Stay
Connected

Subscribe by Email

Fix the System Freeing Maine families from welfare dependency

2012 Maine Piglet Book The book Augusta does not want you to read

Home

News Center

MHPC

Open Government

Great Schools

The MMA Files

About

Donate

UN Agenda 21: Land Conservation is Trojan Horse for Big
Government

By Diana George Chapin

On Feb. 23 the Bangor Daily News and Lewiston Sun ran an article, “The
good, bad and pricey parts of using public money for land conservation.” This piece started an important
public dialogue about conservation in Maine, but the article only opened a small
window into a topic that desperately requires in-depth discussion in communities
and across the state. Why? Because Maine people have been systematically
propagandized by the message “conservation is good” without having a meaningful
public discussion about some of the collateral damage the land preservation
movement is generating in rural towns.

On Tuesday, March 5 the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing
on LD 220, “An
Act to Ban United Nations Agenda 21 in Maine,” a bill aimed to protect
private property rights and Maine communities from the international soft law
that has been shaping land use planning, public policy, public education and
local sovereignty for decades.

Americans are largely unaware of United Nations (UN) Agenda 21 which dates
back to the 1970′s, but got its real start in 1992 with the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, when President Bush signed onto it.  President Clinton took
office the following year and created the President’s Council on Sustainable
Development, a collaborative of federal agencies, corporations, and
non-profit groups, who directed all levels of government to change their
policies to comply with UN Agenda 21.

UN Agenda 21 is a worldwide action plan to implement “sustainable
development.” Rosa Koire, author of “Behind the Green Mask” and founder of Democrats Against Agenda
21, describes it well:

“Agenda 21 is a global plan to inventory and control all land, all water,
all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of
production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings
in the world. Inventory and control.”

Maine people should know that wittingly or unwittingly, the land trust
movement in Maine is implementing UN Agenda 21’s land use goals by creating and
controlling through conservation easements a vast, interconnected network of
minimally human-inhabited and limitedly accessed land.  While some leaders
in the land trust movement are well aware that they are implementing Agenda 21
ideals through their work, many local land trust members are completely
unacquainted with the UN’s vision.

While the land conservation movement in Maine has a local face — the
community-based land trust — the efforts of land trusts around the state are
highly coordinated, and they harmonize with regional and national conservation
agendas. Local trusts collaborate and strategize with multiple organizations in
their region to collectively acquire conservation easements over tens of
thousands of acres. These regional undertakings tie into a wider plan for New
England and the Northeast, called the Wildlands and Woodland project
— one of many large-scale plans currently influencing property and easement
acquisition across the U.S.

Nearly 90 land trusts in Maine affect political, economic, social and
cultural change. The conservation movement acts politically as one unified force
to impact public policy: using an extensive communications network it
effectively mobilizes a grassroots movement on hot-button issues at the local
level and in Augusta.

The conservation easement — the legal tool used to conserve land in
perpetuity — transfers a controlling interest in the land (and reallocates
property rights) to a second party. In some cases, the state or federal
government is the easement holder. Very often, the easement transfers control to
a local or statewide land trust. Land trusts are corporations that have private
memberships and are controlled by a board of directors.

Currently, land trusts across Maine and the nation are experiencing a
decrease in funding, which has resulted in a shift from buying land outright to
purchasing easements or soliciting donations of easements over land that is
privately held. This arrangement allows the trust to control the land without
assuming financial responsibility for maintenance and ownership for the
land.

And as time goes on, the land trust movement predicts that community land
trusts will not be able to raise funds to meet stewardship and administrative
responsibilities associated with the land they control. “We’re seeing a lot of
land trusts that are merging with each other,” says Rob Aldrich, communications
director for Washington, D.C.-based Land Trust Alliance. These mergers will
effectively implement an inventory and control over massive tracts of land —
realizing Agenda 21.

This dangerous agenda is bound to change who accesses land in the future, who
derives financial benefits and security from owning land, and the succession of
land from owner to owner. It also threatens to negatively impact the private
natural resource infrastructure in Maine. Unchecked and unquestioned, it
threatens to subjugate rural landowners to perpetual subordination to the state,
a non-representative corporation or an international entity.

Agenda 21 promises to create a social order that resembles the medieval
feudal system.

Those who wish to defend their right to self-determination, private property
and their state and municipal sovereignty should carefully consider the
activities of their local land trust, monitor the movement in Maine and support
LD 220.

Diana George Chapin is a farmer and free-lance writer from Montville,
Maine, who authored a series on land conservation for The Maine
Wire last year.

Please add your thoughtful comment . . .

Posts

Latest

Popular

Comments

Gov. LePage charges forward with teacher accountability and
school choice bills

Democrats: Buying junk food with Food Stamps is awesome for
Mainers

Gang of Eleven
defends tax increase

Maine ranks 6th on list of bad places to retire

Dems want $500k for DEP bureaucrats to study “climate change”

“Moderate Caucus” chair urges Cheney’s execution

Leader of Ron Paul convention takeover says Obama would be better
than Romney

Sussman Bans GOP Leadership from Press Herald, Kennebec
Journal

Individual health insurance rates set to drop by up to 60% as a
result of Maine health care reform

OPEGA report shows personal credit card use at MaineHousing
resulted in “rewards” for former director

Recent Comments

Lee Edgecomb on Maine
ranks 6th on list of bad places to retire

Jonathan McKane on Democrats:
Buying junk food with Food Stamps is awesome for Mainers

Glen Hutchins on Gang of Eleven
defends tax increase

Les Gibson on Democrats:
Buying junk food with Food Stamps is awesome for Mainers

Thomas Czyz on Democrats:
Buying junk food with Food Stamps is awesome for
Mainers

Subscribe by Email

Like Box

- Facebook Members WordPress Plugin

Twitter

loading...

http://www.twitter.com/@TheMaineWire

Tags

Angus
King Barack Obama Bruce Poliquin budget Charlie Summers Charter Schools Chellie Pingree Dale MCCormick debt Democrats DHHS Donald Sussman education firearms fiscal cliff Governor LePage gun control health care health insurance income tax LePage Maine MaineCare Maine Democrats MaineHousing Maine Housing Maine Republicans
Maine
State Housing Authority Maine
Today Media MD
Harmon MEA Medicaid MHPC Mitt Romney MSEA MSHA Obama Obamacare Paul LePage Portland Press
Herald right to work tax Taxes unions Welfare

Share This Post
Tweet

Economic Brief

In Their Own
Words

Investigative

Land Trusts

Latest

Maine Cartoons

MD Harmon

Media Watch

News

News Center

Opinion

Outside the
Dome

Podcast

State House

The Blog

Video

About

Advertise on The
Maine Wire

Contact

The MMA Files

RSS

A Project of The Maine Heritage Policy Center

Thank you! Please
check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Loading...

Sign up for Daily Updates