@ — Wednesday, Gctober 16, 1991 — North Shore News Unleash UN forces to protect environment IT HAS occurred to me from time to time that having the surname “Hunter’’ is an ironic twist of fate, since I con- sider most forms of hunting to be obscene, even criminal. It depends on definitions, of course. But it is really not afl that difficult for people to make the intellectual adjustments leading to the conclusion that hunting is a vestige of a barbaric past, some- thing almost as outrageous as slavery — and long overdue for outlawing. Blood sports are not universally approved of, you know. In fact, it is rather interesting to note that while Canadians frown upon such public animal-torture games as bullfights, we like to romanticize our outdoorsy friends or cousins. or neighbors who head out into nature, at the very minizaum arm- ed with a three-ought-three and a 30-ouncer of Southern Comfort. My personal one-liner on the matter is: Those guys with guns out there killing animats for fun give us real Hunters a bad name. The exception, of course, is subsistence hunting, the guy living out in the bush, hunting for food to feed his family. How can I argue against that? But how many people are left living that way? In any event, even subsistence hunting hes to have its limits. In the ezse of an endangered specics, Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL — absolutely nobody —~ can be allowed to cxterninate it. Period. Mt ultimately amounts to the same thing as genocide. There is a moral as well as ecological im- Perative to preserve the diversity of life ou this planct, meaning each and every life-form whose existence has now come to depend Brake checks called for THE ASSOCIATION for Vehicle Movement Safety is calling for the instafation of commercial vehicle inspection pits at truck brake- check facilities across the pro- vince. Spokesman Stuart Meade said his organization is firmly convinc- ed that drivers of large vehicles have to be provided with ihe facil- ities to have easy access to ihe undersides of their vehicles. Said Meade, “‘Pits would make it far easier for commercial drivers to inspect their vehicles. We suspect that this measure would pay for itself in reducing so-called brake failure accidents and most certainly in decreasing the need for costly enforcement.”’ Truck brake failure accidents occur regularly on hilly North Shore streets. JANIEL JARVIS NORTH VANCOUVER- SEYMOUR en Keen, | The Best Altemative in 1994! — has lived and worked in North Vancouver for over 30 years — will help return honesty and integrity to government in BC! — believes in quality health care! — believes education should be a priority! — will be accountable to you! ELECT DANIEL JARVIS xX S) THAT'S HOW MANY CANADIANS ARE CYCLISTS on our restraint. it will probably not be all that long before such an imperative will be enshrined at the heart of a new United Nations charter. {t could well be in place before the end of the decade, launching us fully into a new millenium rad- ically different from the one just ending. I picked up this particular nug- get from a talk by former Cana- dian UN ambassador Stephen Lewis. A blue-ribbon international committee is already at work, he reports, drafting discussion papers for a scheme to set up a new paraliel Security Council with re- sponsibility for — get this! — global environmental protection. In other words, we are probably within sight of the day when the business of saving the biosphere moves from being a scattered and very weak guerrilla movement to becoming the main occupation of real generals with real armies. How interventionist would a UN Eco-Security Council be? Probably very, because there are so many places where in- tervestion would initially be need- ed If such a body evisted today, it might be sending the troops into Brazil to put out the fires, to Malaysia to defend the last stands of rainforest, into the North Pacific after the driftnetters, and there would be police actions against CFC plants everywhere. closing them down as definitivet:: as Iraq’s nuclear program has been dismantled. (A very interest- ing precedent, incidentally.) But then, in al! likelihood, after a few demonstrations of serious intent, the nere existence of sucn a body ought to totally shift the balance of power in the en- “yet Wee BRIAN GILES West Vancouver- Garibaldi Cat! 922-9730 Set n thre dying day's HELEN CHAPLIN West Vancouver- Capilano Calf 983-4349 vironmental struggle, putting the combined military forces of the industrial world at least theoreti- cally on the side of the planetary eco-system. It is not entirely fantastic to imagine a future situation wherein UN action might be initiated to clamp an embargo, say, on an in- dependent Quebec which had decided to push ahead with a James Bay Il-type project deemed an ecological disaster by the world’s scientific community. What has this to do with hun- ting? Everything. The political will to reshape humanity’s relationship with nature — even if for no other of- ficial reason than human survival -~ grows out of widely-shared public attitudes. It is the whole spectrum of human behavior that is affected — how we treat our pets as well as our planet. In a classic little book called One Cosmic Instant, A Natural History of Human Arrogance, Canadian conservationist John A. Livingston fong ago made the crit- ical point that ‘‘man must soon adopt an ethic. toward the en- vironment. ‘The environment’ en- compasses all non-human elements in the one and only home we have on Earth... “The achievement of an ethic to guide our behavior toward the non-human world will incscapably involve the brutal violation of our cherished beliefs... Conscious change of direction toward an en- vironmental! ethic will mean the practise of a kind of artificial selection — choosing certain posi- tive elements in our traditions and rejecting negative elements.”’ As our sense of responsibility for the condition of the ozone layer increases to the point wh sre the armies of the Earth might fi- nally be deployed to do their real job — protecting the Earth, not pummeliing her — we can be sure that there will be a similar tidal shift in attitude toward the entire animal kingdom. The natural world can’t remain a free-fire zone forever. Nor will it. In my opinion, there is abso- lutely no doubt that game hunting will be a thing of the past not too long after it becomes an interna- tional crime to clearcut an old- growth forest. And if vou think that time is way off i: the distant future, think ag:tin. It’s Time for | a Change! New Democrats will open up government to public scrutiny. The Ombudsman’s office will be given an expanded mandate to ensure accountability and fairness from all levels of government. Freedom of information legislation and the toughest conflict of interest laws in North America will be introduced to stop the abuse of public office. It’s time to clean up government. British Columbia deserves a govern- ment as honest and hardworking as the peopie who pay for it. Dee ats DAVID SCHRECK North Vancouver- Lonsdale Cai 983-9460 DOMINIQUE ROELANTS North Vancouver- Seymour Cail 924-1359 ‘Call howto volunteer for: “yourtecal * campaign.