Channel Islands National Park

Re “Gallegly Calls for Park’s Immediate Closure,” June 9.

There is a telling omission in Rep. Elton Gallegly’s (R-Simi Valley) public condemnation of Channel Islands National Park: Nowhere does he mention that the park is under U.N. control.

Channel Islands National Park has been designated as a biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A plaque to that effect is posted for all to see in the park visitor center on Spinnaker Drive in Ventura.

Many from Gallegly’s party claim that control over the biosphere reserves has been seized by the U.N. from our federal government. That loss of federal control is offered as “proof” that the United States must withdraw from the U.N. Gallegly has helped the anti-U.N. cohort in Congress by having voted “aye” to prohibit funding for the Man and Biosphere and World Heritage Program, and to prohibit nomination of U.S. lands for UNESCO recognition.

If nothing else, the current flap about Channel Islands National Park proves that the claimed loss of federal control of public lands to the U.N. is nonsense. But the nonsense put out about the U.N. is not a laughing matter--it is a sabotage of the greatest humanitarian organization, the greatest peace organization, and the greatest giver of human rights law that history has ever known.

THOMAS PRINDIVILLE HIGGINS

Ventura