Yukon to Yellowstone: Concern is our animal "cousins”??

Environmental activists’ groups almost always transition from nice people with good motives into intrusive, controlling bureaucrats. Y2Y (Yukon to Yellowstone) impacts my backyard. The question you need to ask and answer is what is going on in your backyard that will impact your property rights? 

Here is an overview:

• The Y2Y (Yukon-to-Yellowstone) project is a 2,000 mile long corridor from near the Arctic circle to Yellowstone National Park.
• As part of that plan, environmental activists want to ‘contain’ my neighbors, me and other citizens of Idaho.
• Their plans include taking control of 9.3 million acres in Idaho.
• Their outward objective is to make this a nice place for bears, bugs, wolves and ugly undergrowth by keeping humans out.
• They want us to stop digging up minerals, picking up gems, logging trees and recreating in the beautiful outdoors.
• For an overview of the Y2Y land grab go to: http://www.landrights.org/yukon.html. Provided by the American Land Rights Association, Battleground, Washington.

Idahoans want to continue to carefully manage this land, create jobs, pay for schools and enjoy the mountains and forests of our beautiful state. We live here, (most of them don’t), we care about our state and are good stewards of the lands. We’ve been doing this right for years.

There is a long history of interference, lawsuits and attempts to control Idaho affairs from Puget Sound. A recent Washington State bill to fund a Y2Y headquarters in Spokane, Washington was quashed in February, 2008. Opposing this were farmers, ranchers and loggers from Eastern Washington and a strong, vocal group from northeast Washington State, which is the only part of Washington in the Y2Y corridor. The bill’s prime sponsor was Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle.

(Full disclosure: I live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Idaho historically supports state’s rights, private property rights and opposes Federal intrusion. The environmental activists traditionally holler at us from across the border in Washington State [aka California-North].)

Here are highlights from an article in Y2Y Conservation News, October 22, 2008‏, www.y2y.net. In the Arrow Lakes News, David Suzuki and Faisal Moola authored a “science” article titled: When mammals are threatened, we are threatened. I use direct quotes set in quotation marks, or I paraphrase their words and ideas below. Their words are designated as ALN. My comments are designated as VW.

ALN: “When mammals are threatened, we are threatened.”

VW: The author’s choice of a title tells you that they equate humans with animals on equal footing. Here’s their rationale:

ALN: “We humans sometimes forget that we are animals. We’re mammals, and like all mammals, and indeed all animals, we are connected to and dependent on the web of life. When part of that web is in danger, we are all in danger. And our mammal cousins are in danger.”

VW: Are animals your cousins?

ALN: “According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, one quarter of the world’s 5,487 known mammals are threatened.”

VW: Are there unknown mammals?

ALN: Then the authors list mammals in danger of extinction: apes, monkeys, polar bears, sun bears, pandas and some species of whales.

VW: Here’s the problem: Idaho doesn’t have any of these mammals…especially whales!

ALN: The authors claim the problem causes are: habitat loss and damage, introduction of invasive species, pollution, harvesting, and climate change.

VW: That whole list is assumed to be human-caused. We have logged and mined since the late 1800’s. The current environmental problem is too many bears and wolves killing elk, sheep and livestock.

ALN: The author’s references tell you a lot about what their plans are: Reference is made to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) assessment showed that “concerted conservation efforts” can bring mammals back from the brink.

VW: To do this they want to fence productive users and me from my backyard. I live at the base of the mountain on the upper right of the photo. Deer eat our plants and turkeys make racket. We live and let live. They want to add grizzlies to the mix.

ALN: The authors add: “The IUCN assessment showed that “concerted conservation efforts” can bring mammals back from the brink. For example, by reintroducing the black-footed ferret into eight western U.S. states and Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managed to move the animal from the list of animals that were extinct in the wild to the endangered list.”

VW: At prompting by environmental activists, after court battles between the U.S. Department of Interior and Farm Bureau and Idaho, wolves were reintroduced into Idaho in 1995, 1996 and 1997. By 2000 there were 10 breeding wolf packs. Now they help (?) control deer, elk, sheep, cattle, pets and their other ‘cousins’. Wolves don’t get this environmental stuff, they just kill and eat.

WARNING: If you care about the truth of wolves, have a strong stomach and keep the kids out of the room, you may want to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEjn_-wHw5Y

Mike Satern, Hagadone News as their Outdoor News Editor In my home town, provided this article on Idaho’s wolves: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/wildlands_project/wolves_in_our_backyard_20070530234/

ALN: The authors point out that humans are not in danger of extinction.

VW: So what? Every environmental activist I have met believes in Darwinian evolution. If survival of the fittest is the natural order and humans are the fittest; what’s the problem?

ALN: The authors claim it’s in our best interest to protect our fellow animals and it’s cheaper to act now rather than later.

VW: We currently do a good job of protecting our fellow animals without giving up the use of our land. Given their plan, the cheapest answer is to do nothing. By which they mean absolutely nothing except stay off the land.

For an egregious example, go to: http://www.newswithviews.com/Shaw/michael119.htm in which Michael writes of a bush berry farmer, who found a salamander and took it to the University of California at Santa Cruz. The university took the salamander, a “long-toed” one. They declared it “endangered.”The farmer was restricted from using his land, lost his land for pennies on a dollar, went bankrupt and died.

ALN: The authors compare the financial institutions bailout to “the extinction crisis”; as in, “Well, the extinction crisis on the planet imperils our very survival.”

VW: Are they looking for ‘bailout money’. Their funding comes from NGOs, foundations, state and federal governments. Most of these organizations use “manufactured crises” to bypass common sense.

I need more evidence before buying the notion that giving up access to major parts of Idaho over to bugs, weeds and abundant animals is required to prevent “planetary extinction”. The dinosaurs left without a planetary extinction.

ALN: The authors see this as progress in Canada: “The federal government announced that it will protect 10.1 million hectares of boreal forest in the Northwest Territories, and the Ontario government announced that it will protect 50 per cent of its intact northern boreal forest.”

VW: Protect, in this case means: NO logging. Note that the Northwest Territory is 1,327,920 square miles populated by about 42,000 people.

Finally: Y2Y is a subset of the major problem; The Wildlands Project. Freedom Advocates has long taken a strong stand on this issue and has a number of valuable, enlightening articles. See: https://www.freedomadvocates.org/category/wildlands_project/ 

Summary:

The Y2Y reprint article I quote is typical of articles environmental activists publish and promote. The writings often present ideas that seem to be good, caring, sharing ones. We all want this earth to be a clean, beautiful place. However, they rarely address ‘unintended consequences’. For example:

• Restricting farmers and ranchers restricts the food supply.
• Restricting loggers hurts logging, equipment sales and service, construction, printing, packaging and myriad other industries.
• Loggers clear underbrush and reduce fires. Environmental activists claim it’s good to let underbrush build up and burn. Intense fires are expensive to fight, destructive and dangerous.
• Environmental activists have reduced mining to a shadow of what it was and should be.
  • Thousands of good jobs moved offshore.
  • Mineral prices are higher.
  • Environmental issues and impact have moved to places with lax, or no, enforcement.
• These policies operate to advance the economic preconditions for the set up of global governance.
• Natural resource industry taxes paid for our schools and for our care for forests, rivers and wildlife. These have been added to our other tax burdens.

The overall impact of many, if not most, environmental causes are that the biodiversity that benefits from understory management is harmed. For a positive example of environmentalism done right, see what our own Michael Shaw accomplished. Go to: www.libertygarden.com. Here you see what can be done by a private property owner without government intervention. For an article that vividly makes the point, go to: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/private_property/what_is_private_property?_20061003176/.

Bottom Line: The real goal is to drive people into Smart Growth zones and implement the Wildlands Project. On this website: Search for Smart Growth. You will soon see the insidiously wide range of environmentalist activists, NGOs, government agencies and others who are working for the globalist’s Agenda 21 goals. (Some are aware, others are not. But all are on track for limiting, then eliminating, private property and liberty.

Beware: A continuing acceleration of this “change” is in the air. I’ve given you a brief look at what environmental activists are doing in my backyard. What are they up to in your “region”?

It takes little critical thought to tie these environmental activities to the programs of the United Nation’s Agenda 21/Sustainable Development, These international policies are often being implemented by the federal government in disregard of Constitutional limitations on power. Local governments are falling over themselves while rushing for federal money to implement the global to local restructure of our society.

As a consequence of the continuing economic and environmental forces behind globalization we will sacrifice the American philosophical, legal and political recognition of each individual’s unalienable right to his own life, liberty and property.

Did you like this article? Be sure to share it with your friends, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up to date on problems with Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development.