General Assembly Resolution #473 “Responsible Land Management” (Category: Environmental; Industry Affected: Agriculture) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.
The impulse to protect the environment is a strong and noble one. Sadly, in its zeal to combat desertification, GA 473 neglects that which makes such endeavors successful.
The General Assembly finds several of the target's provisions to be catastrophically bad:
- Clause 6 prohibits "removal or destruction [of vegetation] resulting in exposed, unprotected soils creating a threat of artificial desertification or contributing to existing desertification in the local area," no matter how minor that threat or important the relevant project may be. This is an insane provision that functionally bans all construction projects that involve destroying any vegetation, given that such construction inherently results in exposed soil that creates a (small) threat of desertification or at least contributes to it. This alone more than warrants immediate repeal.
- Clause 4's ban on overgrazing fails to account for other beneficial applications of the practice, such as wildfire mitigation or nutrient cycling for purposes other than "to fertilise and prepare farmland."
- Clause 5's windbreak installation mandate fails to account for any measure that might be more effective or cost-efficient than windbreaks in a given situation. Its strange fixation on farm fields neglects the possibility that "effective" windbreak coverage might render a farm unusable, or that windbreaks may be more effectively placed in places that aren't "around farm fields."
Additionally, the General Assembly finds the following issues with the target resolution's signature initiative, the Environmental Survey of the World Assembly (ESWA):
- The target requires the ESWA to be "paid for by the WA general fund with no external sources for financial contribution permitted." This is an extremely unusual restriction to place on a WA body, particularly with no explanation or apparent reason as to why. It's potentially catastrophic given the sheer number of other projects dependent on WA funding, especially after the repeal of GA 17 "General Fund," and it blocks contributions by members, NGOs, and any other group. No other resolution has ever limited a WA body's funding in this way, for good reason.
- The target tasks the ESWA with broad, powerful directives absent any reasonable guidance to ensure they're executed well.
- It has the agency "[conduct] ground, water, and atmospheric surveys of member nations' territories" with no provisions ensuring that members' territorial integrity, national security, civilian safety, or even construction projects are respected.
- It has the agency "[keep] and publish records of survey findings" regardless of whether those findings contain sensitive information such as the locations of secret military installations or are just irrelevant for the purposes of combating desertification or protecting the environment.
- The ESWA's "recommendations" are all non-binding, and its findings are neither used nor even referenced in any of the resolution's actual requirements aside from the aforementioned clause 5, which bafflingly eschews any specific recommendations the agency might come up with in favor of just covering "windbreaks around farm fields."
This resolution resembles a grab bag of random situational anti-desertification measures forced on every member state. It assigns broad powers to the point of invasiveness, micromanages to the point of absurdness, and overregulates to the point of dangerousness. What makes this especially bewildering is that the target itself establishes a WA agency suitable for guiding anti-desertification regulation, albeit in a flawed way.
It's unclear why the target chose to impose a brutal and unnecessary micromanagement scheme rather than leverage an otherwise pointless resource it went out of its way to create.
Therefore, in accordance with the Final Ride initiative, the General Assembly repeals GA 473.
