I stopped the United Nations!

[mountaineer]

Well, I would like to think so. Actually, an editorial in today's paper gave a letter I wrote in February credit for waking people up to the coming UN invasion. The local environmental activists were trying to sneak a World Heritage designation onto the Carrizo Plain National Monument and my letter criticizing this action seemed to get the ball rolling. This was briefly talked about in this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=1470&highlight=united+nations

Anyway, the county supervisors just voted 3 to 2 not to support the designation so the movement is dead.

[dave54]

At the present a UN World Heritage Site designation is much meaningless. You get to put up a sign at the local admin office touting the fact.

But the future is unknown. Some factions in this country are continually trying to cede more and more sovereignity to the UN and no one can rule out that eventually the UN will try to exercise control over local land management decisions. The UNEP (UN Environmental Programme) has already stated that very intention, justifying that position by stating local decisions create impacts across boundaries (they do, but is that a reason to cede authority to a huge central and unaccountable unelected bureaucracy?)



I do find it amusing and interesting that in 2000 Gore adopted a campaign position of giving local government more voice in federal land management, and Kerry in 2004 had a similar position on his web site. Bush did not during either campaign. Yet the environmental industry and the media keep trying to paint Bush as the one who wants to 'sell out' public lands to local interests.

[try]

Thank you, Dave!

[hikerduane]

I remember President Clinton saying we need to work together, you can see how far the QLG got. Maybe he wasn't talking about the environment.

[dave54]

I remember President Clinton saying we need to work together, you can see how far the QLG got. Maybe he wasn't talking about the environment.

The reference to QLG is interesting. QLG was successful by keeping under the radar and avoiding a lot of publicity until they had a final plan and were ready to proceed. Exactly the opposite of what so many so-called 'environmental activists' do. As you remember the QLG bill languished in Committee going nowhere until Feinstein used some Senate parliamentary backdoors to get the bill attached at the last minute as a rider to a must-pass omnibus appropriations bill. The QLG bill never went to a floor-wide vote on its own merits. It probably would have failed if it did.

[Strider]

Looks like you caught a 'Brickbat' from the SLO Tribune!


http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanlui ... 014734.htm

[mountaineer]

Looks like you caught a 'Brickbat' from the SLO Tribune!


http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanlui ... 014734.htm

And coming from the Trib, I wear that as a badge of honor!

[hikerduane]

Dave, I had read that a group out of Montana? I believe that studies stuff like what the QLG wanted to do said it was flawed or something along that line, sorry, don't remember their terminology. My thoughts are that it was a pilot project for only 5 years. The main thing about it was that all the normal "enemies" came up with a plan they all could agree on, at a local level though. Maybe there weren't enough experts in the group to guide it down a acceptable path that peers would approve of.

[gdurkee]

Ya' know, it's soothing hanging out here on the porch, gazing out at a mountain scene. Sipping a beer or two (in my case a nice Cab or worse, an effete Bordeaux). We reminisce about trips past and plan for future ones.

And then, suddenly and without warning, someone says something so totally whacko ("ya know, during my last trip, I was kidnapped by Aliens and taken to the planet eao9uoipup where I've been living the last 3 months") that I wonder if I'm having one of those dreams where you suddenly find yourself in final exam for a class you don't remember signing up for. And then everyone else on the porch starts telling stories about what planet they were recently kidnapped to.

And I have to stare into my effete Bordeaux and decide if everyone else is putting me through some sort of fraternity initiation or something.

But since absolutely no one else here has even questioned the premise (perhaps showing more restraint than I), I have to weigh in.

This is just silly. Monumentally silly.

The UN has no interest, now or ever, in directly managing anything anywhere as far as world heritage sites go. What it says is this place is a very cool area and worthy of recognition as part of our shared heritage, in the sense of our shared humanity and residence on this planet. The country agrees that it is and will do what it can to preserve it. In the US, with our well-established National Park system, it's not a big thing. But other countries don't have our well-developed philosophy of preservation. There are funds available for countries to ask for planning or management help, but the country asks and the UN supplies advisers. It's up to the area whether they want to use the advice. No one forces them to do anything.

Sequoia Kings is a world heritage site. I've worked there over 30 years. Before that, I was in Yosemite for 6 years. Not once has the UN ever -- ever! -- made a comment on any management practice we do there. The same is true for Yosemite. Never, never, never. Hasn't happened. Hasn't been threatened to happen. Won't happen.

For those of you not scanning the sky for stealthed helicopters, check out: http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/

You guys need to switch beer brands. The current brew is causing shared hallucinations.

George

[try]

I guess, George, that "we guys" don't have the benefit of all of your wisdom. I think that, at least in my case, there is no way that I will ever trust an organization that generally blames the US for every problem in the world, and yet apparently is involved in many unscrupulous projects (i.e.,oil for food).
I have no doubt that our National Park system does an effective job, even with the constraints of a huge bureaucracy. I just hope that it can continue to do so.