We are working on a brand new version of the game! If you want to stay informed, read our blog and register for our mailing list.
Bill: Ecological Preservation Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: United Liberal Alliance
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: January 2045
Description[?]:
| This bill would seek to establish Ecological Preservation Zones in areas of outstanding natural beauty or enviromentally sensitive areas, in order to maintain and protect the environment of these areas. Activities such as building etc. within these areas would be limited to practices which would not harm the environment. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy regarding a national park system.
Old value:: The government does not have a national park system policy.
Current: The government funds and maintains a network of national parks and/or marine protected areas.
Proposed: The government designates ecological preservation zones but does not fund their oversight.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 18:55:48, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Isn't this better done by owning the ground under the preservation zones? |
| Date | 19:14:18, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | If you mean should the government buy the land then yes undoubtedly that would be more effective but would require huge amounts of taxpayers money (somehow I don't think you'd be advocating this!!). All we are saying is that like the pollution guidelines, something must be done to preserve certain environmentally sensitive areas. Therefore by designating certain areas preservation zones, it simply means that these areas are given special treatment (i.e. building is limited etc.) in order to try to protect the environment of the area. |
| Date | 19:22:01, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | no, in essence I propose a system like the national parks system in the UK, just without the highly developed government management and funding part. Yes activities would be limited (e.g. only buildings which were in keeping with the surroundings could be built and local government planning laws would probably be stricter) but certainly we are not proposing no go areas. |
| Date | 19:25:11, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | UCA: No, I wouldn't _like_ that. But what you are proposing is that the government randomly confiscates parts of the ownership of ground in the relevant zones. That is untenable.
Buying the ground would not necessarily mean using tax money, although it could. It could be based on a fund that buys areas with voluntarily donated money, or groundowners could voluntarily set aside their own areas. Preferably those two would becombined. |
| Date | 19:26:29, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | UCA: amendment to my previous post: That would not be legislation, so probably it is not on the proposals list, but that does not mean it can't be done. |
| Date | 19:35:28, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | I don't propose to confiscate ownership of land, only designate areas as protection zones. Yes this would require a degree of management by local government but ownership doesn't come into it it simply may restrict what one can do on the land (i.e. planning laws become tighter etc.) for an idea of what i want to achieve see: http://www.anpa.gov.uk in particular the FAQ section (although these are far more developed national parks than i am advocating) |
| Date | 19:37:50, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | I will check the URL soon, but ownership includes the right to decide what is built on your ground and what it is used for. Without takeing that, those zone-rules would be pretty impotent. |
| Date | 19:39:27, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | OOC: but in reality that is not what ownership means. For example I assume that Sweden has planning laws like in the UK, so although you own your house and the land it is on, you cannot just build anything you like without any form of planning permission? |
| Date | 19:44:16, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | UCA: There are plan laws of sorts. Sweden is not exactly a libertarian state. The state also can take anyones land at any time to make national parks or military training grounds. Or sell it to miners. Which is an infringement on the property rights. |
| Date | 19:47:38, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Yes, but what I am saying is that the state does not need to take people's land to make a national park in the sense that i mean it. If you don't believe me see the following webpage as well for land ownership and use statistics for England's national parks: http://www.cnp.org.uk/facts_&_figures.htm You will notice that most of it is owned by private individuals, who still keep their rights to their land - it is not given to, taken by, or owned by the government. |
| Date | 19:52:58, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | I belive you. Since the state has the biggest army it can do anything. Which doesn't mean it should. Creating national parks in the sense of areas were nature is protected to make room for tourism does not require laws at all. The owners of ground can do that very well on their own, and those who want to increase the park areas can buy land and add to it. |
| Date | 19:55:37, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | OOC, off topic: Interesting that there are big urban areas in UK national parks. |
| Date | 19:56:20, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Well we disagree with you and feel that legislation to designate some areas as national parks or at least protection zones is necessary and desirable. I simply ensures that the area is protected from damaging development and practices. |
| Date | 19:58:33, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | OOC: don't think that there are that big urban areas in national parks in UK (can you give me an example so I know how big you mean?). Their whole purpose as you will have seen is simply to protect areas of natural beauty - if urban areas fall within that then they are part of the national park as well - simply the way it is!! |
| Date | 20:02:42, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | And what would the advantage be from the state designating the areas, as opposed to the owners designating them? |
| Date | 20:05:55, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Since Telamon already has two large and well-managed areas were valuable ecologies are preserved and shown to the public it seems to work pretty well without laws. |
| Date | 20:08:14, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | It provides state coordination in the sense that in order to have a viable area of the sort we can see in the UK that would require coordination and agreement by a staggering number of individuals which is completely unfeasable. It also ensures that those areas which are the most environmentally sensitive i.e. those areas which probably should become protection zones, are made them and that the restrictions necessary to protect the environment in these areas are able to be implemented and enforced. |
| Date | 20:16:26, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | On the other hand a market solution ensures that those areas that are most valuable to the Telamonians are made protected zones, instead of some sensitive but not very important areas, that could better be used for something else. |
| Date | 20:18:15, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | No, a market solution would be to protect those areas which have the most tourism potential etc. & whilst that is part of it the areas that need to be protected are the ones that are the most environmentally sensitive and in need of protection. |
| Date | 20:21:56, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | One on the coast around the Feronan peninsula, and one a few miles south of Telamon City. The latter one is a traditional meadow landscape, with several species that are (elsewere) being eradicated by modern agriculture. The first is the most important habitat of Otters in Telamon. |
| Date | 20:25:47, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Who says the most sensitive are most important? They are the places that take a lot ofwork to preserve, and then they are destroyed anyways because of acid rains.
The most important areas in which to protect the nature are the areas that are most important to the quality of life of the Telamonians. Which is the ones with most potential for tourism, and the ones were people are ready to voluntarily make an effort to preserve. Which is the areas that can be preserved without laws. |
| Date | 20:28:45, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Well that's very good, but we believe that they are on a relatively small scale. We would advocate as the first candidates for protection status, the whole of the island of Migadon, and we feel that the existing areas would benefit from the extra protection that this legislation would provide. |
| Date | 20:31:24, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | But the population of Migadon is entirely dependent on fishing and Whale-watching tourism. They do not ruin the environment inland, because they don't care about it. And if we restrict their fishing rights it will be impossible to live on the entire Island. |
| Date | 20:34:00, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | United Liberal Alliance | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | We are not advocating restricting their fishing rights, only to provide environmental protection to the island. I.e. limits on building (tighter planning regulations) and the use of sustainable development and tourism (e.g. ecotourism) programmes. |
| Date | 20:42:25, April 27, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Well, that would be a national park that did not do much damage. But why bother? They are currently not ruining the inland environment, so what would we gain from restricting them? |
| Date | 09:21:56, April 30, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | I am sorry. I did log in a yes vote here at first, but now that I've had some reflection time. I do not see how designating lands off limits and then providing no funding for their maitenance and such is productive. I am going to abstain for now and hopefully will log in a vote one way or the other before the deadline, but really feel strongly that this proposal should go further than it does. |
| Date | 19:01:50, April 30, 2005 CET |
From | | To | Debating the Ecological Preservation Act | | Message | Okay that makes sense to me, that fees for the parks use would fund its maintenance instead of using general fund money to supplement. Thanks for the clarification. |
subscribe to this discussion -
unsubscribeVoting
| Vote |
Seats |
| yes | Total Seats: 85 |
| no | Total Seats: 0 |
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: Particracy does not allow role-play that seems to belong to the world of fantasy, science fiction and futuristic speculation. |
| Random quote: "The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution." - Hannah Arendt |