strive to achieve. It is a world vision in which American values are seen as the enemy to be subdued. It is a world vision that every American should see before allowing America to become a party to the Convention. Proponents of the treaty have devised an ingenious strategy to ensure its ratification. The document itself is rather bland in its language. It was introduced in the hoopla of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and offered as a portion of a much broader "environmental" agenda. Specific objections raised by treaty opponents are brushed aside as "irrational rantings" of anti-environment shills for greedy, profiteering corporate polluters. But so far, opponents have avoided speedy ratification, despite a 15 to 3 vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, enormous pressure from Vice President Al Gore, and an all-out blitz by the nation's Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs). This report provides an accurate picture of the world as treaty strategists think it ought to be, as presented through the documents and the events which produced the treaty. Every American needs to take a long, hard look. The treaty was first proposed in 1981 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).(1) For the next ten years, the idea was nurtured through conferences and working groups sponsored by NGOs (non-government organizations), and molded into its final form for presentation at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. One-hundred-fifty nations signed the treaty. Then-President, George Bush, did not. President Bill Clinton signed the treaty on June 4th, 1993, and the treaty became international law on December 29, 1993, when ratification by 30 nations was achieved. Regardless of what other nations do, the treaty will not achieve its purpose unless the United States is a party to it. To get a clearer picture of the world as envisioned by the treaty strategists, it is helpful to know who they are and what qualifies them to propose this watershed document. Maurice Strong is perhaps the single most influential person in the international environmental arena. Strong was born in Alberta, Canada in 1929. At age 19, he worked as an investment analyst, and at age 31 (1960), he became President of Powers Corporation of Canada, a leading investment firm. Shortly thereafter, Prime Minister Lester Pearson, called on him to represent Canada in International Affairs. In 1972, Strong was designated Secretary-general for the UN Conference on the Human Environment, the first "Earth Summit," held in Stockholm. A year later, Strong organized and founded the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and served two years as its Executive Director. At the same time (1971 - 1978) he served as a Trustee to the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1980, Strong "restructured and revitalized" the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an NGO that now has 743 government agency and NGO members in 68 nations. (Yes, the same IUCN that first proposed the Convention on Biological diversity in 1981). Strong served on the UN Brundtland Commission in 1987, and was the Secretary-general for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Aside from these rather remarkable accomplishments, Strong also found time to be President of the World Federation of United Nations Associations; Co-chair, World Economic Forum; member of the Club of Rome, Trustee, Aspen Institute, Director, World Future Society, Director of Finance for the Lindisfarne Association, founder of Planetary Citizens, convener of the Fourth World Wilderness Congress, founder of the World Economic Forum, and involved with the Business Council for Sustainable Development, Petro-Canada, Dome Petroleum, and Hydro-Canada. Strong is obviously well-positioned in the international community, and highly influential. Take a closer look. In 1991, the Trilateral Commission published Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology, by Jim MacNeill. David Rockefeller wrote the foreword, and Maurice Strong wrote the introduction. Strong said:
He told the Swedish Royal Academy that:
He also told the Academy that:
"New world order" is a popular term that has no universally accepted meaning. What Strong means, however, is increasingly clear. His motivation comes from a deep appreciation, perhaps reverence, of nature. The Lindisfarne Association can be described as a "New Age metaphysical ecological" group, founded by William Thompson. Among the books published by Lindisfarne, is G-A-I-A, A Way of Knowing - Political Implications of the New Biology. (James Lovelock, originator of the gaia theory, is also a member of Lindisfarne). Strong's Colorado ranch, Baca Grande, is home for a Babylonian Sun God Temple, built by Lindisfarne. The association advances the theosopohical idea of one universal religion that realizes that the kingdom of God is in reality, the kingdom of nature.(4) This realization, or "knowing" is the new-age enlightenment that drives the biodiversity-sustainable-use paradigm. This enlightenment apparently comes as a deeply religious experience similar to those described by tent-revival converts. Throughout the deep ecology literature, the common denominator is this experience of "knowing" that defies explanation or refutation. Recognition of this important ingredient in the psyche of the treaty strategists helps to explain the peculiar language found in the preamble to the Convention on Biological Diversity:
Scientific evidence is less important to treaty strategists than "knowing" derived from enlightenment. Maurice Strong "knows" what the world needs. He told the gathering in Rio in 1992 that industrialized countries have:
The Convention on Biological Diversity establishes the international legal framework to require all participating nations to "reinvent" the world in the image envisioned by the treaty strategists. Maurice Strong, in particular, UNEP, and the IUCN are among the primary strategists pushing the treaty, but there are others. The World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund), the Worldwatch Institute (WWI), along with the IUCN, constitute the "supreme command" for the Biodiversity-sustainable-use army. UNEP is the UN Administrative unit that holds the official authority to carry out the orders of the supreme command. This "supreme command" did not assemble by accident. It evolved over five decades through the deliberate design of dedicated people. The Fauna and Flora Preservation Society was formed in 1903 to expand the British national park system throughout its colonial empire, which, at the time, covered about one-fourth of the globe. The United Nations was created in 1945, and in 1946, Sir Julian Huxley created UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Two years later, Huxley formed the IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The IUCN is closely aligned with the UN, but operates outside the UN's official control or oversight. The IUCN is organized around a group of commissions and committees, many of which are chaired by Directors of the British Fauna and Flora Preservation Society, and include the elite of the nation. Two of the more important IUCN commissions are on National Parks and Protected Areas, and the Survival Service Commission, both of which were chaired for two decades by Sir Peter Scott, Chairman of the Fauna Society. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was created in 1961, originally to fund the IUCN. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has headed the WWF since its inception. The WWF was launched with a picture of a black rhino in the Daily Mirror on October 6, 1961. Readers contributed 45,000 pounds sterling - to save the black rhino. The Panda has become the logo of the WWF, and both animals are worse off today than they were in 1961 - despite billions of dollars collected by the WWF to save them. In 1971, the "1001" Club was formed by Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, to fund the WWF. Initial membership fee in the club is $10,000. Bernhard resigned his position with the club and dropped out of the WWF-International after being caught taking a $1 million bribe from the Lockheed Corporation in 1976. Today, the 1001 Club occupies an office building in Gland, Switzerland which also houses the international headquarters of the WWF and the IUCN.(7) Many of the Directors of these organizations are also Directors of other Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs) and foundations. Russell Train, President of WWF-USA (and a Director of both Rockefeller's American Conservation Association and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund) founded the WRI in 1982, and appointed James Gustave Speth as its President. After serving 11 years, Speth was named head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Martin Holdgate is a Director of the WRI, and until January, 1994, was also the Director General (CEO) of the IUCN. Jay Hair, head of the National Wildlife Federation, is also President of the IUCN General Assembly. Michael McCloskey, head of the Sierra Club, and top officials at The Nature Conservancy are also affiliated with the IUCN. Many of these individuals also serve as officials of various government agencies. The connectivity at the Director level of the international and national GAGs is the ingenious mechanism through which the vision of a new world order has been advanced around the planet. The effectiveness of their connectivity was greatly enhanced in the mid-1980s by the emergence of what is now called the Internet, or as Al Gore refers to it, the information super-highway. The Institute of Global Communications (IGC) was founded in 1986. IGC quickly linked PeaceNet and EcoNet and funded ConflictNet, HomeoNet, PaganNet, and others. It is through these computer networks that the GAGs communicate around the world. IGC is now affiliated with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) which links more than 17,000 activists in 94 countries.(8) The vision of the New World Order is not illuminated by the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is, instead, obscured. The language is deliberately vague, and full of warm and fuzzy buzzwords. Who could take exception to the objective of "conserving biodiversity and the sustainable use of its components?" Who would not be calmed by language that says explicitly "States have...the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies?" Who would not be lulled into complacency by such statements as "as far as possible and as appropriate?" This comforting language in the treaty obscures the vision developed in the literature and documents behind the treaty. The language in the treaty that is cause for alarm begins with Article 37: "No reservations may be made to this Convention." Most international treaties provide for exceptions, or reservations. That means that should a participating nation disagree with a particular provision, it may agree with the other provisions, but not be bound by the provision with which it disagrees. With the biodiversity treaty, it is all or nothing. Then comes Article 31. Each party has one vote. Each party has equal authority, but unequal responsibility. Developed nations agree to find "new and additional" sources of funding. The United States is expected to pay 40 to 80 percent of the costs, according to informed estimates. The actual amount required by any state, however, is to be decided by the Conference of the Parties (Article 23). Other international organizations provide for weighted voting to match financial responsibility. The Conference of the Parties (COP) will adopt amendments, annexes, and protocols. Protocols are the specific measures that must be taken by the member nations. Then comes Article 8, which says each party shall: "Establish a system of protected areas...." "Protected areas" are not defined by the treaty. What is meant, however, is abundantly clear in other documents. Section 10 of the Global Biodiversity Assessment sets forth a detailed description of what is meant by protected areas:
The "Wildlands Project" referred to above is the subject of ecologic Special Report "Federal Land Use Control through Federal Ecosystem Management," and contains a detailed description and analysis of the core areas, buffer zones, and corridors. The vision is one of vast reaches of core wilderness areas, surrounded by buffer zones in which some managed human activity is allowed, connected by wide corridors of wilderness which are also surrounded by buffer zones or transitional areas. People are seen to occupy "islands of human habitat" between the protected areas. A prime area for designation as a bioregion is the Northern Forest, a 26-million-acre area stretching from Maine to western New York, 80 percent of which is privately owned. Another area mentioned in the literature is the Columbia River Basin reaching from eastern Washington and Oregon to parts of Idaho and Wyoming. The IUCN and the WWF have been developing "protected areas" around the world for several years, particularly in Africa, China, Australia, and South America. Some insight into what is meant by "protected area" may be gained by examining some of those protected areas already established by the treaty strategists. One such protected area is the Virunga Mountain Park on the Rwanda-Zaire border. The park is administered by the WWF. Local residents were removed from the area, as were the elephants, supposedly to encourage expansion of the gorilla population. But since 1990, the park has been used as a safe-haven, staging area by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to conduct raids on the Rwandan people. An assistant of Diane Fossey's gorilla project charged that the elephants had been removed because the land was ideally suited for the production of pyrethrum, a susbtance used to make non-polluting pesticide. The WWF also administers protected areas in Cameroon, Zaire, Kenya, Zambia, and the Ivory Coast. The WWF has also proposed another protected area on the China-Russia border, three times larger than the world's largest protected area, some 29,000 square kilometers, larger than California, Texas, and Oklahoma combined - ostensibly to save the Panda. In 1989, a WWF internal audit by Oxford Professor John Phillipson, concluded that the WWF's 13-year, 53-million (Swiss Frank) programs to save the Panda are "...essentially non-functional." The investment has been written off, and Prince Philip admitted publicly in 1990 that the Panda was "probably doomed."(10) The new proposed protected area, like almost all other established protected areas, will require that local people find new places to live, all construction and development must stop, including an extension of the TransSiberian Railway, and a major irrigation project. The WWF says that the people "...will have to go to work for ecotourism, making handicrafts or other cottage items to sell to tourists. People will not be allowed to continue to use the habitat forests for fuel or other uses."(11) Protected areas, or parks, now occupy 8.6% of all the land area in Africa. In Zambia, 30%, and in Tanzania, 40% of the land is in protected areas. These protected areas are controlled by NGOs such as the WWF, the IUCN, or subsidiary NGOs created by them. In America, 12.6% of the land area is already set aside in protected areas. The Wildlands Project envisions at least 50% of the land area to be set aside as reserves, and the transitional zones, or buffer areas to be "managed" in the remaining 50%. These bioregions are to be governed by bioregional councils. This vision is dramatically different from America as it now is. Can the United States be converted to a land of wilderness with "islands of human habitat?" Will the people allow the government to take over private lands and dissolve political boundaries in order to establish bioregional boundaries and governance? Treaty opponents hope so. In fact, they continue to tell the world that such a transformation is a "survival imperative." One of the keys to the successful transformation of the world is the acceptance of the principle of "sustainable use" of biodiversity. The other side of that coin is "sustainable development." Like the term "biodiversity," there is no universally understood and accepted definition of "sustainable use." Sustainable use will be defined by the Conference of the Parties. Sustainable use, however, can be inferred from activity that is said to be "not sustainable." Maurice Strong speaks profusely about activities that are not sustainable. More revealing, is a series of essays posted on the Internet, which are proposals to be considered by the Conference of the Parties. One such proposal, written by Ashish Kothari of the Indian Institute of Public Administration, says the objectives of the treaty can be met only by the adoption of a number of protocols which include:
These are a few of the ideas Kothari says should "forge a legal regime" to insure sustainability.(12) Ian Fry, of Greenpeace International, says a forestry protocol should be developed that "would have the ability to address forest and biodiversity loss in all forest communities" (public and private) which would ensure appropriate land use planning, equitable land ownership, control of alien species, adequate protected areas, standards for allowable cuts, and appropriate pricing.(13) Ranil Senanyake, of the Environment Liaison Centre International, Kenya, (also Coordinator for Section 8 of the Global Biodiversity Assessment) suggests "A management system that answers the needs of human society in terms of agriculture, urban and industrial needs; as well as the needs of the ecosystem in terms of biodiversity and sustainability...." That management system emanates from the United Nations and, says Senanyake, "the attention of the NGO community will have to turn from policy issues to the activity of implementing the Convention."(14) A frighteningly vivid picture of the new world order is painted in three publications which are referenced frequently in the Global Biodiversity Assessment:
Chief among the "unsustainable" activities, are: continued use of fossil fuel, use of commercial chemically produced fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, use of so-called ozone depleting substances such as freon and other chlorine-based chemicals, and in general, overconsumption. Great care has been taken in the literature to avoid detailed delineation of what "sustainable" activities may be. Chapter 3 of Section 10 of the Global Biodiversity Assessment discusses agriculture, forestry, fishing, and tourism. The discussion divides the activities into "traditional" measures, and "large scale" or commercial measures. Without exception, "traditional" measures are said to be sustainable while large-scale or commercial measures are said to be unsustainable. The document says flatly: "Current agriculture is not sustainable."(15) While not explicitly stated in the document, the implication is
clear that "sustainable" activity is that activity which can be
conducted by individuals, using "low-input" technology, to provide
products and produce for themselves and for a trading market that does
not require fossil fuel-powered, or refrigerated transportation
systems. In other words, trade areas that are consistent with, and
designed to serve "islands of human habitat."
The Worldwatch Institute is less timid in its language:
A campaign led by the WWF, in which Prince Philip personally went to Brazil in 1990, resulted in the creation of an "ideal" protected area along the border between Brazil and Venezuela called the Yanomami Reserve. The 17.8 million hectare area is home to about 16,000 Yanomami indians (1,100 hectares each). The IUCN calls it a "National Biotic/Anthropological Reserve." The Yanomami are hunter/gathering nomads whose life expectancy is 30 years. Both Brazil and Venezuela have turned over national sovereignty in the area to international control to protect the indigenous people from civilization. In Columbia alone, there are more than 250 such reserves. The IUCN sponsors a "Community Reserve" in the Peruvian Amazon called RCTT. The protected area embraces 44 villages, inter-village forests, and lake reserves. There are three distinct land use zones: (1) a buffer zone of subsistance use governed by community management rules, (2) a fully protected zone where no activities are permitted, and (3) an area of permanent settlement. Local community rules, of course, must be consistent with the "sustainable use" paradigm as determined by the IUCN sponsor.(18) In Equador, WWF's local organization, Fundacion Natura, trains the staff and manages two protected areas. Money for their operations comes from a debt-for-nature swap designed by Thomas Lovejoy, the WWF official who is now the Scientific Advisor at the U.S. Department of Interior.(19) In Argentina, the Army has signed a contract with the Secretary of Natural Resources and Human Environment, to change the army's mission to "defending the environment." The Secretary's husband is the Argentine President of the WWF. In South America, 13.2% of the land is in protected areas, with Venezuela, Columbia, and Equador, each having more than 30% set aside for protection. The story is similar in Central America. Costa Rica is 42% protected areas. Panama and Guatemala each have 20% of their lands in protected areas. These protected areas block important development. The Pan American Railroad, proposed to link North America to Chile, is virtually blocked. Every possible route must pass through a protected area. A needed sea-level canal to supplement the Panama Canal, is also blocked by protected areas, as is a major, 10,000 mile river project which would open the heart of South America to ship and barge traffic. These blockages tend to keep people in "islands of human habitat," separated from commerce with other parts of the country. By expanding the protected areas, and by connecting the protected areas with corridors of wilderness that are off-limits to humans, the "islands of human habitat" become isolated into local populations that can be easily managed by the bioregional councils. North American is not much better. The recent addition of 8 million acres of wilderness designated by the California Desert Protection Act, brings the total wilderness area in California to 20 million acres, or about 20% of the total land area. All but 2% of Alaska is protected, and throughout the West, more than 80% of all land is under the control of the federal government. International GAGs, and their national counterparts, intend to make federal lands the backbone of the American bioregion system. Canada is even worse than America. In 1993, Queen Elizabeth established Nanavut, an area seven times larger than England, that will become an autonomous protected area in 1999 - under the control of the Crown, which means, through Prince Philip, under the control of the WWF. This picture of protected areas and sustainable use is enhanced and strengthened by the Global Biodiversity Assessment's discussion of systems of governance. Traditional communal systems of governance are said to promote sustainable use of biodiversity, while more structured systems of governance, such as exist in developed nations, tend to allow degradation or destruction of biodiversity and are, therefore, not sustainable. Moreover, governments are structured on political boundaries, not ecological or biological boundaries, and are therefore in automatic conflict with bioregional conservation objectives. Maurice Strong says, "The only conceivable answer is to establish a new international system of governance...."(20) That new international system of governance, in the new world order, is clearly a web of international treaties, enforced by the United Nations and administered by GAGs at the bioregional level. International environmental treaties reach back to at least the 1916 Migratory Bird Treaty with Great Britain. Other environmental treaties include the Whaling Convention (1946), Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora (1964), the RAMSAR Convention on the Conservation of Wetlands of International Importance (1971), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES (1973), the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1973), and the Law of the Sea Convention (1982). Structurally, these treaties have little in common with the treaties offered in 1992 at Rio, or with the parade of treaties that are now marching toward ratification. In addition to the Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, similarly structured Conventions are being prepared on sustainable development, poverty, population control, and women. These new treaties provide for a Conference of the Parties to serve as a policy-making body, an agency of the UN to serve as the administrative Secretariat, weighted funding and unweighted voting, and increasingly aggressive enforcement capabilities. The way it is envisioned to work is this: once a treaty such as the Convention on Biological Diversity is ratified, party nations are bound to its provisions. Article 8, for example, requires that each party establish a system of protected areas. The Conference of the Parties will establish the criteria for "protected areas." Should a party fail to meet that criteria, it would not be in compliance with the treaty and therefore, subject to sanctions imposed by, that's right, the Conference of the Parties. Those sanctions, of course have not been defined since the Conference of the parties will not hold its first meeting until November 28, 1994, in Naussau. The sanctions may not be defined for several years. But they will be defined. Other international arrangements can provide insight into what may be expected. The Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Climate Change, is already considering protocols to require more severe limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and a shorter time line for compliance. The proposed World Trade Organization (WTO) requires the WTO to make "arrangements for effective cooperation" with other intergovernmental organizations, and has built-in sanctions amounting to a tax penalty for nations not in compliance with the requirements of international organizations.(21) In the biodiversity community, the most often discussed sanctions center around a resource use tax, also called "internalization of costs" to be paid by nations that are not in compliance, or that consume more than the Conference of the Parties says is appropriate. This resource use tax would then be transferred to undeveloped nations to achieve what is called "equitable distribution of resource benefits." The United States government set out almost immediately after the 1992 election to prepare to implement the biodiversity treaty. A White House Ecosystem Management Task Force was created. The Department of Interior (DOI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the auspices of the National Performance Review, took the lead in the reinvention of government. An Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordinating Group (IEMCG) was created, consisting of policy-making officials from 20 departments and agencies. A massive new Ecosystem Management Policy was devised and was to be implemented by Executive Order. (Details of this policy are discussed in Federal Land Use Control through Ecosystem Management). But when the Convention on Biological Diversity met unexpected resistance in the Senate, the policy was put on hold. The internal EPA and DOI documents strongly suggest that the new policy was being designed to deal with the problem of governance within the nation. No explicit plan to alter state and local governments was discussed in either of the documents. Nevertheless, consistently throughout the documents, "the primacy of local governments" was listed as an obstacle to be overcome. Throughout the biodiversity documents, involvement of local people in management policy decisions was cited as an objective. EPA documents in particular, promote the idea of "partnerships" with local stakeholders, and "watershed councils," and a "comprehensive integrated approach to planning and management." A thorough review of the international biodiversity documents, the EPA and DOI documents, and the Wildlands Project documents, reveals the shape of governance as envisioned by the treaty strategists. The ideal government is a bioregional council consisting of GAGs and local people who participate in developing the specific rules that govern the use of resources within the bioregion - within the framework of objectives established by the Conference of the Parties, translated by the national government to meet national objectives, which ultimately are to be implemented by local residents (resource users). Conservation NGOs (GAGs) are the instrument through which education, monitoring, reporting, and general oversight will be achieved. The biodiversity documents strongly recommend that NGOs be given legal standing on all environmental matters to provide a basis for legally enforcing treaty obligations. This vision of local governance leaves city councils, county commissions, soil conservation districts, regional water authorities, and state legislatures completely out of the environmental, land use, sustainable development picture. Never happen? Don't be too sure. It is already happening. Literally thousands of private and municipal land use decisions have been blocked by federal regulations. Land use, and therefore resource use, is no longer within the authority of local, or even state governments. Local planning commissions and local county commissions may go through the motions, but their deliberations are likely to center more on compliance with federal regulations than on what's best for the community. When decisions are reached at the local level, they are still subject to approval or reversal by the federal government. Local and state governments are further intimidated by the now common practice of withholding federal highway funds, or education funds, or medicare funds, or other funds - until the local government falls into line with the federal demand. The explosion of unfunded federal mandates in recent years has further weakened the effectiveness of state and local government. By demanding that local and state governments implement federal laws and regulations, the federal government has effectively usurped local government's authority and ability to pursue its community objectives. As the unfunded mandate trend continues, local and state governments are reduced to little more than administrative units of the federal government. The transition to bioregional communal, if not tribal, governance, is not going to happen by declaration. Treaty proponents already fear a backlash, and they are much too smart to deliberately precipitate a rebellion. The goal is long-range and fully integrated into a comprehensive program designed to achieve the desired result. Maurice Strong has said the international framework must be in place by 2012. The biodiversity documents anticipate a transition period of 20 to 50 years. The Wildlands Project says that "The goal should be staying the course, not setting a speed record."(22) The stated objective of the Convention on Biological Diversity is: the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of its components. The vision of the world in which that objective can be achieved is a vision of one international government organized into a myriad of agencies, each of which is responsible for the administration and implementation of various components of the objective. National governments' primary responsibility will be to implement international objectives at the national level through bioregional councils which govern the activities of local residents. It is almost impossible to comprehend such a vision against the background of modern American life. Such a vision would be a distinct improvement for much of the world, but in America? That is precisely why it is critical for treaty strategists, that America ratify the treaty. Until America joins the sustainable use team, there is no team. The comprehensive program to achieve treaty objectives has been underway for many years. Much of American life is seen to be inconsistent with treaty objectives. American consumption is targeted repeatedly as an "unsustainable" activity. Industrial technology provides the products Americans consume and it uses natural resources to produce those products. Therefore, industrial technology is the culprit which must be eliminated. The editor of Wild Earth, the Journal in which "The Wildlands Project" was published, says:
Industrialized technology is one of the major targets of the comprehensive program to achieve treaty objectives. The Endangered Species Act is one of the primary legal devices used to shut down industry of all sorts. As has now been widely reported, the spotted owl was never endangered, yet used by GAGs to shut down logging in the northwest. The gnatcatcher was used as a surrogate by the Natural Resources Defense Council to shut down industrial development in 400,000 acres of southern California.(24) Bugs, birds, weeds, and wiggleys of every sort, endangered or not, are used as excuses to shut industry down. Simultaneously, industrial chemicals are under attack. Greenpeace has launched a massive attack on chlorine. Their proposal to ban all uses of chlorine (PVC plastics, agricultural pesticides/herbicides, pharmaceutical products, and public water disinfectant) is designed to destroy an industry that produces $31 billion per year through payrolls to 1.3 million Americans.(25) CFCs (chloroflurocarbons) were banned as the result of fear generated by undocumented press releases about the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere. The impact of this ban on industry is just beginning to be felt. Refrigeration, food storage and transportation, and fire-fighting, among others, are industries severely threatened by this ban, which many leading scientists say is completely unnecessary. Energy is the primary industrial target. The use of fossil fuel is said to be the largest contributor to global warming. Treaty strategists use this ruse to justify any action that reduces or prevents the use of oil, gas, coal, or wood as energy sources. Simultaneous attacks on the use of nuclear and hydro energy suggest that the real objective is to destroy the energy-producing industry in order to stop the industrialized technology that produces all the products consumed by America and the rest of the developed world. Global warming, incidentally, is one of those "threats" that is "known" by the enlightened, substantiated only by computer models, which are totally discredited by actual scientific evidence. The scenarios, and conclusions suggested here are systematically denied by the sophisticated public relations gurus of the GAGs. "Irrational," and "paranoid" are the descriptors usually applied to those who reach these bizarre conclusions. The Clinton/Gore administration, and their appointees, give these conclusions a high degree of credence. Bruce Babbitt, former head of the League of Conservation Voters, is the Secretary of the Department of Interior that will bear primary responsibility for implementation of the treaty. He created the National Biological Survey (NBS) by Secretarial Order to avoid congressional oversight and property rights protection amendments. The NBS is the first step toward implementation of the Wildlands Project called for in the Biodiversity Treaty. George Frampton, former head of the Wilderness Society, now heads the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency within DOI that bears implementation responsibility. The Wilderness society, and Frampton in particular, have led the efforts to convert the 26 million acres of northern forests to public land. Brooks Yeager, former Vice President of Government Relations for the National Audubon Society, is now Director of Policy Analysis for the Department of Interior. (National Audubon Society partially funded the development of "The Wildlands Project." Rafe Pomerance, former Senior Associate for Policy Affairs at the World Resources Institute (WRI), is now Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Health and Natural Resources. The WRI is a part of the Supreme Command driving the biodiversity-sustainable-use paradigm. Thomas Lovejoy, formerly an official at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is now the Scientific Advisor at the Department of Interior. The WWF is directing the establishment of bioregions in China and Russia, and provides training for the guards of protected areas. Jessica Tuchman Matthews, formerly Vice President of World Resources Institute, is now Deputy Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs. Gus Speth, former President of World Resources Institute, is now head of the United Nations Development Programme. David Gardiner, former Legislative Director for the Sierra Club, is now Assistant Administrator for Policy Planning and Evaluation at the Environmental Protection Agency. John Leshy, former official at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is now Solicitor of the Department of Interior. Reed Noss, author of "The Wildlands Project," is a featured speaker at Governor Lawton Chiles' Conference on Ecoysytem Management. These are a few of the same people who conceived, authored, and advanced the idea of "biodiversity and the sustainable use of its components." They now occupy official positions in government and have the authority and power to implement their ideas regardless of how bizarre they may be. Advocates of the biodiversity-sustainable-use paradigm are moving America closer to the team each day, and America is largely unaware of the consequences. The biodiversity treaty represents the threshold beyond which there is no turning back. For 15 years, treaty strategists have been herding America toward that threshold. The nation stood within minutes of taking the fateful step of ratification in the closing moments of the 103rd Congress. A few courageous Senators said no, and thereby spared the nation - for a while. But the treaty still looms on the horizon, and its proponents are now regrouping to round-up the mavericks and herd America back to the threshold in another attempt to drive this nation into the international corral. Fueling the relentless roundup is an endless stream of money from foundations, national GAGs, and big business, coordinated primarily through the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). The EGA is a mysterious collection of 138 foundations and corporations, governed by a nine-member management committee, and administered by Donald K. Ross, Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund. Aside from the Rockefellers, Pews, MacArthurs, and virtually all the other environmental foundations and trusts, big business also is involved with funding. Corporate members include: Apple Computer, Inc, ARCO, Chevron, L.L. Bean, Ford, Kellogg, J.C. Penney, Procter and Gamble, and Waste Management. The World Resources Institute (WRI) boasts grants totaling more than $25 million from the MacArthur Foundation and the Andrew K. Mellon Foundation. The Worldwatch Institute (WWI) operates on a budget of $3 million per year, funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Trust, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, W. Alton Jones Foundation, and others. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), survives on a budget of $60 million per year. While the Rockefeller Foundations are the source of much of their money, the WWF also receives substantial grants (in excess of $50,000) from Chevron, Exxon, Philip Morris, Mobil and Morgan Guaranty Trust.(26) The IUCN has developed a unique funding mechanism. Their income in 1993 was 57-million (Swiss Franks), of which 45-million (83%) came from government agencies. Through the State Department, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), every American taxpayer contributed directly to the IUCN. Other U.S. tax-supported agencies also contributed to the IUCN, among which are: The World Bank, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and seven different United Nations agencies. Other notable contributors include the WWF, National Wildlife Federation ($100,000), and the Pepsi Foundation.(27) The leaders of both the international, and national GAGs are inter-connected, and sit as directors, trustees and officials of many of the foundations and agencies that fund their work. They decide which GAGs will be funded, and which specific projects will be activated. These same people fill important policy positions in both the U.S. Government and the United Nations. An incredibly small handful of people are actually driving the biodiversity-sustainable-use paradigm, but their efforts have been phenomenally successful. These people, and their GAGs, have left a long paper trail that
describes their vision of what the world should be. They have worked
diligently to impose their vision upon the rest of the world. They
achieved a remarkable degree of success before the rest of the world
was even aware of what was happening. The majority of the world still
has no idea of what is in store. When Americans first encounter the
ecotopian vision of the New World Order, their first reaction is
disbelief. Publicly, GAGs and government officials denounce the
ecotopian vision as "irrational," or "extreme." Throughout the
literature, however, the vision is unmistakable. Treaty strategists
are convinced that the world can be saved only by a global government
empowered to actively manage the activities of all human beings, with
the primary objective being the preservation of biodiversity,
regardless of the cost to human beings.
Endnotes
1. Global Biodiversity Assessment, Section 10, September 2, 1994 Draft, Chapter 10.6.4.2, p. 243. 2. Larry Abraham and Franklin Sanders, The Greening, Soundview Publications, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993, p. 19. 3. Maurice Strong, lecture delivered to the Swedish Royal Academy, Stockholm, Sweden, April 27, 1994. 4. Michael S. Coffman, Saviors of the Earth, Northfield Publishing, Chicago, Illinois, 1994, p. 226. 5. Convention on Biological Diversity, Preamble. 6. Dixy Lee Ray, Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense, Regnery Gateway, Washington, DC, 1993, p. 4. 7. For a fascinating and thorough history of the World Wide Fund for Nature, see Executive Intelligence Review, October 28, 1994. 8. John E. Young, Computers in a Sustainable Society, Worldwatch Institute (igc:worldwatch.new), September 21, 1994. 9. Global Biodiversity Assessment, Section 10, p. 149. (Page 993 in the final published version of the GBA). 10. Allen Douglas, "The Oligarchs' real game is killing animals and killing people," Executive Intelligence Review, October 28, 1994, p.42. 11. eco•logic column #113, "Polluting the Free World: GAGs at Work," November, 1994. 12. "Biodiversity and Agriculture: The need for a Protocol under the Biodiversity Convention," Ashish Kothari, compiled by Miquel Lovera for the Netherlands Committee for IUCN, Amsterdam, August, 1994. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Global Biodiversity Assessment, Section 10, p. 49. 16. John C. Ryan, "Conserving Biological Diversity," Worldwatch Institute (worldwatch@igc.apc.org) August 15, 1994. 17. Alan Thein Durning, "How Much Is Enough: The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth," Worldwatch Institute, (worldwatch@igc.apc.org), August 12, 1994. 18. "Extractive Reserves," IUCN Bulletin, Number 3, 1994, p.17. 19. The WWF and The Nature Conservancy engineered this swap which purchased a $9 million uncollectable debt owed by Equador to a commercial bank, for 15-cents on the dollar. The note was then given to WWF's local affiliate, Fundacion Natura, which promptly exchanged the note for eight-year government bonds at face value, plus interest adjusted every six months (Equadorian government resolution No. JM-259-FN, October 8, 1987). A condition of the deal was that the local WWF affiliate use their new wealth to set up reserves and train local NGOs to manage them. 20. Lecture delivered by Maurice Strong to the Swedish Royal Academy, April 27, 1994. 21. "Agreement Establishing The World Trade Organization," Preamble, Article V(1)(2). 22.Michael E. Soule, "The Wildlands Project," Wild Earth, Special Issue 1992, p. 8. 23. John Davis, "The Role of Wild Earth in The Wildlands Project," Wild Earth, Special Issue, 1992, p. 9. 24. "Straining at a gnatcatcher," Sacramento Bee, May 20, 1994, p. B6. 25. "Why Chlorine Should NOT Be Banned," eco•logic Special Report, April, 1994, p. 7. 26. For a complete discussion on the foundations that fuel the GAGs, see Trashing the Economy, by Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb, Free Enterprise Press, Bellvue, Washington, 1993. 27. IUCN Annual Report, 1993, p. 34f. |