| Gone But Not For Good
July 18, 2002 By Brenda Gibson Preble County, Ohio PLAIN CITY, OHIO - Last night I had the pleasure of going to my first meeting hosted by the United States Fish & Wildlife Service at Plain City, Ohio. This meeting, according to Mr. Larson of the USFWS, "Chief of Ascertainment and Planning" from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, was intended to be the final meeting regarding the Proposed Little Darby National Wildlife Refuge Project, begun in late 1998. Mr. Larson stated that the purpose of his week-long visit to west-central Ohio, highlighted by this meeting at a local Amish restaurant, was so that the USFWS could complete a 'Final Report' on the project. He stood behind a podium and gave a thirty-minute dissertation that appeared to cover only two points: 1.) Throughout this ordeal, 'the Service' was made to feel unwelcome in Madison and Union Counties. 2.) The 'Final Report' that would be published in the Federal Register would show any and all information that could be gathered on "local conservation efforts." There were five questions posted on large sheets of paper around the room, each one containing the phrase, 'local conservation.' The attendees of the meeting were asked to answer each of these questions and to put the papers containing those answers into the suggestion box. Every question concerned "local conservation efforts." During the speech, Mr. Larson used "local conservation effort" 34 times and 'natural resources' twenty times. There were many unexplained acronyms strewn through his speech. Mr. Larson mentioned having been to the Madison County Historical Society the day before. I found this interesting, as the Historical Society is a 501c3 -- tax-exempt -- organization. Also present at the meeting was a representative of the Nature Conservancy (another 501c3 non-governmental organization, or NGO). Anyone following the new Farm Law that was recently passed will definitely make a connection to this observation. www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/farmbill My personal take on the meeting was that Mr. Larson and his group from USFWS can put a pretty twist on the same old bull and make it smell like roses. But keep in mind that a rose by any other name still smells the same. All the dressing-up of the real issue -- to remove agriculture and a two-centuries deep rural economic culture from the equation -- won't change the issue. No one takes better care of "local conservancy efforts" than the farmers. Keep in mind the millions of acres of government-acquired land out west -- land that is no longer private property -- currently going up in smoke from wild fires due to lack of underbrush and forest understory thinning -- non-management. How can anyone study what has already been done in the name of Federal Land Acquisition and think that the USFWS's arrival in your neighborhood is hunky-dory, is beyond my comprehension. When one of the attendees of the meeting asked Mr. Larson to define 'natural habitat,' Mr. Larson replied, "Do you want 'my definition?'" Then he went on to talk about creeks, woods, forests, etc. But nowhere did he offer the official definition as it is written by the USFWS nor did he have it memorized. Was this meeting of so little importance to him that he was just 'winging' his speech on the fly, like the migratory birds that his employer 'protects habitat for?' It would appear so, especially after he had talked for thirty minutes and then said that he would refer to his notes -- notes that he'd not yet consulted. Or did he think so little of the homeowners, landowners, and farmers present at the meeting that he felt no need to prepare properly? Or is it that he is just that arrogant in his attitude that the USFWS may have lost this battle but they certainly haven't lost the war? He seems to harbor no misgivings about the furtive and non-publicized, ongoing attempts of USFWS to remove Ohio citizens from their properties, livelihood, liberty, and justice. You be the judge. In my humble opinion, anyone who attends such events in the future -- and believe me, there WILL be more -- needs to be well-read and very alert. There is an agenda being set forth and implemented that you will not hear unless you are capable of reading between the lines. Let us not fiddle while Rome burns. Now is the time to educate as many people as possible about the agenda that the Federal Government has for our land and our 'natural resources' -- including human resources -- before that agenda arrives in your neighborhood. Brenda Gibson is not a local resident. Her own farm is ninety miles distant from the targeted part of west-central Ohio that USFWS 'envisions' as a 'refuge' for 'possible habitat' for the Indiana bat and actual habitat for the clubshell and riffleshell mussels, freshwater mussels that thrive in the Little Darby Creek, not in spite of the local farmers but because of them. She attended the USFWS meeting because of both a concern for her fellow rural residents and also the knowledge that it could and may well happen in her area as well. An attempted project in her neighborhood was squelched, but she knows that, like the title of this article, USFWS is "Gone but not for good." |