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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Thursday, January 24, 2008 :::
I stumbled across an old article on a man in Hawaii putting his life and considerable fortune into preserving endangered species and the clashes he's had with environmental groups.Robinson's assessment of his successes is characteristically blunt: "My private, one-man Hawaiian endangered-species reserve is based on hard work, independent thought and old-fashioned moral standards. This combination worked just fine for America's Founding Fathers, and it still works well on the rare occasions when it is tried today."
Through the years Robinson has donated cuttings and seeds to state and private environmental organizations, but he has little patience for them today. "During the last 30 years," he says, "Hawaii's environmental establishment has become totally corrupt, motivated primarily by a lust for money and power. Now they have found that they can use the U.S. Endangered Species Act to seize zoning control of huge tracts of land, on the pretext that these areas are `critical habitat' for endangered species."... For years Robinson has defied environmental regulators by preserving plants he was unauthorized to handle. He once offered seeds of one of the world's rarest plants, the Solanum sandwicense, to the state-run Lyon Arboretum at the University of Hawaii, which refused, citing laws against the unlicensed handling of the species. Robinson then announced in Hawaii newspapers that he would send 10 seeds without charge to anyone interested. "I got more than 400 requests," he said in an earlier interview. "I handled each request personally, to ensure their privacy."
::: posted by dWj at 7:22 PM
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