"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking

at the root." -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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From the journal Conservation Biology

Biologist David Ehrenfeld of Rutgers University, a former editor of the

journal Conservation Biology, had an article in the August issue in

which he lists the 8 recommendations shown below. There is a growing

appreciation among biologists of the connection between the destruction

of the natural world and the culture of multinational corporations. It's

sad to reflect on the degree to which those same corporations have their

meathooks deeply embedded in our land management agencies.

1. Return to the old idea of corporate charters that have a fixed time

period - say 20 years - after which they expire unless renewed (like

broadcasting licenses) following a searching review of the corporation's

activities.

2. Eliminate, probably by constitutional amendment, the special

privileges corporations have gradually gained in courts during the

past 150 years.

3. Close the legal loopholes that enable senior executives to

disassociate themselves from the misdeeds of the companies they control.

4. Make it much harder for corporations to evade punishment by

jettisoning divisions, changing names, merging with other

corporations, or otherwise altering their identities.

5. Restrict the ability of multinationals to use world trade regulations

to nullify national environmental and human safety laws.

6. Protect communities by limiting the rights of corporations to

transfer factory operations and large blocks of capital from country to

country or state to state without warning and without evaluation of

local impact.

7. Change the laws and regulations that allow the largest corporations

to avoid paying their fair share of the taxes needed to support the people

and environment of the country.

8. Reflect on our own complicity in corporate violence; avoid purchasing

products that we do not need and that are socially and environmentally

damaging.

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Bill Willers

Biology Dept., University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

800 Algoma Blvd.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S.A. 54901

Phone: (920)424-3074

Fax: (920)424-1101

willers@uwosh.edu

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"The example of the American states shows that the private corporations

... may become the most dangerous enemies to rational liberty, to the

moral interests of the commonwealth, to the purity of legislation and of

judicial action, and to the sacredness of private rights."

-- George Perkins Marsh, 1864, MAN AND NATURE

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Visit "Resources for Democracy" at http://bozeman.bigsky.net/drusha

Recommended Reading: "Perverse Subsidies: How Misused Tax Dollars Harm the

Environment and the Economy", by Norman Myers, Jennifer Kent

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