Wildlife

As Greens, we believe that humanity should share the planet with all other species.
Our continuing destruction of habitats threatens an ever-growing number of species with extinction. This not only deprives these species of their existence, but will deprive future human generations of the enrichment of having these species on the Earth.
For this reason, we emphasize the importance of protecting endangered species and their habitats.

All policies concerning human settlement, food, energy, natural resources, water (fresh and saline), development and industrialization should be formulated to prevent further disruption of the non-human ecosystems' abilities to maintain themselves from the impacts of the climate crisis [see also Green Science and Green Chemistry planks].

The Green Party advocates the following policies to protect and restore wildlife:

• Protect and sustain native wildlife and habitats in development and infrastructure projects to establish permaculture based communities, rather than communities that are at odds with nature.

• Reintroduce native species and habitats to areas from which they have been eradicated where it is possible to do so
(a) without toxic chemicals, logging, and other aggressive eradication of, or damage to, existing wildlife, habitats, forested watersheds, and natural carbon sinks;
(b) provided climate and other environmental conditions are substantially to highly conducive to successful reintroduction; and
(c) possible interventions have been explored for moderate to substantially conducive reintroduction situations Work with nature to encourage new wildlife, habitats, and/or permaculture agricultural systems where it is not possible or environmentally practical to reintroduce eradicated species and habitats. These systems should be designed to be stable, biodiverse, and optimize the uptake of atmospheric carbon.

• Help wildlife, both native and new to a region, to adjust and thrive flexibly in new conditions under the imperatives of the global climate crisis. The new conditions should foster new ecological interrelationships that are stable and sustainable, and that also maximize biodiversity, ecosystem and watershed health, carbon sequestration, and adaptation to climate crisis impacts.

• Re-establish habitats for wildlife instead of practicing game species management for maximum sustainable yields.

• Eliminate predator control on public lands, and reintroduce native predators where they would contribute to a viable ecosystem.

• Stop any further drainage of wetlands and any further development in coastal and riparian areas, and work to restore and establish wetland habitats to mitigate sea level rise and other climate crisis impacts.

• Strengthen the Endangered Species Act, as has been recommended by the National Academy of Sciences.

• Educate ourselves about animal behaviors and plant characteristics to overcome our culture's irrational fear of wildlife, and learn techniques of co-existence with other species.

• Ensure our National Parks continuing existence and expansion to preserve unique species and habitats

• Ban mining, drilling and oil pipelines from all public lands

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This revision was approved at the Ventura General Assembly on November 12 2017