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Author Topic: Protected zones seriously threatened by mining expansion all over the world.  (Read 5095 times)

thierrylegros396

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I'm sad for all people who are walking and shooting in the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Clearly I don't wanna to create a political debate, because US is not the only Country threatened by shrinkage of the protected zones.

Quarry extensions are everywhere: Canada, France, even Trappist Monks water is threatened in Leffe Abbey, Belgium.

Not to mention Brazil and other southern America's countries, and especially Africa where most of the precious metal are located.

We need to react strongly, because we have only one earth.

Please act now, and join protection associations.

Thierry
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Two23

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There needs to be a balance struck.  As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do.  There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.


Kent in SD
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luxborealis

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The problem is that much of the world is still ruled by the almighty dollar where short-term gain is the priority; yet, one cannot put a price on "nature for nature's sake", so "nature" will always lose.

Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests.

Note: this isn't politics speaking, it's simple human greed and the more bombastic one demonstrates this selfishness, the more they get their way. Some children learn very quickly how they can manipulate situations with tantrums and lies, and the long-term outcome is rarely, if ever, beneficial to the family, or, in this case, the nation. Shame, really.
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Two23

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Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests.



I call "bullshit."


Kent in SD
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framah

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You are free to call it whatever you'd like... it still has alot of validity based on the historical record of short term greed winning out over the greater good for the earth AND its inhabitants.... human AND non.

Every once in a while, the greater good wins out and lo and behold.. people manage to still make a living from sharing the  beauty of a natural area thru environmental tourism.
Costa Rica is a prime example of eco tourism winning out over greed.

Once an area is ripped up for its minerals, it will never return to the natural state it was before. 
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Peter McLennan

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Hey, Kent. Have you ever been there?
Show us some pictures.
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HSakols

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Quote
As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do.  There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.

No, protection is needed in Utah!  If it weren't for the environmental movement of the 70's we wouldn't have these amazing natural areas that people all over the world want to see.  Yes, the government is needed to protect our natural heritage.  Heyduke Lives!!
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Peter McLennan

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I call "bullshit."
Kent in SD

Still waiting, Kent.
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Two23

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Still waiting, Kent.


Sorry you had to wait.  I actually have a job and have to work.  Yes, I've been all over Utah.  I was just out in the northern section in July.  I used to go out to Utah and AZ a lot in the late 1980s & 1990s when my uncle & aunt lived in a tiny town called Green River (not to be confused with Green River WY).  I took plenty of photos, mostly with my Bronica ETRS, but none survived when my basement flooded in 2002.  Parts were very nice, but there was a LOT of monotonous barren land too.    I'm all for sectioning off any areas that have paleo Indian structures & artifacts and the more scenic part, but the entire area?  Ah, no.  A balance needs to be struck here.  There doesn't seem to be any immediate threat to any of these areas either.  As for oil & gas, plenty of that up north of me in North Dakota.  It has a fairly small footprint.  It brought increased railroad traffic so I've been up there more often than in the past.  (I like trains.  :)  )  It also brought a lot of good paying jobs to what was a poor rural area.  Everything has its pluses and minuses and needs to be looked at objectively.  The trains and oil pumps brought me some new interesting photo subjects along with the more traditional prairie churches and abandoned farms.  A major plus is that gas is quickly replacing coal as the preferred source of energy for power stations.  This alone seems to account for decreasing CO2 production in the U.S., and that's a good thing.  Basically, I'm for local people/voters deciding how to use land.  They live there and have the biggest stake in it.  I really tire of hearing relatively well off people from somewhere on the coast trying to keep people in rural areas from enjoying the same prosperity they do, or interfere with their recreation and enjoyment of their home land.

I will add that I think the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest (along with those in southeast Asia) is a major problem facing the world.  Forests are probably our best bet for carbon sequestration.  But here's the dilemma:  does a comparatively rich 1st World guy like me have the right to tell desperately poor 3rd world people they have to live in abject poverty so I'll have a pretty place to go photo every few decades?  We need to come up with a way for them to use the land in such a way that they benefit too.  Anything less would be arrogance.


Kent in SD
« Last Edit: December 06, 2017, 09:25:40 pm by Two23 »
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Two23

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/04/five-american-indian-tribes-furious-over-trump-shrinking-bears-ears-sue-the-president/



It's been my observation over the past quarter century that there are some Indian groups will whine no matter what you do.  (Hey, I'm being honest here.)    Were there no other groups of people living in Utah who are in favor the changes?   Did the media report their point of view, HMMM?


Kent in SD
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azmike

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Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder.  For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor.   So, welcome to Lula Kent.  And after your "I call "bullshit."",  your subsequent posts are thoughtful.

To the OP's topic of protection of public lands:  I have hiked, camped and photographed the northern Arizona and southern Utah national monuments for the past two decades.  I have particularly followed the path of Bears Ears NM over the past several years. A reasonable summary is this:  Utah politicians have forever been unhappy with the fact that a good portion of Utah is not private, it's federal land (meaning it belongs to all Americans).  Presidents cannot proclaim national monuments of private or state land,  only of federal land.....so their "over reach" is over their own land. So who to "listen to" about land use planning/protection/exploitation?  Nationally there were some several million comments (98%) in favor of protecting Bears Ears that Zinke ignored.  Utah voters were mostly 50/50 depending on the poll language.  Locally, the nearest community, Bluff, was very supportive of Bears Ears; In nearby Monticello (site of the notorious pot hunting ring arrest) the federal government is the devil; five adjacent native American tribes are suing the Trump administration for its attempt to downsize the monument by 85%.   In the end, the two Utah senators, congressional delegation and the state governor are the rabid opposition to the national monuments.....and currently this is what Trump and Zinke are pandering to.

Too often opponents and proponents of national monument proclamations claim all sorts of adverse consequences.   I encourage people to look up and read the actual proclamation language.  Typically, ranchers can still ranch, jeepers can still jeep, hunters can still hunt, most all existing uses can continue. But no, it's not likely that a big coal mine, uranium mine, oil field, resort, can be developed; and its not likely that the state can dictate what happens (it's our land not theirs).

Mike Coffey
Prescott Arizona
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Miles

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"Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder.  For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor."

Well said, Mike.

Miles 
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Two23

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Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder.  For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor.   So, welcome to Lula Kent.  And after your "I call "bullshit."",  your subsequent posts are thoughtful.



Specifically, what I was objecting to was: "Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests."  Politicians are politicians, and pretty much every one of them will sell you out for a campaign contribution.  There is a long historical record of this.  Utah is one of the most conservative states in the country, and yet a recent (and probably reliable) poll showed 64% of voters there did not favor the local politicians' push for state control of BLM and other federal lands.  Same polled showed Utah voters were against the sale of state & federal land to private buyers. So, the politicians backed off.  Too often discussions are seen through a polarizing filter in recent years.  I fault the media for most of this, and politicians as well.  Citizens become easier to manipulate when they are pushed into a stereotypical group and discouraged from thinking analytically, on their own.  I do think scenic areas should be protected, and also any paleo Indian sites.  (Mesa Verde is one of my favorite places!) However, I just have to question why 1.3M acres needs to be involved.  I will mention a possible bias:  I am a landowner, with one square mile of Missouri farmland.


Kent in SD
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DeanChriss

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According to The Salt Lake Tribune "While a slight majority of Utahns believes the new 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument is too big, they oppose by a 2-to-1 margin breaking the bigger and more-established Grand Staircase-Escalante into smaller monuments."
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Robert Roaldi

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There needs to be a balance struck.  As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do.  There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.

As good a default starting condition as any but not necessarily useful in general. Think of the simple example of someone upstream doing something to a river that affects everyone downstream.
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tom b

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Huff Post, Pilliga.

Australia is the driest continent in the world, protecting our water must be our highest priority. So yes there must be protected zones.
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Tom Brown

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Australia is the driest continent in the world, protecting our water must be our highest priority. So yes there must be protected zones.
Unfortunately Australia, like most countries, has a government which is comprised of politicians. These people have no real interest in anything other than getting elected at the next election. We have had a long, long period of really bad government from both sides.

The people who built big infrastructure projects like the Snowy Mountains Scheme have been replaced by weak or easily corrupted people who spend their term dancing around making decisions on pretty much anything for fear of offending someone.

If you fly from Sydney to Adelaide then you can see the one border that I know of that you can see from 30,000 feet. It is the border of Victoria and South Australia. Victoria is green and South Australia is brown, because Victoria gets first shot at the water.
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Farmer

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If you fly from Sydney to Adelaide then you can see the one border that I know of that you can see from 30,000 feet. It is the border of Victoria and South Australia. Victoria is green and South Australia is brown, because Victoria gets first shot at the water.

I literally just did this flight there Friday before last and back last Friday.  It's not like that.
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Phil Brown

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I literally just did this flight there Friday before last and back last Friday.  It's not like that.
Yes, I was there on 24th November myself and yes, the hills are alive with green, but that is not typical.
There has been a lot of rain and it has also been very cold.
Apparently if it does not go above 24.7 C by last Saturday it will be the coldest first nine days of summer in 108 years.
Not like Adelaide at all normally.
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