A Tribute to Bill Hazeltine

Bill Hazeltine could read, digest, and analyze more material, faster than anyone I have ever known. He was, without a doubt, our most prolific advisor. The day before he died, we spent thirty minutes on the phone discussing his plans for defeating the proposed listing of a beetle common in his part of California. He planned to go collect specimens at a variety of places in the neighborhood to demonstrate just how plentiful the critter was. He didn't get to complete the project.

Another project of Bill's was the request to list the Old Order Amish as an endangered species. He wanted to demonstrate publicly just how ludicrous are the listing regulations and procedures. Secretary Bruce Babbitt will probably now sigh in relief that he no longer has to contend with Bill's constant scrutiny. Bill was a vibrant, energetic person who for many years managed the Butte County Mosquito Abatement Department. As a public health official, he frequently provided testimony and comments to Congressional committees, federal, and state agencies. He frequently reviewed technical articles for cologic, and frequently contributed articles for publication.

It is fitting that his last article appears in this edition on page 14. For his insight, his dedication, and his substantial contributions to the cause of common sense in governance, we offer our sincerest appreciation. We will miss his phone calls, his faxes, and his towering intellect.

Thank you Bill, for everything you have meant to the movement.

About this issue...

In this issue, we have taken a few pages from each of three special reports to introduce the magnitude of GAG influence. The Convention on Biological Diversity: Cornerstone of the New World Order, discusses the philosophical and political foundations that underlie the Convention. Global Biodiversity Assessment - Section 10 is a summary of the actual 288-page document that the Chicago Tribune said did not exist. Federal Land Use Control through Ecosystem Management explains how international policy is already being implemented in America by administrative fiat by many of the same people who once worked for the GAGs that designed the policy. We hope these introductions will encourage you to get the complete reports and see how the New World Order is already affecting American policy.

Another problem is brewing. The federal government appears to be insisting that any private computer communication be accessible by the government. The feds want to make it illegal to transmit a coded computer message without first providing the government with a key to the code. Learn about it on page 20.

The publisher

Electronic networking now!

ECO has established a "site," or a "post office" on the Information Super Highway (ISH). It is called "Freedom.org." Any organization, or individual, who has a computer and a modem can have a mailbox at Freedom.org. Those people who have a mailbox at Freedom.org can communicate with each other instantly, and at a fraction of the cost of all other forms of communication.

For example, to send a one-page FAX alert to 100 organizations now costs about $30 and takes about three hours. A two-page alert costs twice as much and takes twice as long.

At Freedom.org, a two-page message can be delivered to 100 organizations in less than five minutes at a cost of a few cents. Moreover, a five-page message could be delivered in about the same time for the same cost.

Each organization (that has established authority with us) may send their own messages and action alerts. Long messages, such as bills and special reports, can also be transmitted at a fraction of the cost of any other delivery system.

This system is in use now by the GAGs. Their post office is called "igc.apc.org" (which stands for Institute for Global Communications, and Association for Progressive Communications).

This is just the beginning. Watch your mail box for new, exciting developments in electronic networking.

The Convention on Biological Diversity:

Cornerstone of the New World Order

by Henry Lamb

T he 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). 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: "This interlocking...is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life...."

He told the Swedish Royal Academy that: "sustainable development" is not just "idealistic notions, but survival imperatives...." And that "it will require the development of an effective and enforceable international legal regime."

He also told the Academy that "The 50th anniversary of the UN next year provides a unique opportunity to restructure and revitalize the UN...to prepare for the vastly increased role it must have as the primary multi-lateral framework of a new world order."

"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 theosophical idea of one universal religion that realizes that the kingdom of God is in reality, the kingdom of nature.

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: "Where there is a threat of significant reduction or loss of biological diversity, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to avoid or minimize such a threat."

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: "developed and benefitted from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmental damaging consumption patterns."

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.

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.

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:

"This [protected areas] means that representative areas of all major ecosystems in a region need to be reserved, that blocks should be as large as possible, that buffer zones should be established around core areas, and that corridors should connect these areas. This basic design is central to the recently-proposed Wildlands Project in the United States."

The "Wildlands Project" referred to above is the subject of cologic 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.

(Please see back cover for information about obtaining this complete report.)

GLOBAL BIO-DIVERSITY ASSESSMENT

SECTION 10

Measures for Conservation of Biodiversity

and Sustainable Use of Its Components

Peer Review Draft, September 2, 1994

On September 30, 1994, Jon Margolis reported in the Chicago Tribune that the Global Biodiversity Assessment did not exist: "There is no such document, said a member of the staff of the UN Environmental Program. `We have a biodiversity treaty and a secretariat,' she said. The Global Biodiversity Assessment is a process, just beginning, in which scientists from all over the world will monitor the world's biological diversity."

The Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA) is, in fact, being developed at the behest of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with funding provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The published deadline for the first draft was July, 1994. Deadline for the second "peer review" draft was November 1994. The third draft is scheduled to be finalized in April of 1995, and published in May, 1995.

The complete GBA document consists of 12 sections and is estimated to be more than 2,000 pages, but is not available for review outside UNEP circles. UNEP denies the existence of the document, even though the process was begun several months ago and is only a few months away from publication. The following excerpt is from Chapter Four from the summary of Section 10 of the GBA document, which discusses how the biodiversity treaty is to be implemented..

Chapter 10.4 - Measures to Conserve and Restore Ecosystems

"This chapter assesses a wide range of measures associated with conservation systems (e.g. protected areas and natural habitat management, restoration ecology, zoos, botanical gardens, museums, and germplasm storage and maintenance facilities) in which the preservation of biodiversity is a principal objective. Such measures include land use planning, geographic or temporal restrictions on certain human activities, captive breeding, reintroduction of species or populations into former habitats, and seed banks.

10.4.2 - Conservation Measures for

Ecosystems

"Ecosystem conservation measures seek to limit human activities in limited geographic areas where they may adversely impact populations of species or interfere with ecosystem processes. The goal of conservation biologists is to use conservation measures in enough areas to protect a representative array of ecosystems and their constituent biodiversity.

10.4.2.1 - Protected Areas

"Protected areas are defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as `a geographically defined area which is designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives.' If protected areas are to become more effective in conserving biodiversity, serious obstacles, including inadequate biogeographic distribution, conflicts with local peoples, ineffective management and funding, and a limited appreciation of potential roles in sustainable development, must be overcome."

A total of 37,000 protected area sites are recorded and in five categories:

1. Strict Nature Reserve

2. National Park

3. National Monument/Natural landscape

4. Managed Nature Reserve/Wildlife Sanctuary

5. Protected Landscapes and Seascapes.

"There is clear evidence that a large proportion of protected areas have yet to be implemented on the ground. Inadequate legal and institutional support, and insufficient manpower and financial resources result in many areas receiving a less than satisfactory level of protection."

10.4.2.1.2 - Measures for Conserving Biodiversity in Protected Areas

Measures for conserving biodiversity in protected areas include the designation of land in one of the above categories. "Strict Nature Reserve, for example, is employed where objectives focus upon the maintenance of relatively wild habitats and ecosystems.... Assigning a site to this category makes explicit that the government intends to maintain biodiversity, and to promote knowledge and understanding about nature of the area. It also makes explicit that other possible uses of the same area for agriculture or timber extraction, for example, will be foregone."

Ten guidelines are listed for the "replanning" of protected areas:

1. Number of areas. A larger number of sites will provide coverage of the diversity of habitats and transition areas in the country...and protect from anthropomorphic disturbances.

2. Size. Ideally, each area should be as large as needed to embrace the biota of concern, together with the related habitats and ecosystem factors.

3. Interconnectedness (corridors) should permit the flow of biota from site to site.

4. Zoning. Within the selected area, various zones can be identified by which to denote the various uses and purposes to which the space is to be put. Areas key for their genetic materials may well be zoned out of human visitation.

5. Location of facilities. Among the decisions that most affect biodiversity in a protected area are those that design trails and roads, buildings and infrastructure.

6. Research and monitoring. Designing an approach to land-use planning for protected areas based upon ecological value, including uniqueness of vegetation type, its representativity, its succession-disturbance degree, plant species richness, etc.

7. Biological resource management to provide for restoration, eradication of alien species and other interventions.

8. Education is the best protection against human despoliation of nature through raising the awareness about nature, how it works and the relationship between nature and people. Intellectual development is one of the primary goals of the protected area system.

9. Use Management program. The degree to which biodiversity can be conserved at the genetic, species and landscape/ecosystem levels will depend upon how these use regimes are managed. Depending upon the particular aspect or feature of biodiversity that is to be conserved, other uses will need to be limited and controlled accordingly.

10. Bioregional management program. Protected areas are components of a larger landscape. Protected areas cannot function ecologically or serve society if they are treated as islands within regions of land/water use conflicts. Protected area management, where biodiversity lies as a major objective, will succeed to the extent that cooperative arrangements among public agencies and with rural inhabitants and industry, permit developing collaborative programs at the bioregional scale.

"People situated in or near biologically-diverse ecosystems often capture little economic benefit from conservation or sustainable resource use. In contrast, the costs incurred as a result of conservation measures - especially the establishment of protected areas - tend to be felt most severely at local levels.

"A large proportion of the funds available for biodiversity conservation are now being committed to a variety of Integrated Conservation-Development Projects (ICDPs) throughout the developing world, and even more money is potentially available from GEF II (Global Environment Facility), and possibly through the Biodiversity Convention."

Since the mid-1980s, NGOs have devoted increasing efforts and financial resources to ICDPs, but successful and convincing examples where local peoples' needs have been effectively reconciled with biodiversity conservation remain difficult to find. "ICDPs therefore represent an extremely challenging approach which has so far generated few clear successes."

10.4.2.2.2 - Corridors in Fragmented Landscapes

"Biotic movement in a fragmented landscape requires movements between individual fragments (protected areas). Corridors of native vegetation linking fragments are commonly seen as a solution to this. Corridors thus act as additional habitat and as representatives of the native ecosystems in their own right."

10.4.2.2.3 - Protection and Management of Fragments

"The protection and management of fragments requires a reduction in the deleterious effects of matrix-derived influences on remnants and an increase in the area and connectivity of habitat. This means that representative areas of all major ecosystems in a region need to be reserved, that blocks should be as large as possible, that buffer zones should be established around core areas, and that corridors should connect these areas. This basic design is central to the recently-proposed `Wildlands Project' in the United States." (Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project land conservation strategy. Wild Earth, Special issue, 1992).

"Many areas are already extensively fragmented. In these cases, retroactive action is required, which involves the protection of existing fragments and the enhancement of the existing network. Protection must adequately deal with the threats from the external matrix, and thus includes fencing against stock, prevention of weed invasion and prevention of degradation by human populations. This is a distinct departure from traditional conservation management. A broader perspective is needed which encompasses the entire landscape, including the conservation and production components. This approach is not easy since it involves an additional layer of responsibility over and above the traditional responsibility for one's own land."

10.4.4 - Restoration and Rehabilitation

"Widespread degradation of natural ecosystems is occurring worldwide as a result of human-induced activities such as fragmentation, livestock grazing, logging, invasions by feral animals and plants. Rehabilitation involves the repair of damaged ecosystems, while restoration usually involves the reconstruction of a natural or semi-natural ecosystem. Rehabilitation involves two components: first, the factors leading to degradation must be treated. Second, components of the ecosystem which have disappeared have to be replaced.

"The only solution to extensively fragmented landscapes is the large scale restoration as a whole, rather than at the scale of individual fragments. This involves treatment of the non-conservation sectors of the landscape, and modification of production practices so that conservation issues are considered. Revegetation could be used to provide buffer zones around remnant areas, corridors between remnants, or as additional habitat. Landscape restoration aims at improving the design of the existing system of fragments by increasing habitat area and connectivity, and by providing buffer zones around existing fragments to protect them from external influences.

(To get this complete 35-page summary, which includes a glossary of terms and conceptual maps of proposed bioregions now under discussion, please refer to the back cover. Three more Sections of the GBA Document have been secured and are currently being summarized. They will be available early this year. The Global Biodiversity Assessment is the basis of the international green movement.)

Federal Land Use Control

Through Ecosystem Management

(The Wildlands Project is discussed in detail in this 20-page, well-documented special report. Here follows the Executive Summary and selected excerpts. Please see the back cover for ordering information.)

The federal government is preparing to take control of the use of all land in America, both public and private, through a new administrative policy of ecosystem management. In his book, Earth in the Balance, Vice President Al Gore passionately declared that all human civilization is in jeopardy unless preservation of nature is adopted as our "organizing principle." Since taking office, he, with the blessings of the Clinton administration, has been "reinventing government" to incorporate the preservation of nature as America's organizing principle. Gore's "Performance Review" of government produced the "Ecosystem Management Plan." Gore appointed his top environmental advisor from the Senate, Katie McGinty, to head a special White House Task Force to oversee the creation and administration of a new Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordinating Group (IEMCG), which focuses the resources of 20 federal agencies, to achieve "comprehensive integrated resource management" on an ecosystem basis.

Applause has been thunderous from Green Advocacy Groups (GAGs). The Wilderness Society, the National Audubon Society, and Earth First!, in particular, and dozens of other support groups, have been working to achieve precisely the same goal for several years. In fact, Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!, created the Cenozoic Society, which publishes Wild Earth, expressly to promote the concept of ecosystem management. His organization assembled the top echelon of biocentric environmentalists to form the Board of Directors for The Wildlands Project. The Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society paid for the development of a massive ecosystem management plan which was distributed to 75,000 key people.

To help with the implementation of the Ecosystem Management Plan, Gore chose Bruce Babbitt, head of the League of Conservation Voters, as Secretary of the Department of Interior. He chose George Frampton, President of The Wilderness Society, to head the Fish and Wildlife Service. He chose the Vice President of Government Relations of the National Audubon Society, Brooks Yeager, to head the Department of Interior's Task Force on Ecosystem Management. He chose a host of officials, directly from the GAGs that have been promoting ecosystem management, to fill key policy-making positions throughout government. The policy of Ecosystem Management has been under development since the election. It will be established by Executive Order, not by Congress, and was scheduled to be officially announced before September 30, 1994. Ecosystem Management will assume a priority equal to the protection of human health, according to EPA documents.

Ecosystem Management, according to The Wildlands Project Plan, will identify vast reaches of land, as much as 50 million acres in the Northern Woods Ecoregion, to be converted to wilderness. Although more than 80 percent of the targeted area is presently owned by private citizens, Brock Evans, Vice President of the National Audubon Society, told a conference at Tufts University, "...let's take it all back." John Davis, a Director of The Wildlands Project and Editor of Wild Earth says humans might be allowed to live in the region if they gave up "damnable technology" and the area were declared to be "motor free" and guns and cows were banned.

The Ecosystem Management Plan brings to fruition in American domestic policy a biocentric philosophy that holds human life to be of no greater value than any other life form. A Department of Interior Internal Working Document says: "All ecosystem management activities should consider human beings as a biological resource." The concept of "private property rights," won in revolution and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, is trampled by the National Audubon Society, whose President, Peter Berle, said: "We reject the idea of property rights," and by the other GAGs which are now well represented in Gore's reinvented government. With the implementation of this plan, the American government, too, will cast aside all pretense of protecting private property rights guaranteed by the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The federal government shall have secured absolute control of every square inch of land in America, both public and private, without asingle Congressional debate on the issue of federal land use control.

The Objective

The ultimate objective of the GAGs can only be achieved through the power of strong central government. The objective is so bizarre, so foreign to the ideas of Jefferson and Madison, the ideas on which America was founded, that free market property rights advocates have discounted their ideas as the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement.

The preservationist objective is only suggested by Aldo Leopold in his 1949 Sand County Almanac. He says: "We are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution." An awareness of which "changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it."

Dave Foreman sheds more light on the ultimate objective of the preservationists:

"We should demand that roads be closed and clearcuts rehabilitated, that dams be torn down, the wolves, grizzlies, cougars, river otters, bison, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, caribou and other extirpated species be reintroduced to their native habitats. We must envision and propose the restoration of biological wildernesses of several million acres in all of America's ecosystems, with corridors between them for the transmission of genetic variability. Wilderness is the arena for evolution, and there must be enough of it for natural forces to have free rein."

He also says:

"...it boils down to the question of whether private property (and those dollars or jobs the property represents) or natural ecosystems are more valuable. Although most people in this country (myself included) respect the concept of private property, life - the biological diversity of this planet - is far more important."

Foreman's dream of massive wilderness in America is not a private fantasy. Bill Devall says, in Deep Ecology,

"The entire continent of Antarctica should be zoned as wilderness. In the United States, tens of millions of acres should be zoned wilderness with rigid restrictions on industrial developments."

David Brower, former director of the Sierra Club and founder of Friends of the Earth, says:

"Man needs an Earth International Park, to protect on this planet what he has not destroyed and what need not be destroyed. In this action, all nations could unite against the one real enemy - Rampant Technology."

Philosopher, John Phillips says:

"The biosphere as a whole should be zoned, in order to protect it from the human impact. We must strictly confine the Urban-Industrial Zone, and the Production Zone (agriculture, grazing, fishing), enlarge the Compromise Zone, and drastically expand the Protection Zone, i.e. wilderness, wild rivers. Great expanses of seacoast and estuaries must be included in the Protection Zone, along with forests, prairies, and various habitat types. We must learn that the multiple-use Compromise Zone is no substitute, with its mining, lumbering, grazing, and recreation in the national forests, for the scientific, aesthetic, and genetic pool values of the Protection Zone. Such zoning, if carried out in time, may be the only way to limit the destructive impact of our technocratic industrial-agri-business complex on earth."

Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, says:

"If man is to remain on earth he must transform the five-millennia long urbanizing civilization tradition into a new ecologically-sensitive harmony-oriented wild-minded scientific/spiritual culture...nothing short of total transformation will do much good."

The wilderness objective is promoted throughout the literature of the environmental movement. Dave Foreman, one of the more articulate spokesmen for the movement, has substantially advanced his dream.

Until 1980, Foreman was a lobbyist for The Wilderness Society. Unhappy with the progress being made, he resigned and created Earth First! He published Ecodefense: a Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, and Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. His next venture was the creation of the Cenozoic Society, which publishes Wild Earth. In an 88-page special issue, entitled "The Wildlands Project", published with funds from the Hati Foundation for Deep Ecology, Foreman distributed 75,000 copies of his vision for land use in America.

The mission of The Wildlands Project is:

"To stem the disappearance of wildlife and wilderness we must allow the recovery of whole ecosystems and landscapes in every region of North America. Allowing these systems to recover requires a long-term master plan. Our vision is simple: we live for the day when Grizzlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to Grizzlies in Alaska; when Gray Wolf populations are continuous from New Mexico to Greenland; when vast unbroken forests and flowing plains again thrive and support pre-Columbian populations of plants and animals; when humans dwell with respect, harmony, and affection for the land; when we come to live no longer as strangers and aliens on this continent."

The plan itself was devised by Reed F. Noss, who holds a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from the University of Florida, who is a research scientist at the University of Idaho, a research associate at Stanford University, and is a member of the Board of Directors of The Wildlands Project. Noss says: "Most conservation biologists agree that compatible human uses of the landscape must be considered...However, the native ecosystem and the collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans."

The plan calls for a biological survey to identify and catalog plant and animal populations. It calls for the designation of vast land areas as "core reserves" surrounded by an "inner buffer zone" and surrounded again by an "outer buffer zone," almost exactly like that described by John Phillips above. The reserve areas are to be connected by corridors from at least 50 miles wide, to several hundred miles wide. Noss says:

"Eventually, a wilderness network would dominate a region and thus would itself constitute the matrix, with human habitations being the islands." He says that specific actions to be taken include: "...land and mineral rights acquisitions, Wilderness or other reserve designations on public lands, road closures, road modification (underpasses to allow migration of animals beneath highways) cancellation of grazing leases and timber sales, tree planting, dam removals, stream dechannelization, and other restoration projects. In many cases, private lands will need to be acquired and added to national forests and other public lands in order to serve as effective buffers."

Noss acknowledges that his work was prepared under contract with the National Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy.

John Davis, Editor of Wild Earth, and a Director of The Wildlands Project, says wilderness advocates must face squarely such problems as "private property, local versus state or federal control, and appropriate human roles in natural areas." He says people would not be required to relocate if they would "...refrain from any use of motors, guns, or cows. The problem here is not so much people as it is their damnable technologies."

To achieve this massive objective, Michael E. Soule, a member of The Wildlands Project Board, and a teacher in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, preaches a policy of patience. Rather than take a rancher's land, he suggests getting the rancher involved in a watershed council, or similar local group and "teach" him the tax benefits of donating his land to a conservancy after his death. He says:

"...we must hurry to plan the system and the strategy. Some protective actions cannot wait. Some pieces and parts can wait as long as the plan is well conceived and is being implemented systematically. The goal should be staying the course, not setting a speed record."

The plan: ecosystem protection

After the flop of the FLUP (Federal Land Use Planning) Acts in the mid 1970s, GAGs realized that seduction might be more effective than rape. A new strategy was devised: go to the U.N. for help, and infiltrate the government. The Carter administration provided the opportunity for implementation of both initiatives. The President's Council on Environmental Quality sponsored a "Forum on Preservation of Farmland," which determined that:

"The greatest need is to create a federal policy. This can be done by various tax and regulatory schemes. Another way is for the community to become part-owner in the land. A third way, well tested in Europe, is for the community to intervene in the actual market of land buying and selling."

Stanley D. Shift, head of the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Habitat Conference, participated in the Forum, and in the U.N. Habitat Conference. The Conference report begins:

"Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulating wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice. Public control of land is therefore indispensable." The Conference recommended: "Public ownership of land is justified in favor of the common good, rather than to protect the interests of the already privileged."

The Carter administration welcomed the environmental seducers into policy-making positions. In the Department of Interior, Under Secretary, Barbara Heller, and water specialist, Joe Browder came from Ralph Nader's Environmental Policy Center. Assistant Secretary, Cynthia Wilson came from the National Audubon Society. Assistant Secretary, Robert Herbat came from the Izaak Walton League. Attorney James Moorman came from the Sierra Club, Solicitor John Leshey, from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Reagan administration cleaned house and replaced the Carter policy-makers with people such as James Watt from Mountain States Legal Foundation. The environmental community organized a national campaign against Watt, even before his confirmation, and eventually forced his resignation.

CONSERVATION OR PRESERVATION?

By Dr. William Hazeltine

Activists in today's society try for the "moral high ground" in an attempt to gain credibility. This is true in many areas, but it is particularly true in the environmental arena, and in the Conservation/Preservation debate.

The best way to understand a person's position, whether political or personal, is to try to define and understand the descriptive terms they use to portray themselves, and to see if those terms fit their practices. The political environmental activists today usually want to be seen as conservationists, but are they?

Webster defines Conservation to show little distinction from Preservation. However, in practice, Conservation is used to describe the way modern forestry management, farming and livestock production is practiced. Conservation involves reasonable use of resources, including planting, growing and harvesting of a crop, so that humans as well as other organisms in the environment can have the benefit of what is produced. Hunting and fishing are wildlife management and Conservation tools. Preserves and sanctuaries, on the other hand, tend to replace wildlife Conservation with restrictions and eventually end hunting and fishing for sport, which is Preservation.

Many Conservation organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited, pay for habitat to increase the number of ducks to shoot. The Preservationists, however, have taken over many of the Hunter/Wildlife organizations and turned them into Wildlife Societies. The Preservationists would apparently like to replace hunting and fishing as population control tools with population control by disease and starvation.

Even predator control is viewed by many Preservationists as disruptive to the natural cycle of "eat or be eaten".

Within the Conservation concept, humans have rights and needs, which must be met. These rights and needs would be denied under the Preservationists' game plan.

Preservation has a sense of keeping something the way it is, or was in the past, without allowing any changes or use, no matter how beneficial that change or use may be. This is especially true with preserving Biodiversity. Failure to harvest a resource, particularly a renewable natural resource, deprives humans of the benefits of that natural product or resource. The only human rights under the Preservation concept is the right of a chosen few to play with the resource, or to use it as a study project, or just to look at it. This is evident in the example of large areas being locked up in designated Federal "Wilderness" and it also involves removing roads in the National Forests, but leaving the trails for backpackers.

Preserving Biodiversity often denies the development of any new land for houses or urban use, and would allow only very limited harvest of any natural resource. This is the consequence of preserving Biodiversity.

A whole new field of academic enterprise, called "Conservation Biology" has sprung up to generate support for the Preservation idea, and to indoctrinate students, as well as the public of all ages, about the glory of preserving nature. What is usually lacking in this new indoctrination is an understanding that nature is dynamic and changing, and any attempt to stop change is unnatural. Nature will harvest a forest or grassland with fire if the resource is not harvested in some other way. Rivers will flood unless the levees are maintained, and the dams kept operative.

Conservation Biology seems to forget that Humans are animals which are distinct from other animals because Humans learned to use weapons. Use of tools is not a singular Human trait; particular birds with short beaks, for example, have learned to use thorns to capture insects the same way longer beaked birds in other areas capture similar prey.

Reproduction and perpetuation of the human species is perfectly natural and consistent with any biological or natural scheme. Humans are a "top predator", and as such, are expected to out-compete other predators and prey species and to displace other organisms. Human preeminence is an issue which is lacking in the Biodiversity logic, yet competition and dominance is what drives the dynamic evolutionary process.

If we are going to have "science " applied to part of the Biodiversity thinking, it should be required for all of this thinking.

Normal human reproductive capacity, and its alleged impact on habitat availability are the touchstone of the Biodiversity concern. Predictions of doom and gloom and an end to modern civilization occur almost daily, and these are almost invariably tied to increasing human population numbers and to the technology which humans produce and use. None of the prediction makers seem to care that essentially all of their prior predictions were wrong. They simply blame their older computer models for the error, and then continue to make wild speculations.

A reasonable person should ask how these unproven guesses and misleading conclusions could be passed off as scientific thinking. Science usually requires that speculation be clearly labeled as such, and credible scientific literature be subject to "peer review" as a way to preserve some integrity for the system. However, "peer review" can be kept within a limited circle of like thinkers, which only gives the appearance of credibility, but does not assure accuracy. True peer review only occurs when the information is either accepted or rejected by a larger, more diverse community of experts, and in the present discussion, by those who are outside the Biodiversity preservation circle of believers.

The use of non-science, which is sometimes called "adversary science" (the telling of only the part which supports a position, and neglecting to tell the conflicting parts) is evident in the first paragraph of an Essay written for the book Biodiversity,

published by the National Academy [of Sciences] Press (1988, E. O. Wilson, Editor). David Ehrenfeld, a biology professor at Rutgers University, on page 212, says:

"In this chapter, I express a point of view in absolute terms to make it more vivid and understandable. There are exceptions to what I have written, but I will let others find them."

The Biodiversity proponents have discovered ways to get their ideas published, and yet avoid the credibility test required by mainstream Scientific Journals. One way is to control the content of their own Journal, published by the Society for Conservation Biology. (It would have been more appropriate to call it the Society for Preservation Biology.) Another way they avoid peer review is to control their own book publishing. The Island Press of Washington, DC, and Covelo, California, alleges to be a "nonprofit organization [which] publishes, markets, and distributes the most advanced thinking on the conservation of our natural resources". It was founded "...to meet the increasing demand for substantive books on all resource-related issues." Later it offers these services to "other nonprofit organizations". They then list a whole string of funding sources, which include 18 huge tax exempt "charitable and philanthropic" foundations. The Island Press Board of Directors are largely tied to activist or "green" organizations, or to their funding foundations, which makes this publisher's credibility highly advocate and suspect from the start.

What is amazing is that the Preservation activists (the Greens), are apparently now confident enough in their own infallibility to admit their alliance with and allegiance to many of their funding sources. Yet these funding sources have gained their wealth from many of the same activities that the Green activists say that they condemn, such as oil and other mineral extraction, automobile and heavy industry production and the harvest of renewable natural resources.

Many of the same Trusts and Foundations that fund the Island Press type of activity also fund and apparently could influence the direction of programs of such prestigious organizations as the National Research Council, the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering. The separate "Academy Industry Program" invites annual funding from companies with an interest in science and technology. Yet similar grants to other organizations have been labeled as having a potential conflict of interest by the Environmental Activists. The charges are made that Industry money taints the conclusions of a program that receives such funding.

On pages 97-98 of his book, The Green Revolution, Kirkpatrick Sale (1993) points out his ideas on the shortcomings of the Environmental movement. The first issue deals with "racism and elitism" of the major organizations. The funding sources are considered this way:

"Along with this [elitism] has been a practice in some parts of the movement of working with and accepting money from corporate America that seems to compromise its loftier ideals, whether or not this is compensated for by "pragmatic" working arrangements or increased research or lobbying budgets. ... it is hard to imagine that such donors do not have at least some political influence, however hotly denied, on their beneficiaries."

[Note: Tax exempt contributions are not supposed to be used for lobbying purposes.]

The Editor's Foreword in the book titled Biodiversity, provides information that the "National Forum on Biodiversity", where these published papers were presented, was "supported" by the National Research Council Fund and the Smithsonian Institution. The National Research Council Fund money appears to come from many of the same Trusts and Foundations that support the Island Press, as well as from the "National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering endowments". The Foreword says, "The National Research Council Fund is a pool of private, discretionary, nonfederal funds that is used to support a programof Academy-initiated studies of national issues in which science and technology figure significantly." Publication of the book was "supported" by the National Research Council Dissemination Fund..."

Earlier in the "credits" for the development of the National Forum on Biodiversity, a Senior Program Officer for the National Research Council/ National Academy of Sciences was prominently mentioned for his leadership, and he was said to have introduced the term biodiversity.

The Green or preservationist organizations which are funded by most of these same tax exempt Foundations are pushing for the "lock-up" of our natural resources, (preserving Biodiversity), and even the diminishment of human populations. These same Greens are even involved in leading the parade to Federalize private property by a mass of new restrictive legislative programs, including Endangered Species and Wetland preservation.

Sale, on pages 87-88 of the Green Revolution, discusses the "Earth Summit" in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro, where "Some 6000 grass roots organizations from around the world" were represented. He then points out that:

"The Rio nations agreed to create a new Global Environmental Facility, effectively controlled by the industrial nations and administered by the World Bank, that would monitor future environmental threats and determine appropriate responses.... Such a body would essentially carry out the strategy spelled out by the World Banks World Development Report, issued just before the summit."

Anyone who buys into the conspiracy theory about a desire for control of the world economy and a reduction of the human population numbers by wealthy industrialists and International Bankers, and their plans for a One World Government should be happy to discover this alliance of activists and the wealthy. It is a tacit acknowledgment of "command and control" by those who hold the financial resources that support these publications and organizations, as well as to provide the resources for the activist troops that are necessary to achieve any desired program outcome, such as those activities designed to control "Natural Resources" Worldwide.

From all of this, I must conclude that Conservation and Preservation are not the same, nor even similar.

The World Trade Organization

By Henry Lamb

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an essential component of the New World Order. It will become the enforcement mechanism for other international agreements as well as a funnel through which wealth from developed countries will flow into the undeveloped countries.

On April 15, a full-page ad appeared in the New York Times celebrating the signing of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Agreement by 124 nations. It said, in part: "...the most ambitious trade negotiation of our century, will give birth...to the World Trade Organization, the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund."

The WTO, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the concept of "sustainable development" sprang from a common source in the 1980s. The preamble to the WTO Charter provides "for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development." The Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA) emphatically states that current agriculture, air-conditioning, suburban housing, and convenience foods are among the activities that are not sustainable. The WTO is committed by Charter to an objective, which by definition, must lower the standard of living in America.

Article V requires the WTO to "make appropriate arrangements for effective cooperation" with other intergovernmental organizations and with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Conference of the Parties (COP) for both the Conventions on Biological Diversity and on Climate Change are intergovernmental organizations. The GBA discusses use of resource taxes and trade sanctions as a means to achieve the equitable distribution of resource benefits. None of the COPs have the authority to levy trade sanctions; the WTO does.

Article XVI(4) says: "Each member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations and administrative procedures with its obligations as provided in the annexed Agreements." If a member refuses to conform its laws to comply with WTO obligations, the WTO may levy sanctions as it sees fit on any segment of the international trade of the offending member.

The legal and administrative machinery is now in place to allow a COP to declare a nation in non-compliance with an environmental treaty, and then call on the WTO to impose trade sanctions on that nation until it comes into compliance.

Despite assurances of dramatic increases in exports, the agreement will inevitably have a negative net effect on the American economy. The North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provides an excellent example of what to expect from the WTO.

NAFTA's first-year performance records are now coming in. As promised, exports to NAFTA trading partners increased by $8.4 billion during the first six months after the agreement. The story was reported widely, boasting 19,600 new American jobs for each billion dollar increase in exports. What the stories failed to report was that during the same period with the same NAFTA partners, our imports increased by $9.5 billion resulting in a trade deficit of $1.1 billion for the period. Using the Department of Commerce figures, NAFTA caused a net outflow of 21,560 American jobs during its first six months of operation. The third-quarter figures indicate that the deficit continues to worsen.

Private Communications Challenged

By Mark Lamb

<dragon@freedom.org>

You may have heard some portions of the debate over the Clipper encryption standard. You may have heard some of the debate about the FBI's wiretap proposal. You may have heard some of the noise over the Communications Act of 1994. You may have heard of RSA, PGP, Skipjack, the NSA, FCC, FBI, and the Information Superhighway; unless you're involved in the industry, however, it's likely that you don't really know what's going on.

Vice President Gore has proclaimed the inevitability of the "Information Superhighway," as the media refers to it, or the "National Information Infrastructure," as he refers to it. He is correct in assuming that there will be national data service as there is now national telephone service. As a matter of fact, the Internet is fast becoming a national data network, indeed, an international network. This is happening largely through the free market, without government control or support.

Quite obviously, this scares the government. This past session of Congress has seen serious efforts to regulate the explosive growth of computer communications technology. Some of these efforts have been rather worrisome.

V.P. Gore's National Information Infrastructure proposal has raised doubts. He says that the government should build an "Information Superhighway," as it built the Interstate Highways. The roads for data, of course, would differ from the roads for cars. The data roads in Mr. Gore's vision seem to be the equivalent of four lane highways going into people's houses, with little or no consideration for outbound traffic. In his vision, the on-ramps to the government-regulated information highway would be few and far between, expensive, and with limited access.

The doubters also cite the government's past record with highway construction; the "20 year" roads that last 5 years, the cost overruns, and so forth. In essence, they ask, "Is there any reason to think that the government would do a better job this time?"

This is a valid question. The Internet is growing at an unbelievable rate. It's becoming the infobahn, and it's happening in the free market. The worldwide network is coming. The proponents of a government-built infobahn question the ability of the free market to build the kind of information infrastructure that will be needed to support this worldwide network. They ask, "Who's going to pay for it?" It will be expensive, but that's not an excuse for giving the government control. The free market is building the network. The users of the network are paying for it. As a matter of fact, the biggest problems involved in building this network are the result of government regulation, and regulated monopolies. It's asinine but true that it's often less expensive to call 400 miles away than 40 miles away. This is the result of a free market in long distance services, and a regulated monopoly in local services.

The FBI realizes that very soon now, telephone conversations will be carried out digitally. This will make tapping telephone conversations much more difficult. They want Congress to force telephone companies to provide the FBI and other law enforcement agencies with an easy means of tapping connections. The recently (October 7th, 1994) passed Digital Telephony bills mandate that all communications carriers must provide "wiretap ready" equipment. "Wiretap ready" is to be defined by the FCC. These bills sailed through the Senate with no opposition at all, and through the House with only three opposing votes.

The FCC wants to regulate all communications methods (such as broadcast, cable, and telephone), and extend their authority to include anyone who sends data using any of the regulated communications methods. The Communications Act of 1994 would have given the FCC very broad powers over what you could say over the phone, or on TV, or in (supposedly private) electronic mail. Also, it would have made the providers of information responsible for the content.

Some explanation of that last is probably in order. Let's say, for example, that you want to electronically publish a sort-of newspaper. Every day, you receive messages from people around the world, put them together, and send them around the world. I use this as an example because there are literally millions of people participating in like enterprises at the moment. Let's say that you rent time on someone else's computer to do this, as you haven't the resources necessary to maintain such a computer yourself. The person you're renting the computer from would, under the Communications Act of 1994, be responsible for the information you sent and received. If you sent a message that violated the bill's pornography provisions, for example (quite easy to do), the owner of the computer would be liable for some stiff fines, perhaps even confiscation of his equipment. Lots of people saw the implications this bill would have for current technology, which is a major part of the reason it died.

The Clipper chip proposal generated some noise too. The NSA (National Security Agency) decided that, with digital communications becoming so prevalent, the government needed to help provide some measure of security to the users of such communications. They came up with an encryption scheme, called Skipjack, to be included in any product that communicated digitally by means of a special encryption chip, called the Clipper chip. The fact that the encryption method was (and still is) a closely held NSA secret, and unavailable for independent review, is disturbing. There's suspicion in the computer industry that the encryption scheme embodied in the Clipper chip is not very good.

Still more disturbing, however, is the "key escrow" idea that came with Clipper. To explain this idea requires some explanation of encryption in general. Encryption schemes are based on a key, so that an encrypted message cannot be read without the key it was encrypted with. It's been likened to putting your message in a box, and putting a lock on the box. If you don't have the key to the lock, you can't get in and read the message. Therefore, the only people who can read your message are those people you've given the key to beforehand.

The idea of key escrow is that citizens will give the government a copy of their encryption keys. The key will be broken in half, with each half to be held by a different agency, and the halves will only be brought together and used after due process of law, according to the government. The government has backed off quite a bit on the Clipper chip, but the idea of key escrow is still around. There's been all sorts of speculation about how the government is going to enforce this idea, and make sure that they've got copies of everyone's keys, but the government isn't telling. The Director of the FBI recently admitted, however, that if this "key escrow" plan is to work as planned, the government would have to regulate encryption technology. There has also been much speculation about how easy it would be to use the keys without due process; the government response to such concerns has generally been along the lines of "We're the government, of course you can trust us." Needless to say, this has done little to allay the doubts of those concerned.

The problem with the government's ideas on encryption is that they're out of date. There exists a freely available encryption program, called PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), that uses RSA's "public key" encryption. To continue with the "locked box" example, when using public key encryption, there are two keys. One key locks the box, and a different key unlocks it. This means that you would have a key that you kept to yourself, that would lock the box so that it could only be unlocked with the public key (which you could give out to anyone). Likewise, anyone could lock the box with the public key, and only you, with the private key, could open it.

This has some far-reaching implications. A message can be verified, using public key encryption, so that you know that the person sending it is the person the message is supposedly from. With single key encryption, anyone with the key can decrypt or encrypt the message. With public key encryption, you can restrict encryption or decryption by restricting who has the proper keys.

For some reason, the government doesn't want to endorse this type of encryption. They want the standard to be single key, and they want a copy of that key. The paranoid would suppose that they want to be able to forge supposedly secure messages; the merely concerned just have their doubts.

Rumor has it that the author of PGP was in serious trouble for allowing the software to be exported, but a new version of the software was recently released. The paranoid have been questioning that, and feel that perhaps the new version isn't as secure as the older versions.

The debate does not circulate over whether or not the network will happen; all parties agree that it will. The debate is over who will control the network. The government wants to control it, but, as it is evolving, no one actually does control it. In that section of the network that is mine, I may excersize absolute control. What I can do in other sections depends on what I'm allowed to do by the owners of that section. I see this as right and proper; there are those who see this as abhorrent.

From the Internet...

FROM: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu [Global Times]. Michael Scott, a conservation biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says recovery strategies adopted under the ESA "risk extinction rather than ensure survival." Scott says "Conservation activities need to be proactive rather than reactive." This means, as John Daniel expresses in a recent Audubon article, that we need to create entire vigorous ecosystems in the full array of their diversity."

Restoration of biotic well-being at the ecosystem level is the grand objective of the North American Wilderness Recovery Project, informally called the Wildlands Project. Wildlands proposes the creation of a vast system of wilderness reserves and the eventual restoration of up to 50 percent of North America to its pre-columbian state.

FROM: mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM to wildearth@igc.apc.org. There is nothing wrong with a little science, but it is obviously too slow a process to be capable of saving species (or even habitats) one by one. Asking for more studies is a trick quite successfully used by our opposition who won't be persuaded anyway. Don't rely on science alone! At some point, it becomes time to act, and at that point, only large doses of intuition and moral judgment suffice to carry the act to completion.

I like the goal of 90 percent of the continent for wildlife, though I might have chosen a smaller number. I think that we shouldn't flinch from telling this truth to anyone who will listen. It is unfair to our supporters, but also to our opposition, to pretend that something less will be adequate. Some people won't take us seriously, but the important ones will, especially since we are right: wildlife simply cannot be saved without adequate habitat.

FROM: odin@gate.net [Inst. for Bioregional Studies]. In his book, Dwellers of the Land: The Bioregional Vision, Kirkpatrick Sale, explains that the nature of Bioregionalism implies an understanding of the land, its geographical features, resource inventory and carrying capacity as a self-reliant, human and wild habitat. The Bioregional vision requires a serious historical and anthropological exploration of the ways and wisdom of earlier cultures.

The goal of Bioregionalism is to develop a territory's fullest potential. To attain this goal, bioregionalism challenges multinational domination which exports wealth to distant banks and corporate offices. Bioregionalism envisions what could be done in any region if all its funds, facilities, stocks and talents were used to their fullest, limited only by the carrying capacity of the land and its ecological constraints. Bioregionalism is also liberating in the way that it opens up to communitarian values of cooperation, participation and reciprocity. These, writes Sale, are the processes most central to the bioregional idea.

FROM: Scott@rednet [Peoples Weekly World]. Just off the press is the long-awaited Communist Party Environmental Program People and Nature Before Profits, and already it has been greeted with enthusiasm. Hazel Wolf, a nationally known environmental leader who is featured in the current issue of Audubon Magazine, said the pamphlet "presents clearly the present threat to the natural environment, the home of humanity and all life." She called it a "viable plan of action to carry out on the long and difficult march to socialism."

Trade unionist, Wally Kaufman, winds up his comments with a call to action: "Workers and environmentalists, unite and fight for a better tomorrow!"

Several years of discussion went into the preparation of the program. It drew on the experiences of the broad environmental movement and the trade union movement and specifically on the work of Communists in those movements in various parts of the country. Workshops at the last two Party Conventions, the work of the national environmental commission and the national board all contributed to the final product. (The pamphlet is available from the Communist Party at 235 West 23 St., New York, NY 10011, for $1.)

FROM: Greenpeace via jym@remarque.berkeley.edu. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) slammed the announcement that the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rejected, by a narrow margin, a proposal to regulate trade in threatened Latin American mahogany. The proposal required 56 votes to be carried but received only 50, with 33 countries voting against the measure.

"This is a sad day for Brazil, the Amazon forest and forest people everywhere," said Greenpeace Latin American Forest Coordinator Jose Augusto Padau. "The Brazilian and Bolivian governments gave in to the pressure of the timber industry and refused to help control the enormous damage the mahogany industry is causing in the Amazon forest. Now the burden is on consumers to halt the destruction."

FROM: tgray@igc.apc.org [The EarthTimes]. There is little doubt that House and Senate Republicans, once they have addressed such issues as the Balanced Budget Amendment, term limits and the line-item veto, will turn their attention to environmental issues. The GOP's environmental priorities are likely to be the following: Risk Assessment Reform: A major effort will be undertaken to force EPA to set risk criteria based on scientifically objective data. That data and the resulting risk assessment would be subjected to public scrutiny. Unfunded Mandates: The practice by which the Federal government imposes enormous financial burdens on state and local governments by mandating that they comply with federal regulations and standards (most of them environmental). Private Property Rights: Among the first pieces of legislation to see the light of day in the 104th Congress will be a bill strengthening protection of private property owners against federal encroachment.

The sustainable development community faces a starkly different political reality in Washington in the wake of the elections. Not only have both houses of Congress fallen under the control of a Republican Party leadership that is overtly hostile to the sustainable development paradigm, but the balance of political power has shifted dramatically from the more pro-environment Clinton administration to an anti-environment Congress. The United States may be forced to abandon the climate change and biodiversity conventions and to forgo leadership on other global environmental negotiations.

FROM: wafcdc@igc.apc.org [Western Ancient Forest Campaign]. WAFC is pleased to announce that we have been funded to implement a Forest Monitoring program on the Olympic, Gifford Pinchot, Wenatchee and Suislaw National Forests. Lizette (Liz) Tanke, Robert (Bob) Pearson, Alexandra Bradley, and Lisa Brown will be assisting local activists in monitoring the implementation of the Clinton Plan for Northwest Forests.

FROM: harelb@math.cornell.edu [Cornell University]. Americans will not reduce their rate of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic, degenerative diseases until they shift their diets away from animal-based foods to plant-based foods, according to research findings emerging from the most comprehensive project on diet and disease ever done.

Findings from the study suggest that even eating just small amounts of animal-based foods is linked to significantly higher rates of cancers and cardiovascular diseases typically found in the United States, said Cornell nutritional biochemist T. Colin Campbell.

FROM: joeturner@delphi.com [Sierra Club]. The takings campaign's success in defining itself- particularly through its pose as a property rights crusade, has helped to obscure its true anti-environment goals. So long as takings advocates are seen as champions of small property owners - rather than of huge corporate polluters and their wise use allies - the true scope of their radical goals will remain obscured. A stealth campaign of legislative sabotage is being waged against public health safety and environmental protections.

Their campaign is an attempt by huge, greedy corporations to boost their profits on the backs of American taxpayers. If these corporate renegades get their way, the public would be forced to choose between sacrificing basic protections, including environmental civil rights and even neighborhood zoning laws - or to pay polluters costs for complying with the law.

Takings proponents are extremists who seek special privileges. They want to do whatever they please, no matter how it affects their neighbors. Takings bills aim to make it prohibitively expensive to safeguard our environment. In effect, they would force us to pay polluters not to pollute.

Takings bills are anti-community, anti-public, and anti-democrtic. The takings campaign is about greedy, polluting corporations many of which gladly receive massive taxpayer subsidies taking our rights, our protections, and still more of our tax dollars for their own private gain. Moreover, takers hope to deceive taxpayers into believing they have our interests at heart. They don't.

FROM: montague@world.std.com [Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #417]. Since 1975, grass-roots at the local level has brought important successes. It was grass-roots action that killed the civilian nuclear power industry. Grass-roots action at the local level crippled the municipal solid waste incinerator industry. It killed expansion of the industry that buries hazardous wastes.

Most importantly, grass-roots action forced the International Joint Commission (IJC) to recommend an entirely new philosophy of chemical regulation - one that assumes chemicals are harmful until proven safe, and one based on the principle of precautionary action. The precautionary principle says: wherever it is acknowledged that a practice (or substance) could cause harm, even without conclusive scientific proof that it has caused harm or does cause harm, the practice (or substance) should be prevented and eliminated.

FROM: furniss@mail.fws.gov [Fish & Wildlife Service]. The Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) project of the National Biological Survey is an information transfer product of the databases Wildlife/Fisheries Review. Annually over 24,000 citations from over 1300 journals, several hundred books and symposia, and several hundred theses and dissertations are added to the databases. The scope of the databases are primarily wild vertebrate biology, ecology, and management and related disciplines.

Four SDI packages will be made available for a six month test period ending June 1995. At the end of the test period, the useage and costs associated to provide the SDIs will be evaluated. Subscribers to the project will automatically receive the requested SDIs on a monthly basis. The files will be in WordPerfect 5.1.

FROM: gao-docs@mailhost.gao.gov [General Accounting Office]. Management Reform: Implementation of the National Performance Review's Recommendations responds to Congressional requests that GAO monitor the implementation of the recommendations contained in the National Performance Review's September 7, 1993 report. The NPR report contained 384 major recommendations covering 27 federal agencies and 14 government systems. In this report, we categorize and describe our findings regarding the implementation of each of these recommendations.

To access the reports as full text ASCII electronic files, contact federal.bbs.gpo.gov through TELNET, and designate "port 3001."