Compromise...
... or might this poetic word be Code for a "Divide & Conquer" Strategy?
Help Protect New York State's Zoar Valley
Might this letter to help protect New York's beautiful Zoar Valley apply to your neck-o-the-woods too? Compromise is such a nice word but is compromise always the right thing to do?
NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation
182 E. Union Street, Suite 3
Allegany, New York 14706
Divide and Conquer is a brilliant war strategy if one considers anything about war to be brilliant. Unfortunately, the practice of "divide and conquer" has happened repeatedly to our wild and natural areas all over the planet. I have read, clearly understand, agree with, and support the following numbered set of accurate facts, assertions, and pleas Talking Points (not included here). Other interested parties generated those facts but this paragraph is mine. I implore the NYS DEC please do not, in the so-called interest of compromise, further divide and conquer the wild and natural body of nature known as Zoar Valley. Compromise is a legitimate exercise in some contexts where all involved have a say in the matter. Nature has no say. Compromise is simply a code word for "divide and conquer" when a physical body of nature is dissected and degraded as a result of that "compromise." When it comes to nature and the environment, I have yet to see a compromise to end all compromises.
The Department's draft proposal implicitly assures this is a "compromise to end all compromises" but this assurance is as phony as the non-sensical assurance of a war to end all wars. We've done enough to divide and conquer our own Mother Earth yet we continue to use and abuse her as long as some part of her is alive? We have all but mutilated her flesh. Must we also break her bones? Mother Earth has a remarkable ability to heal herself. But we forget, she is healing us in the process. It is not wise to compromise away one's mother and healer.
Duane Short
Belleville, Illinois
August 12, 2006
Another Case in Point: An adaptation of a letter to the editor concerning southern Illinois' Shawnee National Forest.
Whittling Away Wilderness
So-called “cooperation” is Whittling away Wilderness; one road, one trail, one bent rule, one wink at a time.
While reading the following, bear in mind: our nation's designated wilderness now represents only 4.6% of the wilderness it was prior to European colonization. Illinois retains less than 1% (0.47% to be exact) of its original natural landscape.
One of our area's most reasonable commercial equestrian campground owners, during an April 2002 Shawnee National Forest Master Trails meeting, suggested 6 miles of trails per square mile is less environmentally destructive than trails totaling only 1 mi/sq. mile. Note: The trail density standard set in the 1992 Shawnee Natural Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) is 1 mile per square mile.
A so-called "spirit of cooperation" which necessarily involves "compromise" would demand that environmentalists agree to 3 miles of trails per square mile. In an unwitting public's view, to do less would cause environmentalists to appear as rigid, unyielding, and yes some would say radical. An unwitting public is our albatross.
Consider this real world example: Again, to an uninformed public, environmentalists would have to agree to allowing a staggering 19 miles of trails per square mile in the Shawnee National Forest to appear cooperative with one local equestrian lobbying for a 38 mi/sq. mile trail density standard. A largely uninformed or misinformed public likely sees nothing amiss about such a wild claim. The public is more or less automatically predisposed to believe a 19 mile figure is a fair compromise. Again, environmentalists defending the Forest Service's official 1 mile per square mile Trail Density Standard appear "radical" when, in fact, we are opposing the radical.
None-the-less environmentalists should never tire of "trying" to cooperate.... but we must not cooperate "at all costs" to the environment. Being nice is nice..... but we are merely stewards of this great life giving planet. We did not write the natural laws that must be honored if we and all life forms are to survive in perpetuity. We did not write the laws and certainly don’t have the right to break or bend those laws, even in a “spirit of cooperation or compromise.”
No one nor any man-made force or activity can behave in ways that violate these laws.... and get away with it, forever. Try as we might, we cannot "compromise" or circumvent laws of nature free of consequence. To attempt to do so is to cheat our descendants and all life to come. Until humankind fully understands this, the mere reality of an ever-increasing human population will pressure environmentalists to compromise away wilderness.
Modern society, at large, has already “cooperated and compromised” away 95.4% of our nations original wilderness and 99.53% of Illinois’ wild and natural areas. How ironic and sad should history prove environmentalists to have been party to those decisions that cooperated and compromised away the remaining remnants.
Duane Short
April 17, 2002
--
"those with the foresight to preserve and treasure even a small part of this heritage [our natural areas] will be remembered far longer than those who destroy the rest"
E. O. Wilson, Biologist and Educator
Help Protect New York State's Zoar Valley
Might this letter to help protect New York's beautiful Zoar Valley apply to your neck-o-the-woods too? Compromise is such a nice word but is compromise always the right thing to do?
NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation
182 E. Union Street, Suite 3
Allegany, New York 14706
Divide and Conquer is a brilliant war strategy if one considers anything about war to be brilliant. Unfortunately, the practice of "divide and conquer" has happened repeatedly to our wild and natural areas all over the planet. I have read, clearly understand, agree with, and support the following numbered set of accurate facts, assertions, and pleas Talking Points (not included here). Other interested parties generated those facts but this paragraph is mine. I implore the NYS DEC please do not, in the so-called interest of compromise, further divide and conquer the wild and natural body of nature known as Zoar Valley. Compromise is a legitimate exercise in some contexts where all involved have a say in the matter. Nature has no say. Compromise is simply a code word for "divide and conquer" when a physical body of nature is dissected and degraded as a result of that "compromise." When it comes to nature and the environment, I have yet to see a compromise to end all compromises.
The Department's draft proposal implicitly assures this is a "compromise to end all compromises" but this assurance is as phony as the non-sensical assurance of a war to end all wars. We've done enough to divide and conquer our own Mother Earth yet we continue to use and abuse her as long as some part of her is alive? We have all but mutilated her flesh. Must we also break her bones? Mother Earth has a remarkable ability to heal herself. But we forget, she is healing us in the process. It is not wise to compromise away one's mother and healer.
Duane Short
Belleville, Illinois
August 12, 2006
Another Case in Point: An adaptation of a letter to the editor concerning southern Illinois' Shawnee National Forest.
Whittling Away Wilderness
So-called “cooperation” is Whittling away Wilderness; one road, one trail, one bent rule, one wink at a time.
While reading the following, bear in mind: our nation's designated wilderness now represents only 4.6% of the wilderness it was prior to European colonization. Illinois retains less than 1% (0.47% to be exact) of its original natural landscape.
One of our area's most reasonable commercial equestrian campground owners, during an April 2002 Shawnee National Forest Master Trails meeting, suggested 6 miles of trails per square mile is less environmentally destructive than trails totaling only 1 mi/sq. mile. Note: The trail density standard set in the 1992 Shawnee Natural Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) is 1 mile per square mile.
A so-called "spirit of cooperation" which necessarily involves "compromise" would demand that environmentalists agree to 3 miles of trails per square mile. In an unwitting public's view, to do less would cause environmentalists to appear as rigid, unyielding, and yes some would say radical. An unwitting public is our albatross.
Consider this real world example: Again, to an uninformed public, environmentalists would have to agree to allowing a staggering 19 miles of trails per square mile in the Shawnee National Forest to appear cooperative with one local equestrian lobbying for a 38 mi/sq. mile trail density standard. A largely uninformed or misinformed public likely sees nothing amiss about such a wild claim. The public is more or less automatically predisposed to believe a 19 mile figure is a fair compromise. Again, environmentalists defending the Forest Service's official 1 mile per square mile Trail Density Standard appear "radical" when, in fact, we are opposing the radical.
None-the-less environmentalists should never tire of "trying" to cooperate.... but we must not cooperate "at all costs" to the environment. Being nice is nice..... but we are merely stewards of this great life giving planet. We did not write the natural laws that must be honored if we and all life forms are to survive in perpetuity. We did not write the laws and certainly don’t have the right to break or bend those laws, even in a “spirit of cooperation or compromise.”
No one nor any man-made force or activity can behave in ways that violate these laws.... and get away with it, forever. Try as we might, we cannot "compromise" or circumvent laws of nature free of consequence. To attempt to do so is to cheat our descendants and all life to come. Until humankind fully understands this, the mere reality of an ever-increasing human population will pressure environmentalists to compromise away wilderness.
Modern society, at large, has already “cooperated and compromised” away 95.4% of our nations original wilderness and 99.53% of Illinois’ wild and natural areas. How ironic and sad should history prove environmentalists to have been party to those decisions that cooperated and compromised away the remaining remnants.
Duane Short
April 17, 2002
--
"those with the foresight to preserve and treasure even a small part of this heritage [our natural areas] will be remembered far longer than those who destroy the rest"
E. O. Wilson, Biologist and Educator
posted by Duane Short | 8/15/2006 01:28:00 AM
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