Outdoors Magazine
January 21st, 2004, 03:16 PM
Sierra Club Faces Intense Fight Over Leadership
by Miguel Bustillo and Kenneth R. Weiss, LA Times 1/18/04
An unusual alliance of immigration foes and animal-rights activists is
attempting to take over the leadership of the Sierra Club, America's oldest
national environmental group, in what is emerging as a bitter fight over the
future of the 112-year-old organization founded by Scottish immigrant John
Muir. Leaders of a faction that failed to force the club to take a stand
against immigration in 1998 are seeking to win majority control of the
group's 15-member governing board in a spring election -- this time, as part
of a broader coalition that includes vegetarians, who want the club to
denounce hunting, Fishing and raising animals for human consumption.
In response, 11 former Sierra Club presidents have written a letter
expressing what they call "extreme concern for the continuing viability of
the club," protesting what they see as a concerted effort by outside
organizations to hijack the mainstream conservationist group and its $95
million budget.
Some of the insurgent candidates vying for the five available seats on the
governing board only recently joined the Sierra Club. Members will vote in
the board elections in March, with the results tallied in April.
The election has attracted the interest of extremist groups, which are
encouraging their members to join the club to help elect the
anti-immigration candidates.
"What has outraged Sierra Club leaders is that external organizations would
attempt to interfere and manipulate our election to advance their own
agendas," said Robert Cox, a past Sierra Club president.
Moreover, club officials contend that members of the two insurgent groups
share fundamentally anti-human views, in their opposition to immigration and
in their belief that people should take a back seat to other species.
The Sierra Club's "dominant perspective has been to protect nature for
people," said executive director Carl Pope. "But by pulling up the gangplank
on immigration, they are tapping into a strand of misanthropy that says
human beings are a problem."
Pope noted 18% of club members like to fish or hunt, and he worried they
could be driven out by the new agenda from animal-rights advocates. "It's
important to have hunters and fishermen in the Sierra Club," Pope said. "We
are a big-tent organization. We want the Sierra Club to be a comfortable
place for Americans who want clean air, clean water and to protect America's
open spaces."
The list of candidates features some high-profile names, including former
Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, Cornell University entomology professor David
Pimentel and Frank Morris, the former director of the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation. All three have been outspoken advocates of controlling
population growth or restricting immigration.
Club members who support the insurgent candidates accused the organization's
old guard of attempting to demonize them as radicals in order to head off
the increasingly popular efforts to win a new majority.
"I really think we ought to be judged on our merits, and what we've done in
the past, and not divide the Sierra Club," Pimentel said. "I don't think
that Lamm, Pimentel and Morris are racists," Pope said. "But they are
clearly being supported by racists."
Benjamin Zuckerman, a longtime champion of curbs on immigration, contends
the club has a responsibility to take strong positions on the issues
affecting the health of the planet.
"Everything else the Sierra Club is doing is doomed to fail if the United
States continues on its rapid population growth," said Zuckerman, who was
the leading vote-getter in the Sierra Club board election two years ago.
Asked what the Sierra Club could do to curb population growth, Zuckerman
said the group must "talk about the numbers -- how much immigration we
should have and how many babies -- so the mix of fertility and immigration
is debated and we can come to a level where the population will stabilize."
--
James Ehlers
Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net
by Miguel Bustillo and Kenneth R. Weiss, LA Times 1/18/04
An unusual alliance of immigration foes and animal-rights activists is
attempting to take over the leadership of the Sierra Club, America's oldest
national environmental group, in what is emerging as a bitter fight over the
future of the 112-year-old organization founded by Scottish immigrant John
Muir. Leaders of a faction that failed to force the club to take a stand
against immigration in 1998 are seeking to win majority control of the
group's 15-member governing board in a spring election -- this time, as part
of a broader coalition that includes vegetarians, who want the club to
denounce hunting, Fishing and raising animals for human consumption.
In response, 11 former Sierra Club presidents have written a letter
expressing what they call "extreme concern for the continuing viability of
the club," protesting what they see as a concerted effort by outside
organizations to hijack the mainstream conservationist group and its $95
million budget.
Some of the insurgent candidates vying for the five available seats on the
governing board only recently joined the Sierra Club. Members will vote in
the board elections in March, with the results tallied in April.
The election has attracted the interest of extremist groups, which are
encouraging their members to join the club to help elect the
anti-immigration candidates.
"What has outraged Sierra Club leaders is that external organizations would
attempt to interfere and manipulate our election to advance their own
agendas," said Robert Cox, a past Sierra Club president.
Moreover, club officials contend that members of the two insurgent groups
share fundamentally anti-human views, in their opposition to immigration and
in their belief that people should take a back seat to other species.
The Sierra Club's "dominant perspective has been to protect nature for
people," said executive director Carl Pope. "But by pulling up the gangplank
on immigration, they are tapping into a strand of misanthropy that says
human beings are a problem."
Pope noted 18% of club members like to fish or hunt, and he worried they
could be driven out by the new agenda from animal-rights advocates. "It's
important to have hunters and fishermen in the Sierra Club," Pope said. "We
are a big-tent organization. We want the Sierra Club to be a comfortable
place for Americans who want clean air, clean water and to protect America's
open spaces."
The list of candidates features some high-profile names, including former
Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, Cornell University entomology professor David
Pimentel and Frank Morris, the former director of the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation. All three have been outspoken advocates of controlling
population growth or restricting immigration.
Club members who support the insurgent candidates accused the organization's
old guard of attempting to demonize them as radicals in order to head off
the increasingly popular efforts to win a new majority.
"I really think we ought to be judged on our merits, and what we've done in
the past, and not divide the Sierra Club," Pimentel said. "I don't think
that Lamm, Pimentel and Morris are racists," Pope said. "But they are
clearly being supported by racists."
Benjamin Zuckerman, a longtime champion of curbs on immigration, contends
the club has a responsibility to take strong positions on the issues
affecting the health of the planet.
"Everything else the Sierra Club is doing is doomed to fail if the United
States continues on its rapid population growth," said Zuckerman, who was
the leading vote-getter in the Sierra Club board election two years ago.
Asked what the Sierra Club could do to curb population growth, Zuckerman
said the group must "talk about the numbers -- how much immigration we
should have and how many babies -- so the mix of fertility and immigration
is debated and we can come to a level where the population will stabilize."
--
James Ehlers
Outdoors Magazine
www.outdoorsmagazine.net