This letter appeared in print in the November 2012 issue of The Alberta Outsdoorsman. The editor Rob Miskosky wrote a four part series in 2008 into the history of the Y2Y initiative and you can find the link to those articles below.
Enjoy
Thinktwice group
Y2Y or bust -the money pit of environmentalism
Canadians need to be aware of an environmental initiative called
Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y)" that is heavily backed by American interests
that seek to restrict land-use in parts of British Columbia.
The major source of funding for this initiative is an American
foundation called Wilburforce, created by one of the founders of Microsoft,
Gordon Letwin.
Y2Y will try to lock away a huge swath of Crown land from the
Yukon to Yellowstone National Park. Since 2009, Wilburforce has doled out more
than $ 10 million to environmental groups in the US and Canada forY2Y.
A big part of Y2Y has been the campaign to create a national
park in the southeast corner of BC, in an area called the Flathead Valley. In
the name of protecting the Flathead, these groups have discouraged economic development
and pressured government to restrict land-use in huge parts of BC and Alberta.
Mining and exploration in the Flathead Valley is now impossible. The relentless
pressure tactics resulted in the Flathead Watershed Area Conservation Act; one
more step towards the holy grail for Wilburforce and the Y2Y initiative.
As a direct result of the environmentalist's pressure, the
federal government and private donors gave $ 10 million to BC to buy out the Flathead
Valley mineral tenures. Wilburforce and its partners in Y2Y are conspicuously absent
from the list of funders for this buyout and protection agreement.
The response from Wildsight (www. wildsight.ca) is it's not
enough and they (Wildsight) still want a national park. They could have gained
some public credibility if they had used some of the US funds to help with the
buyout. One has to wonder just what did they do with the money from
Wilburforce?
Wildsight's tax-free status comes with a responsibility to use
the monies they receive in a way that is legal and charitable. Canadians need
to think twice about why rich Americans are spending so much money in Canada
rather than in their own country or in countries with no environmental
standards.
Y2Y is a slow creep of regulation and restriction that will
ultimately lock away lands from development and use, which resource-dependent
communities can ill afford.
On September 27 , environmentalists, first nations and local
governments gathered in Fernie at the 3rd annual Roundtable on the Crown of the
Continent (www. crownroundtable.org). Wilburforce and
its Y2Y partners were there looking for ways to wedge their
ideology into the political process to continue the slow and steady growth of
Y2Y. The old saying, "give an inch, take a mile" rings true with environmentalists;
they can wait 10, 20 or even 50 years for their vision to come true.
Thinktwice is a group of Kootenay residents. We aim to provide
fair and accurate information about issues that affect our local economy, environment
and lifestyle. We believe that it is important to consider the foreign funding
behind campaigns to control B.C.
You can contact Thinktwice at ttwice7@gmail.com.
Paul Visentin. Cranbrook. BC
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your letter. Y2Y is
indeed an American-funded and American
developed "fluff” organization
following the lead of another organization called "The Wildlands Project"
(TWP) or the "Wildlands Network", who boldly list Dave Foreman as one
of their "scientific advisors". Lest we forget, Foreman is well known
for promoting eco-terrorism and was in fact the founder of Earth First!, a radical
environmental group that specializes in industrial sabotage. Foreman is also
the founder of the Rewilding Institute, a group dedicated to putting large carnivores
such
as jaguars back on North
American soil. Y2Y however, is just one step in protecting vast areas of North
America from human encroachment by the use of what they now call, Wildways.
According to TWP "Wildways are constructed by protecting core areas
connected to one another by corridors or linkages. They are essentially, mosaics
of connected public and private lands that provide habitat and safe passageways
for wildlife to travel freely from place to place."
If you visit the Wildlands
Project website (www.twp.org), you can see their maps, realizing then exactly'
how much land is to be restricted from all types of human use. It is not to be
taken lightly.
"Under the fluff is a term
I like to use when first digging into organizations such as Y2Y etc. A little
digging always turns up the truth behind, or under, the fluff.
I wish you and Thinktwice all
the best in the battle to maintain the decision making in your own backyards.
Rob Miskosky
Alberta Outdoorsmen
No comments:
Post a Comment