Chesapeake: Push for Delmarva Wildlands Project Heats Up - 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 published on Sierra Times
9/24/03
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)
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Chesapeake Bay Watershed
Photo by Va Land Rights Coalition
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Approximately 13,000 arces
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.
Ramsey's Draft Addition
Proposed Wilderness Area
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