# Did Bill Clinton turn over US National Parks to the United Nations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193 "2016-09-29T12:02:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/41 "2016-09-30T21:24:29Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Фольгированные снова! Cheer up, there’s always Detroit. Of course, then the problem becomes “Would anybody notice ?” ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/42 "2016-10-01T00:00:50Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Woosh, I think. > > I was going to make the same comment. It is very unlikely that the US would want to nuke its own national parks. This is why we should declare the entire country a national park and put it on the UN registry. Then nobody could legally nuke us! ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/43 "2016-10-01T08:36:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Фольгированные снова! ‘Wrapped in [foil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urglg3WimHA) again’? I think the verb you want is [предотвращать](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C#Russian). ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2016, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/44 "2016-10-01T12:51:33Z")
Did Bill Clinton turn over US National Parks to the United Nations? No. Anyone who says he did, is lying, or has been fooled into lying by someone else. The President is not empowered to give parts of the country away to foreign powers. Stop listening to people who so clearly have as their agenda, to get you to hate or fear others blindly. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/45 "2016-10-02T07:58:50Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > ‘Wrapped in [foil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urglg3WimHA) again’? > I think the verb you want is [предотвращать](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C#Russian). I found it a bit suspicious that Google Translate gave back the exact same English as I’d originally put in, when I reversed the translation. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/46 "2016-10-02T09:01:08Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > The designation boils down to, using my own words, three things: 1) a simple recognition that a site has historical or cultural significance, 2) specific protection from bombardment during war, 3) the UN may make statements (and really not much more) at various times if the host country should do additional things to protect the site. Well there’s a couple of other aspects to it. In less developed countries gaining world heritage status for a site probably helps give tourism a bit of a boost. Also UNESCO has some funding available to help protect or restore world heritage sites, but it’s something that a country has to request specifically. > **[International Assistance - UNESCO World Heritage Centre](https://whc.unesco.org/en/intassistance/)** > > UNESCO World Heritage Centre There is a tiny tiny grain of truth in that World heritage status might make it difficult (or internationally embarrassing) to develop or change a site. In Australia a large part of Tasmania is world heritage, as it’s pristine wilderness. Tony Abott’s government wanted to delist a chunk of it so it could be logged. The UN refused the request to delist the portion. > **[Tony Abbott's 'captain’s call' over Tasmanian forest humiliated Australia,...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/01/tony-abbotts-captains-call-over-tasmanian-forest-humilated-australia-say-greens)** > > Freedom of Information documents reveal the PM pushed forward with an election pledge to delist world heritage forest despite departmental caution Of course they could have gone ahead and logged it anyway, however the political fallout from that would have been problematic, so they backed down. The vast majority of Australian’s were not in favour of the area being delisted, so as far as they’re concerned the system worked. So yeah if you’re in favour of drilling for oil in the grand canyon or logging Yosemite you might think that the US has conceded some sovereignty, since World Heritage status would make it more difficult to do that. Of course those sites were World Heritage areas long before Clinton’s Presidency anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/47 "2016-10-02T15:14:57Z")
> [@aluminumdisc1](#): > > It was a great night overall apart from that head scratcher Was it a Dominance thing? Was he trying to say something obviously insane (like “…2+2 really equals 5, if you know Anything about particle physics…” :rolleyes: ) to see if you’d challenge it? Some people think in weird terms like that and are always trying butt heads ( Freudian slip ) to try to get over on or control any group they spend time with. ---
**Author:** ![aluminumdisc1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e495f1/32.png) [@aluminumdisc1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aluminumdisc1)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/48 "2016-10-03T02:58:53Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > Was it a Dominance thing? Was he trying to say something obviously insane (like “…2+2 really equals 5, if you know Anything about particle physics…” :rolleyes: ) to see if you’d challenge it? > Some people think in weird terms like that and are always trying butt heads ( Freudian slip ) to try to get over on or control any group they spend time with. Yeah, I didn’t take the bait but I did post this (knowing full well how this thread would go) and send the link out to everyone involved. My way of calling bullshit ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193/49 "2016-10-05T02:42:23Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > The claim in the OP sounds an awful lot like the claim somebody posted over on the official World of Warcraft forums yesterday, that Obama was handing control of the Internet over to the U.N. > [@Atamasama](#): > > Controlling DNS is exerting a lot of power over the web. Saying otherwise is like saying that controlling roads isn’t controlling land travel. Technically that’s true because people can travel off-road or fly but for the majority of modern day people it’s pretty close to the truth. > [@Chronos](#): > > Sure, DNS is a big deal, but no one entity controls that, either. > [@Atamasama](#): > > Unless I’m mistaken they control the TLDs (.com, .net, etc.) and how public IP addresses are allocated. Look at the “notable events” section of ICANN’s [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN) for some of the influence they’ve had. ICANN (the naming authority) is not the UN. it is a private sector, non-profit corporation. It’s also very badly governed, and perhaps turning over countrol of anything to it is a bad idea. IANA (the numbering authority) is owned by the US government. Some people (Americans) think that IANA should go private. Some people (non-Americans) think that IANA should go to the UN. Hardly anyone, inside or outside Congress, thinks that the American government should run IANA. ICANN is the candidate to take over IANA from the US goverment. Since the US goverment controls IANA, it’s going to go private, and ICANN is the only candidate around. The only thing slowing it down has been that ICANN is such a mess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-bill-clinton-turn-over-us-national-parks-to-the-united-nations/767193.md?page=2)