CBS Anchor's Links to Green Group Criticized

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 7/23/02 | Marc Morano

[steve in DC]

Actually The Nature Conservancy is a relatively "conservastive" organization in that they take privately acquired money to purchase land for private use. Upon their lands they promote natural environments and environmental causes but they do so with their own money. This is not a big government program- this is a privately organized environmental program. Environmentalists have as much right to purchase land as anyone else.

This is one of those partial truths that mislead. The Nature Conservancy actually does take privately raised monies and purchase tracts of land. However, they then encumber those lands with covenants on the deeds that run with the land, and then they sell the encumbered properties to the States and to the Federal government for cash.

The process then repeats.

When it comes to taking lands out of private hands and encumbering them against fair use or development, the Nature Conservancy is the little engine that could.

[sauropod]

Well, well, well... Little Charlie Osgood is in thick
with the greenies. Whoda thunk it? 'Pod

[Nuke'm Glowing]

A socialist working with socialists. What's the suprise?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I always liked his "end pieces;" those bright little stories at the end of the newscast. Had no idea he was a kook.

[genefromjersey]

Gee ! I'm a member of the Conservancy myself.

Didn't realize it was an extremist position to try to preserve small pieces of environmentally vulnerable property by buying them, or by inheriting them !

They may have some wacky-baccy members, but, by and large, they have a reputation (unique among environmental groups) of spending most of their contributions on actual environmental preservation.

[madfly]

ping

[KLT]

Hmmmmmm. Why am I not surprised...The Clinton Broadcasting Station puts another hoof in their collective mouths!

[HairOfTheDog]

Thanks for chiming in... good to have someone who actually knows about the group on the thread.

[dogbyte12]

This is a terribly written story. "One Critic thinks they are bad". Then 8 paragraphs or so later, they identify a conservative critic of the group.

That is just silliness. Like this group or not, this is just a terribly written article. I would laugh just as hard if a story was written called... "Bush being criticized for oil deals", being told a critic opposed them... Then 8 paragraphs later being told, James Carville, journalist, finds it objectionable.

This is an advocacy piece. I wish "news organizations" like this would just say why they are opposed to the Nature Conservancy and quit pretending to be journalists.

[nygoose]

The organization appears to be a conduit for Federal money. The so-called "private money" ends up being replaced by the Feds, allowing the "private money" to be recycled ad-infinitum.

[steve in DC]

"...at least the Nature Conservancy is on the right track in that they buy property with private funds for their own purposes- nothing more American then that.

I don't have any problem with the Nature Conservancy buying property and turning it into greenways, bug preserves or anything else.

As you point out, private money certainly permits people to do what they wish with their property (in some cases ;^) .

I would feel much better about the Nature Conservancy if they weren't using my tax dollars to further their ends.

You have to look at the broad pattern to see my problem with this. The Nature Conservancy buys a farm or estate in Southern Maryland, for instance, to keep the property from being developed. They pay $5 million. They then encumber the property from development and flip the property to the Feds as a "park" or "open space" and the feds pay them back their $5 million plus some.

Then they do the same thing, with the same dollars, somewhere else. Again, and again and again.

Buying with private funds, with the intent to own is one thing. In the case of the Nature Conservancy, 'flipping" these properties to the feds, after they have been encumbered, in my view, demonstrates a much too cozy relationship between this organization and our masters...er...public servants. Their "private" money, in effect, is never "spent".

[Always Right]

I am shocked, I tell ya, just shocked! Imagine such an objectivie network having people tied to leftist extreme groups. I must have woke up in some parrallel universe.

[Austin Willard Wright]

You are wrong about the NC. They are not a free-market environmentalist group though claim to be when trying to get money from donors. The NC is a shake-down outfit much like Operation Push. Through manipulating the federal and local bureucracy to use regulations and threats of eminent domain, it intimidates old widows to "sell" their farmland at loss to the NC. It then turns around and sells the land back to the government for a tidy profit. The end result is the NC makes money and the government gets more formally private land. If you don't believe me, contact R.J. Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The NC is a truly an evil scam. At least, Earth First is honest!

[Austin Willard Wright]

It is far worse than than that! See 34.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Perhaps you need to read this and then come back and tell your opinion of TNC.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Please go here and read and come back and tell why the Nature Conservancy is not a MONSTER of the highest evil.

[Austin Willard Wright]

I didn't mean to say that the NC actually uses the power of eminent domain itself. It is more indirect than that and more insidious. Often, it is able to use its "influence" in the local and federal government to strong-arm landowners with the "friendly warning" that "the government will take the property anyway if you don't sell it to us."

In such cases, the NC might invent an imagined danger to scare the owner, benefit from advance knowledge because of its cozy relationship with bureucrats or politician, or even cause the danger to come about in the first place. It is a complicated process but Smith has written on this and you can get more info at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

[Austin Willard Wright]

Excellent article.