law for national parks

As you all surely noticed, we have discussed the creation of a national park system. We also need rules to preserve these parks.

As some of the proposed rules we have set up will conflict with existing law, we need to do a constitutional ammendment to add a law concerning the national parks.

I now want to summarize and discuss for 1-2 days the rules we already set up in other parts of the forum for this. Then, i will ask shaitan to word the ammendment to fit into the book of laws. After this, the ammendment will be put to a citizen poll.

Phoenatican national park authorities:
The "phoenatican national park authorities" is an office under the authority of the domestic department. This office will be responsible for maintaining the national parks in phoenatica.
The rangers working there will maintain the park-thread for each park and veto any moovement of the government against the park or against the rules for the parks (see rules for the parks).

Rules for the Parks:
No existing tile- or city-improovements are destroyed! These rules only apply for new improovements.
1) no pollution
all polluting improovements in cities in a range of 2 tiles around the park-borders or within those borders are not allowed. polluting improovements are for example factories
2) no railroads
railroads on tiles within the park borders are not allowed except to directly connect 2 cities which are not already connected via railroad. in any case, approoval of the park authorities is needed.
3) no mining and deforesting
mining and deforesting of tiles withing the park borders are not allowed. the only exception is deforesting of jungle, which has to be approved by park authorities.
4) pollution clearing
The government commits itself to give the clearing of pollutions from the park areas the highest priority. Workers will be drawn off from other projects immediately to clear park pollution as soon as possible.

Overriding park authorities and park-rules
To override a decission of the park-authorities or any rule stated above, an approval via citizen poll has to be given.

Park borders, new parks
Any citizen may propose a new park from the domestic department. The proposal will be reviewed by park authorities and a discussion thread with a detailed map will be opened.

If the governors of the provinces bordering the park approve the proposal, it is immediately taken to congress for ratification.
If the governors do not approve the proposal, it is taken to the council. If approved there, it is taken to congress ratification as above.
If not approved by council, the proposal is denied.
It may be rediscussed immidiately, but the next ratification attempt can only be held after a minimum of 2 weeks.

I propose the future ammendment to be split:
a law-part and a standards part.
the law-part should contain the areas where the park authorities override governor/mayor/leader decissions, and the standards part should hold the details...

Get rid of all references to approval. Either allow or disallow railroads between cities. With the rules set down, and park rangers looking for violators, it will run smoothly.

Approval by the Congress and the Council for exemptions to the park rules is too much. It only takes Congress to pass or revoke these laws entirely. Go with one or the other. Or perhaps use the Senate (governors) instead. They're closer to the land than the Council.

i changed the override to congress. it may sometime be necessary to override some rules in emergency without having them fall completely.

if we would have the governors decide about the override, they could not be impartial.

EDIT:
also changed wording to
"citizen poll"=> congress
"cabinet"=>council

Good point on the Council over the Senate. Basically, governors will be calling a Council Vote to get an exemption to the park restrictions then.

Another thought - overrides fit the criteria of a quick poll (reversible, one time event). Perhaps citizen approval would be a better idea as we will not need to make a precedent for a non-Executive calling a Council Vote and will not need to create a new Council Vote definition.

changed. will there be a fine-worded way to say citizen poll?

btw:
if you would like to reword the above already, please feel free to pm me. i will then post it in post1

Are nuclear plants considered polluting? They actually reduce the amount of polution during normal use but have a possibility of meltdown during riots.

Polluting improvements: factories, manufacturing plants, coal plants.

Should an incentive for polution reducers be stipulated? "Governors can directly request funds to rush polution reducing improvements: nuclear plants, mass transportation, recycling center."

Research Laboratories and Airports pollute also, so none of them.

Labs polute? I never realized that.

curu is right. also the nuclear plants should be denied. a possible major pollution of our nature would be bad.

the list will so be:
factories, manufacturing plants, coal plants, airports, laboratories and nuclear plants.

i think we dont need rush-priorization, as the domestic leader will soon give funds for that or override the queues if he notices the parks use 50 workers to clear pollution ;-)
so the worker rule will be enough (in fact, no worker can be used for other work as long as pollution is in a park).

this will evolve in a kind of "kyoto protocol" of phoenatica!

does any1 have any other polluting improovements?

Off shore platform?

does it pollute?

It doesn't say so in the Civilopedia. Can anybody verify?

obviously no. the list should be a standard though. shaitan, could you write down an ammendment for a poll?

I'll work it up today and post it here for review.

Code of Laws
Section J: National Park Rules

1. New Railroads may not be constructed except directly between cities.
2. Cities that have park land in their radius may not construct new pollution causing improvements (factory, coal plant, nuclear plant, manufacturing plant, research laboratory, Airport).
3. Tiles may not be deforested, irrigated or mined. Jungle may be cleared.
4. Pollution on park land will be cleared in preference to all other worker tasks.
5. A majority of citizen approval is required to override standing park rules.
6. Any citizen may propose a new park or change in territory for an existing park. Approval requires the support of the governor(s) whos province is involved and a majority of citizen approval.

Actually going through this to write up the law brought some things out:

• Park Rangers have been taken out. No non-elected official is detailed in the Constitution or Codes. There's no requirement for Rangers to be listed here.
• The rules are short and concise enough to be put into a single section instead of breaking into the COL and COS. As they modify governor and leader rights that are given in the COL, the park rules are submitted as a new section of law.
• Reference to the Domestic Department was removed. Once again, there's no need to officially tie this to the Domestic Department. As it sits in its default wording it is the purview of the Legislature.
• Added that governor approval for parklands in their provinces is needed. Generally speaking, a governor is the one with the overall view of the provinces needs. The average citizen (who's vote is required to approve new parks) will not have the plan or view of the province. As parks will directly affect the governor's duties by restricting tile development and city improvements I thought they should get a bigger say in this. Thoughts?
• Added irrigation to the list of prohibitions. Irrigation nastifies nature just as effectively as mining and deforesting. Thoughts?

looks good to me. maybe one thing:
the explicit list of which improovements are considered as "polluting" should really be a standard, as maybe there will be a need to change this easily. but it would work fine as a quick-win for the rules as it is. we could make a seperate "list of polluting improovements" and "list of allowed tile workages" later as refinement of this rule.
you got my "go" for the poll

One other thought - jungles. That's nature, too. A lot of nature. If we're setting up a preserve or park, shouldn't we save the jungle?

Our newfound friends in Apolytonia would certainly appreciate a nicely kept jungle when they come to visit.