Number: 1992-05
WHEREAS, the National Wildlife Federation recognizes that most environmental issues are increasingly global in scope, and that human demand for and use of natural resources relates to environmental deterioration worldwide; and
WHEREAS, international trade agreements, such as the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), together have the potential to regulate over three trillion dollars annually in world trade; and
WHEREAS, these agreements can and will have a significant impact on environmental protection and on the management of natural resources in developing and industrialized countries; and
WHEREAS, unfettered or unregulated international trade can have a negative effect on the sound management of natural resources through: increased pressure for unsustainable harvest and export of these resources; increased energy use and the possibility of environmentally damaging accidents associated with the transportation of goods and services; increased pressure to lower U.S. environmental standards; agricultural quarantines; and weakening of international environmental agreements in order to satisfy “free trade” objectives; and
WHEREAS, trade agreements entered into by the United States can affect a wide range of domestic and international programs undertaken by the National Wildlife Federation ranging from protection of global biological diversity and tropical forests, to protection of the Great Lakes, and preventing deforestation in our own temperate and tropical forests; and
WHEREAS, public participation in the development, negotiation and implementation of U.S. trade policy and trade agreements is necessary to assure that environmental concerns related to trade are addressed; and
WHEREAS, the openness and provision of adequate information necessary to fully involve the public in the development of U.S. trade policy, and the negotiation and implementation of trade agreements, has not occurred with respect to environmental concerns; and
WHEREAS, the liberalization of world trade through trade agreements can be an important step toward the promotion of environmentally and economically sustainable development if consideration for environmental concerns is integrated into the agreements themselves;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 19-22, 1992 in Portland, Oregon, recognizes that the integration of environmental concerns into U.S. trade policy, and into trade agreements negotiated by the United States, is necessary to assure the protection of hard-won environmental standards in our country, and to pursue sustainable development on a global scale; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NWF calls upon the Bush Administration to integrate environmental concerns into the trade agreements that it is now negotiating, as well as subsequent agreements, and make it clear both to the American public and current and future trading partners, that U.S. trade policy is based on the principles of sustainable development; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NWF calls upon Congress, and other multilateral bodies such as the United Nations agencies, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank, all of which play a central role in determining national, regional and global trade policies, to define and promote the inclusion of environmental protection and the promotion of sustainable development as critical objectives in trade policies; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NWF intends to focus its emerging interest in this area so as to assure that trade agreements now being negotiated by the United States, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as well as subsequent agreements, include environmental concerns.