Putting People First / August 22, 1994 ====================================== Washington Report FROM THE TRENCHES by Kathleen Marquardt Chairman, Putting People First ...A weekly opinion column about the struggle against "animal rights" and eco-extremists. Copyright@1994 Putting People First Permission to reproduce this column is freely granted on the condition that credit is given to Putting People First. Putting People First is a nonprofit organization of citizens who believe in western civilization; that we need to return to common sense in man's relationship with his fellow man; and that public policy should be based on science and rationality, not emotionalism. Putting People First PO Box 1707 Helena, Montana 59624 (406) 442-5700 Fax (406) 449-0942 ===================================================================== Biodiversity Treaty Threatens US Sovereignty We have just won a short reprieve on this year's most important Senate vote. Not the crime bill, or the health bill, or welfare reform. Those are important, but they are really diversions, designed to distract us from the real anti-human agenda of the animal rights/Green extremists and their friends in Washington, DC. This year's most important Senate vote will be whether to ratify a little known international agreement that would sacrifice human rights and (as an afterthought) U.S. sovereignty on the altar of animal rights and Green emotionalism. It is called the "Biodiversity Treaty." The Biodiversity Treaty may be the most dangerous government action we have had to address so far. Here we a few reasons why: * The Biodiversity Treaty makes all species equal. Human existence shall have no more judicial rights than any lesser species. Because they are caused by a virus, AIDS and polio are "species" under this scheme. * The body of the treaty has not been written yet, but the Senate is still supposed to sign it -- giving carte blanche to whatever may be written in the future. And the United States is to foot a large portion of the bill. * Science is no longer to be the basis for determining what is good and what is bad for the earth's ecosystem. * "Sustainable Use" -- as defined by the writers of the Treaty -- will be the basis for all "protocols." ** Productive development and use of private property is an obstacle to "sustainable use." ** Most human activities, including farming, hunting and fishing, mining, and logging, violate "sustainable use." * If the Senate ratifies the Biodiversity Treaty, the United States will be legally bound to implement all stipulations of the agreement -- whether they are Constitutional or not. In other words, our sovereignty can be overruled. Senators are being pressed to ratify the treaty right away so the United States will be a full member when the first drafting meeting is held this November in Cairo. If the Senate does not sign, the U.S. can still have a representative there, but a non-voting one. That would be the best position the U.S. could take at the treaty conference. Then the treaty would have to be written to entice the U.S. to want to belong. If we sign now, we have no leverage to make the treaty reasonable. UNLESS WE CAN STOP THIS TREATY FROM BEING RATIFIED, WE ARE IN TROUBLE. Make no mistake --this cannot easily be undone when the Senators realize the magnitude of their error. It is now or never. We can predict most of what will be in the treaty by looking at what its designers have said in the past. Perhaps the mildest statement comes from Maurice Strong, a Canadian multimillionaire, official spokesman for the United Nations at the Earth Summit, who believes that the promotion of high-technology agriculture and energy production must be ended. Elisabeth Dowdeswell, who is the UN's chief factotum in charge of the Biodiversity Treaty, views the treaty as a means to "change the conception of man from being the crown of the creation to being an equal with the family of all species. This includes the elimination of national frontiers, national sovereignty,and even the concept of private property." She says, "Every species has a right to survival because its existence is linked to that of the entire community of life on earth." Dowdeswell has said that one of the chief forces threatening the planet is technology. Understand that this "technology" that Dowdeswell, Strong, and friends find so distasteful is what gives the United States the best environmental record on earth. Without technology and all it provides for us, we would not have time to worry about our rivers, trees, air, and all the rest of our environment. We would be like the people of Third World countries: we would be struggling for survival and we would be consuming whatever we could -- be it plants, animals or whatever -- without regard to sustainability or anything else. Because the U.S. has advanced technology, we have lifestyles that give us time to care about things other than survival -- we care about the poor, needy, and sick. We care about our environment and threatened species. We care what kind of world we are leaving our children and grandchildren because technology has given us the freedom to care and the means to protect the ecology. We no longer need to have lots of children in hopes of having one or two survive -- people in Third World countries have to do just that because they do not have the technology to keep their babies alive and they do not have the copious and untainted food supply that we enjoy because of technological advances. It stands to reason that if we want the people of third world countries to care about their environment, we should try to make them as technologically advanced as we are. North America and Western Europe are both technologically advanced and have, for the most part, healthy environments; the two go together like a hand and a glove. Yet what the Greens are trying to do with the Biodiversity Treaty is to turn logic on its head. They want to reduce technology -- to take us backwards to "simpler times." What will that do? Logically, it will take more land to grow our food -- not good for the environment -- they want us to stop using nuclear power and fossil fuels -- we will have to burn more trees -- bad for the air. They want us to quit eating meat -- think of how much more land we would have to devote to producing grain to provide for the world population, and where would we get enough vitamin B12? But things get even worse. Even though the Senate has not yet voted on the Biodiversity Treaty, our government already is implementing the policies of Agenda 21 through the President's Council on Sustainable Development(PCSD). Its mission is to develop "policy recommendations for a national strategy that can be implemented at the public and private sectors." If you want to get really scared about the PCSD, look at its "players." Its chairman is Jonathan Lash, President of the World Resources Institute; the executive director is Molly Harris Olson, former leader of Greenpeace, Australia. Also on the Council are Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt; Carol Browner,Chief of EPA; former Senator Tim Wirth, now with the State Department; John Adams, of the National Resources Defense Council; Jay Hair, President of National Wildlife Federation; Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund; Michele Perrault, president of the Sierra Club; John Sawhill, president of The Nature Conservancy; and more. Not exactly your well-balanced board -- in fact, it would be hard to find a "Greener" group of people. Unless you are willing to turn your life over to these people with their ideals, do something. Write to your Senators -- NOW! Ask them to oppose ratification of the Biodiversity Treaty known as Senate Treaty Doc. 103-20. Your livelihood, our way-of-life, your Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms depend on defeating this treaty.