[bert]

The Nature Conservancy are the good guys.

They carefully survey the country and then buy, as in raising money and purchasing, land with some natural resource worth saving. They do it without fanfare or publicity.

Their agenda is real and worthwhile. They are a political and don't intend to save the world. They concentrate on relatively small parcels of great significance.

[madfly]

Sadly, you are mistaken. As was I and many people before becoming informed. I have a stack of their lovely magazines and used to donate because I believed in theory, that they were one of the "good guys".

You may want to read this thread from last May when the Washington Post ran a series of articles exposing their agenda.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/906107/posts

BIG GREEN : Inside the Nature Conservancy Nonprofit Land Bank Amasses Billions
Washington Post ^ | May 4, 2003 | By David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens

Posted on 05/05/2003 3:05:11 PM PDT by Ethan_Allen

BIG GREEN : Inside the Nature Conservancy Nonprofit Land Bank Amasses Billions Charity Builds Assets on Corporate Partnerships

___ The Nature Conservancy ___ SPECIAL REPORT

Documents on the organization's transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut.

Read Today's Documents:Internal Conservancy ReportConservancy Letter to The PostFocus Group ResearchConservancy Opinion SurveyGraphic: Expanding CompanyGraphic: Corporate Friends

_____More Stories_____

• How a Bid to Save a Species Came to Grief (The Washington Post, May 5, 2003) • On Eastern Shore, For-Profit 'Flagship' Hits Shoals (The Washington Post, May 5, 2003) • The Beef About the Brand (The Washington Post, May 5, 2003) • $420,000 a Year and No-Strings Fund (The Washington Post, May 4, 2003) • Image Is a Sensitive Issue (The Washington Post, May 4, 2003)

By David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, May 4, 2003; Page A01

First of three articles

"The Arlington-based Nature Conservancy has blossomed into the world's richest environmental group, amassing $3 billion in assets by pledging to save precious places. Known for its advertisements decorated with forests, streams and the soothing voice of actor Paul Newman, the 52-year-old charity preserves millions of acres across the nation.

Yet the Conservancy has logged forests, engineered a $64 million deal paving the way for opulent houses on fragile grasslands and drilled for natural gas under the last breeding ground of an endangered bird species...." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9888-2003May3.html

Cover page for all articles is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/natureconservancy/
Excerpted - click for full article ^
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9888-2003May3.html

---

TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT; LANDGRAB; LANDGRABS; NATURECONSERVANCY; WATERMELON; Click to Add Keyword

[sergeantdave]

Yeh, they're the good guys if you want to see the government own more land, pay higher property taxes, and see you and your family locked out of land so you can't hike it, fish it, and hunt it. They're also good guys if you like to see elderly landowners scammed out of their land, see productive land turned into mosquito infested swamps and see in-holder private property stolen.

TNC is under new leadership, so I'm hoping it will become more responsible and less of a pain in the ass.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "The Nature Conservancy are the good guys."

Am I missing one them nuance thingies?

Ask the people of Klamath Falls. They know about TNC and "rural cleansing," financial ruin, suicide, revolving doors between government and enviro-wacko pukes, activist federal judge pukes, sucker fish, Fish and Wildlife "scientists'" studies that have to be rewritten to remove grammatical errors before universities can peer review, thousands of people from all over the U.S. coming to help -- and, yes! damn near revolution.

http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/0tnctoc.htm

Just one of may links there: "Large Klamath Basin Landowner--"protector of the US countryside' is in trouble: Wilderness bewilderment, "Nature Conservancy felled trees, allegedly drilled for gas beneath the last breeding-ground of an endangered bird and sold unspoiled land at discounted prices to its trustees so they could build luxury homes in some of America's most beautiful landscapes, according to the Washington Post, which spent two years investigating its activities," May 29, 2003, The Guardian."

[teeman8r]

the nature conservancy fights for the government to shut down private property owners from utilizing privately owned land, declaring them as sensitive habitat areas without compensation...

they take parcels donated to them for preservation and sell them to developers for other more important tracts.

tnc is evil.

i know from personal experience


teeman

[Issaquahking]

Bert, don't be duped! The red diaper commy nature conservancy is anything but the good guys! Perhaps in your media works you should log in to the Klamath Bucket Brigade org. TNC has an agenda from hell and sucks everyone in, till they discover the truth. Perhaps you should try some of the links out of my profile page. RURAL CLEANSING Environmentalists Goal: Depopulate the countryside By Kimberley A. Strassel Wall Street Journal -- July 26, 2001 Commentary Federal authorities were forced to cut off water to 1,500 farms in Oregon's and California's Klamath Basin in April because of the "endangered" sucker fish. The environmental groups behind the cutoff continue to declare that they are simply concerned for the welfare of a bottom-feeder. But last month, those environmentalists revealed another motive when they submitted a polished proposal for the government to buy out the farmers and move them off their land. This is what's really happening in Klamath -- call it rural cleansing -- and it's repeating itself in environmental battles across the country. Indeed, the goal of many environmental groups -- from the Sierra Club to the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) -- is no longer to protect nature. It's to expunge humans from the countryside. The Greens' Strategy The strategy of these environmental groups is nearly always the same: to sue or lobby the government into declaring rural areas off-limits to people who live and work there. The tools for doing this include the Endangered Species Act and local preservation laws, most of which are so loosely crafted as to allow a wide leeway in their implementation. In some cases owners lose their property outright. More often, the environmentalists' goal is to have restrictions placed on the land that either render it unusable or persuade owners to leave of their own accord. The Klamath Basin saga began back in 1988, when two species of suckers from the area were listed under the Endangered Species Act. Things worked reasonably well for the first few years after the suckers were listed. The Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the area's irrigation, took direction from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and tried to balance the needs of both fish and farmers. This included programs to promote water conservation and tight control over water flows. The situation was tense, but workable. But in 1991 the Klamath basin suffered a drought, and Fish and Wildlife noted that the Bureau of Reclamation might need to do more for the fish. That was the environmentalists' cue. Within two months, the ONRC -- the pit bull of Oregon's environmental groups -- was announcing intentions to sue the Bureau of Reclamation for failure to protect the fish. The group's lawsuits weren't immediately successful, in part because Fish and Wildlife continued to revise its opinions as to what the fish needed, and in part because of the farmers' undeniable water rights, established in 1907. But the ONRC kept at it and finally found a sympathetic ear. This spring, a federal judge -- in deciding yet another lawsuit brought by the ONRC, other environmental groups, fishermen and Indian tribes -- ordered an unwilling Interior Department to shut the water off. The ONRC had succeeded in denying farmers the ability to make a living. Since that decision, the average value of an acre of farm property in Klamath has dropped from $2,500 to about $35. Most owners have no other source of income. And so with the region suitably desperate, the enviros dropped their bomb. Last month, they submitted a proposal urging the government to buy the farmers off. The council has suggested a price of $4,000 an acre, which makes it more likely owners will sell only to the government. While the amount is more than the property's original value, it's nowhere near enough to compensate people for the loss of their livelihoods and their children's futures. The ONRC has picked its fight specifically with the farmers, but its actions will likely mean the death of an entire community. The farming industry will lose $250 million this year. But property-tax revenues will also decrease under new property assessments. That will strangle road and municipal projects. Local businesses are dependent on the farmers and are now suffering financially. Should the farm acreage be cleared of people entirely, meaning no taxes and no shoppers, the community is likely to disappear. Nor has the environment won, even at this enormous cost. The fish in the lake may have water, but nothing else does. On the 200,000 acres of parched farmland, animals belonging to dozens of species -- rabbits, deer, ducks, even bald eagles -- are either dead or off searching for water. And there's no evidence the suckers are improving. Indeed, Fish and Wildlife's most recent biological opinions, which concluded that the fish needed more water, have been vociferously questioned by independent biologists. Federal officials are now releasing some water (about 16% of the normal flow) into the irrigation canals, but it doesn't help the farmers or wildlife much this year. Environmentalists argue that farmers should never have been in the "dry" Klamath valley in the first place and that they put undue stress on the land. But the West is a primarily arid region; its history is one of turning inhospitable areas into thriving communities through prudent and thoughtful reallocation of water. If the Klamath farmers should be moved, why not the residents of San Diego and Los Angeles, not to mention the Southwest and parts of Montana and Wyoming? All of these communities survive because of irrigation -- water that could conceivably go to some other "environmental" use. But, of course, this is the goal. Environmental groups have spoken openly of their desire to concentrate people into cities, turning everything outside city limits into a giant park. A journalist for the Rocky Mountain News recently noted that in June the Sierra Club posted on its Web site a claim that "efficient" urban density is about 500 households an acre. This, in case you're wondering, is about three times the density of Manhattan's most tightly packed areas. And it's not as if there were any shortage of open space in the West. The federal government already owns 58% of the western U.S., with state and local government holdings bumping the public percentage even higher. Balanced Stewardship Do the people who give money to environmental groups realize the endgame is to evict people from their land? I doubt it. The American dream has always been to own a bit of property on which to pursue happiness. This dream involves some compromises, including a good, balanced stewardship of nature -- much like what was happening in Klamath before the ONRC arrived. But this dream will disappear -- as it already is in Oregon and California -- if environmental groups and complicit government agencies are allowed to continue their rural cleansing. Be informed! Don't allow yourself to be snowed by CARA. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help support this site. Buy a t-shirt or sticker. Back to Environmental Issues list Back to Environmental Issues & Property Rights Bulletin Board Read this

[Osage Orange]

I live a few miles from a 36,000 acre Nature Conservancy. When this place was formed they had much bigger plans. If it wasn't for some very vocal, active land owners...( My cousin and her husband with their 500 acres, included..) they would have had their land basically confiscated...against their wishes. In my neck of the woods....that's not a way to describe "good guys".

I could go on. I can personally attest to be true, some of the very things you could be reading on this thread.

FWIW-