Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.) Wants $500,000,000
for Land and Resource Protection Racket
By L. M. Schwartz, Chairman, The
Virginia Land Rights Coalition
As the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers consider
rule changes which could “weaken” Clean Water Act regulation of “isolated wetlands
and non-navigable streams” in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, environmentalists
and government officials in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware are opposing such
changes while, at the same time, supporting a five-year, $500,000,000 plan for
the Delmarva Conservation Corridor Initiative Program, the brainchild of Maryland
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest..
In the Bay Journal, official publication of the Alliance for the Chesapeake
Bay, Inc. (funded through the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office), Editor
Karl Blankenship stated, “The change could make it problematic for the
Bay Program to reach its goal of attaining a ‘no net loss’ in wetlands through
regulatory programs. It may well threaten the Bay cleanup itself if protection
were eliminated from all headwater streams, the smallest streams in the watershed.”
The Delmarva region has been specifically targeted for numerous reasons. Gilchrest
aide Rob Etgen explains its vulnerability and desirability for federal “protection”:
“Delmarva is the largest contiguous rural region on the east coast of the United
States, but it is changing fast.” The extortionists running the federal ‘protection’
racket have identified the weaknesses of rural areas and consider them easy
prey.
The Delmarva Program, part of the 2002 Farm Bill, is a new federal ‘pilot’ program
instigated by Gilchrest within the Bay Watershed. It “allows the Secretary of
Agriculture to direct conservation program funds on a priority basis to the
most economically and ecologically valuable land on Delmarva”
and, according to Gilchrest’s website, “will function as an umbrella, coordinating
all of USDA’s conservation programs…giving the Department and the states of
Maryland, Virginia and Delaware flexibility in administering those various programs.”
(emphasis added)
The Delmarva Program has been deceptively promoted by “a network of hundreds
of individuals throughout Delmarva…to establish a network of land, both public
and private throughout the peninsula, linked for the purpose of keeping agriculture
economically viable, maintaining the strong rural character of our region, and
maintaining the peninsula’s rich biological diversity.”
In fact, the major thrust is acquisition and control of private property. Both
the Delmarva Program and the Chesapeake Bay Program, which cover substantial
parts of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York,
are linked in a multi-pronged effort to “maintain a cohesive and well-functioning
ecosystem.” The Delmarva Program serves as an important regional laboratory
for experimental fine-tuning of land-control methodology. The lessons learned
will be applied elsewhere.
Both programs neatly fit within the framework of The Wildlands Project (TWP),
the nationwide scheme originally conceived by Reed Noss and Michael Soule of
the Society of Conservation Biology, and Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!,
who summarized the concept: “It is not enough to preserve the roadless, undeveloped
country remaining. We must re-create wilderness in large regions: move out the
cars and civilized people, dismantle the roads and dams, reclaim the plowed
land and clearcuts, reintroduce extirpated species.”
More than two dozen regional efforts across North America are part of the Wildlands
Project, attempting to link “wilderness areas” with “wildlife migration corridors.”
Allegedly, TWP will “keep ecosystems in balance and protect animals against
extinction” as 50% of America’s land is converted into “core areas”, where no
human activity will be permitted, and “buffer zones”, where only government-approved
“sustainable” activities will be allowed. TWP goals include “relocation” of
human populations from “core areas”, such as the Southern and Mid-Atlantic Appalachian
Mountains, to concentrated human habitation areas where “human resources” can
be easily controlled by government “planners.” Dave Foreman’s philosophy led
him to propose: “Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth,
social and environmental.” Echoing Marx’ theory of dialectical materialism,
a March, 1994 Bureau of Land Management Internal Working Document for “ecosystem
management” stated federal bureaucrats should “consider human beings as a biological
resource”, to be managed like cattle or trees.
TWP was initially sponsored through the U.N.’s International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN). Funding for conceptual development was provided under contract
with the Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy. Both organizations, along
with hundreds of others, serve as fronts for laundering billions of federal,
state and private funds into the acquisition and/or restriction of millions
of acres of private land, a preliminary step for acquisition. The success of
surrogate government land-acquisition agents is built upon false portrayals
in the press as ‘saviors of the earth’ and ‘protectors of wild places’, and
has been enhanced by charitable, tax-exempt status, direct government funding
and interlocking ties with many of the worlds largest and wealthiest corporations and tax-exempt foundations.
Wildlands “recovery” includes the (re)introduction of “extirpated species” such
as wolves, cougars and other predatory animals and birds into rural agricultural
and livestock producing areas. “Recovery” of species is protected by federal
“laws” and regulations such as the Endangered Species Act. The effects of “extirpated
species recovery” include economic devastation of agricultural and natural resource
economies, restrictions on business, industrial growth, housing, and road construction,
and the political, social and cultural disintegration or restructuring of rural
communities in favor of ‘benign’, consumptive, non-productive activities such
as “eco-tourism” and “heritage tourism.”
In 1999, Foreman agreed to speak at a conference held at the National Institutes
of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to “initiate the Appalachian Wildlands Preserve
Project…because he is excited about a wildlands recovery and restoration program
in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay Region, the Appalachian Wildlands Preserve-Maryland
Project.”
On February 1st of this year, one of the largest gatherings of eco-extremists
assembled at State College, Pennsylvania for their second meeting, called the
“Prospects for Recovery and Rewilding” (of Pa.) sponsored by the Pennsylvania
Wildlands Recovery Project (PWRP).
In West Virginia, “The Wilderness Society is bringing its grassroots, analytical
and policy skills to work with local partner organizations with three goals
in mind: acquire new lands to expand the [Monongahela] National Forest; achieve
additional wilderness protection; and, promote ecologically based management
of the Monongahela…” Partners include the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy,
West Virginia Rivers Coalition, West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, and
Trout Unlimited.
By the end of 2003, The Nature Conservancy plans to raise $12 million
to acquire or obtain conservation easements to “unique ecosystems” in or near
Canaan Valley, Dolly Sods, Cheat Mountain, the Shavers Fork Watershed, the Greenbrier
Valley and the Smoke Hole Canyon-North Fork Mountain Bio-reserve. “During its
40-year history in West Virginia, The Nature Conservancy has protected more
than 100,000 acres, most of which have been turned over to appropriate federal
agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service”,
according to staff writer Rick Steelhammer, Charleston Sunday Gazette Mail.(emphasis
added)
In 1994, The National Biological Survey (NBS) joined “with federal, state and
private organizations to improve the understanding of ecosystems in the southern
Appalachian region…at a meeting of the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere
Cooperative (SAMAB), a partnership of federal and state government agencies
founded to further conservation and development of the natural, cultural, and
economic resources within portions of North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Georgia, Virginia and Alabama. The SAMAB consortium represents one of forty-seven
‘biosphere reserves’ in the United States...organized under the United Nations
Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere
Programs. Biosphere reserves generally contain a core protected area surrounded
by areas with greater human use. SAMAB is the only regional biosphere reserve
program recognized by both UNESCO and the U.S. Man and Biosphere Program.”(emphasis
added)
SAMAB membership includes the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Department of Energy, and a private non-profit foundation with representation
from Chevron, Georgia Power, Duke Power, and regional universities. The region
contains huge coal, gas and timber resources.
Henry Lamb reports in a recent WorldNetDaily article, “The Southern Appalachian
Biosphere Reserve was designated in 1988 as the 517,000-acre Great Smoky Mountain
National Park. Today, the U.N. lists this reserve as 36,727,139 acres, with
the zone of cooperation reaching from Birmingham, Ala., to Roanoke, Va. Neither
Congress, nor the legislatures of any of the affected states, debated or approved
the designation or the management plan.” (emphasis
added)
TWP officially “seek[s] partnerships with grassroots and national conservation
organizations, government agencies, indigenous peoples, private landowners,
and with naturalists, scientists, and conservationists across the continent
to create networks of wildlands from Central America to Alaska and from Nova
Scotia to California… [to] support the repatriation of top predators where they
have been extirpated from present and future wilderness areas and national parks…
[support] the designation of new conservation areas…establish large areas of
wild habitat where plants and animals are unrestrained, where native species
thrive…”
The Chesapeake Bay Program, the Delmarva Conservation Corridor Initiative,
Biosphere Reserves, World Heritage Sites, National Historic Districts, National
Scenic Areas, Wilderness Reserves, American Heritage Rivers Programs, Sustainable
Development Programs, Scenic Byways and The Wildlands Project, all have a
common thread calling for “greenways”, “protected areas”, “wilderness reserves”
or “natural corridors” surrounded by government regulated “buffer zones.”
Federal and state agencies, the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, and other
environmental groups and “land trusts” promote “sustainable development” as
they target more and more private land for acquisition, either through outright
purchase or through the insidious use of so-called Conservation Easements
which transfer control of private land to government.
International agencies, such as the IUCN, UNEP, UNDP, UNESCO and other United
Nations agencies have developed interlinking relationships with the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service,
the EPA and other federal agencies. Together they make private determinations,
agreements and “Memorandums of Understanding” with the Sierra Club, The Nature
Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, Society
of Conservation Biology and other so-called “private conservation groups”
who in turn implement the radical UN agenda to subvert national, state and
local sovereignty—with American funding, but without the knowledge and consent
of Congress, states and county governments, or the communities and people
who are affected.
The Marxist U.N. land control doctrine for America was set out in the 1976
United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I): Land “…cannot
be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to
the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is
also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and
therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major
obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes...Public
control of land use is therefore indispensable…”
The socialist/fascist principles are clearly spelled out in that document:
“Public ownership or effective control of land in the public interest is the
single most important means of…achieving a more equitable distribution of
the benefits of development…governments must maintain full jurisdiction and
exercise complete sovereignty over such land…Change in the use of land…should
be subject to public control and regulation [for]…the
common good.”
The Delmarva Conservation Corridor Initiative Program is promoted as being
designed to enhance “economically viable agriculture”, “maintain a cohesive
and well-functioning ecosystem”, and “to promote, administer, and coordinate
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs… Conservation
programs for consideration include the Farmland Protection Program, Conservation
Reserve Program, Wetland Reserve Program, the Forestry Incentives Program,
and others… Farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate, and important wildlife
habitat is vanishing.”
“This has been a collaborative effort by dedicated officials in three states
who have come together to try and address some of the challenges that face
us,” Gilchrest said. “They’ve come up with an innovative, multi-faceted approach
that is comprehensive and bold.” (emphasis added) Gilchrest said he hopes USDA will act on his
$500,000,000 funding proposal this fall, with funding available after October
1st, 2003.
The true goal of the Delmarva Conservation Corridor Initiative is control.
Acquisition and control of land and natural resources, including “human resources”,
by government and multi-national corporate interests is clear evidence of
the prevailing totalitarian/fascist philosophy in America’s political power
centers. As private ownership and control of land is subverted, Americans
are being transformed into mere serfs subject to the whim of the ruling internationalist
oligarchy. When government owns the land, or controlling
interests therein, such as Conservation Easements, it manages the land and
the people for the benefit of the ruling elite. It decides what crops to grow,
which products to manufacture, who will be permitted to hunt and fish, who
will be permitted or required to labor, who will be fed, how much they will
be paid and where they will be permitted to live.
“Food is Power! We use it to control behavior. Some may call it bribery. We
do not apologize,” stated Catherine Bertini, Executive
Director of the United Nations World Food Program, former U.S. Assistant Secretary
of Agriculture, speaking at the UN World Food Summit, November, 1996.
The U.N. vision of natural resource control, being implemented in Delmarva
by The Wildlands Project clone, the Delmarva Conservation Corridor Initiative,
is diametrically opposed the Founders’ vision of individual Liberty and private
ownership of America’s land and resources. The scheme is prohibited by Article
I, Section 8 of our Constitution, yet men such as Congressman Gilchrest ignore
the Constitution. Wittingly or unwittingly they are participants in a carefully-crafted,
criminal “protection” racket.
Thomas Paine observed, “The trade of governing has always been monopolized
by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.” Paine
also stated, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo
the fatigue of supporting it.” To many, it may seem much easier to accept
the fatigue of state-imposed, mindless serfdom. Today, Americans have a choice.
Tomorrow, there may be none.
© September, 2003, The
Virginia Land Rights Coalition, L. M. Schwartz, Chairman
POB 85, McDowell, Virginia
FOC 24458 540-396-6217
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