Never heard of The Nature Conservancy? Well,
that's probably no accident. It keeps a low profile by design.
When you run scams like it does, you don't want to be notorious.
So let's lift the rock off these slugs and
shine a very bright spotlight on a few of their most outrageous
games.
The Nature Conservancy is the richest, most
powerful environmental colossus in the world. It claims 680,000
individual members and 405 corporate members operating out of
eight regional offices and fifty chapter offices across the
nation. The Nature Conservancy has assets of almost $1 Billion
and has an annual operating budget of over $300 million and a
staff of 1150 people.
THE SCAM - real estate. THE HOOK
- "conservation through private action." According to
the party line, The Nature Conservancy simply buys land with
private money and sets up nature reserves, thereby helping the
environment without infringing on anybody. What a wonderful,
charitable idea. Ah, if only it were true.
THE VICTIMS - unsuspecting property
owners (many times elderly). THE METHODS - hide behind
phony corporations; serve as a shill for government agencies; work
behind the scenes with more visible environmental groups to
intimidate property owners into selling. THE GOAL - money
and power.
The Nature Conservancy frequently uses phony
front companies to get land from owners who wouldn't knowingly
sell to an environmentalist group.
It used this tactic to purchase most of the
islands off the coast of Virginia, containing 40,000 acres and
sixty miles of coastline. In doing so The Nature Conservancy was
able to stop all private development and control the use of the
land, damaging the tax base, killing thousands of jobs, and
severely curbing the locals from hunting, fishing, camping and joy
riding on the islands.
But don't think the purpose was to preserve
these beautiful, pristine islands for nature. The Nature
Conservancy did bar others from developing the land - but not
itself. Far from it. At a huge profit, the Conservancy developed
up-scale homes for the rich.
But how is that bad? If they do it with private
money what's wrong with it? Isn't that just free enterprise?
The problem is The Nature Conservancy is a
non-profit organization with tax exempt status and they maintain
that status because of their tightly protected image as benevolent
conservationists. Moreover, property owners on the islands wanted
to invest in development and thought they were selling their land
to developers. They were aware of and frightened by the Nature
Conservancy and would never have sold to the group. That's why the
Conservancy hid behind a phony land company, grabbed power, foiled
the development and made a huge profit on tax-exempt money. Today
much of the coast of Virginia is off-limits to tourists and other
development.
Other times, The Nature Conservancy acts as a
shill to a government agency to acquire land cheaply and sell it
to the government at a huge profit. Again, conservation is not the
goal.
One of its favorite scams goes something like
this. Your grandmother owns land close to a historic site or a
wilderness area. The government wants the land to expand a park
but grandmother won't sell.
One day a representative of the Nature
Conservancy shows up, well dressed, smiling, but concerned. He
tells your grandmother that he's just learned that the government
intends to take her land after she passes away. She won't be able
to sell it or give it to her children. However, he can offer a
solution.
If Grandmother will sell her land to The Nature
Conservancy he can assure her that the land will stay in private
hands and not be taken by the government.
Well, a relieved grandmother is much happier
and she agrees to sell. However, says the nice man from The Nature
Conservancy, because the government has threatened to take the
land, its value is now only about half its reported market value.
That's all he'll be able to pay her. Well, thinks grandmother,
half is better than nothing, so she sells.
The next day our friend from The Nature
Conservancy makes a call to the Department of the Interior
informing them that their plan has worked. The whole thing had
been pre-arranged between them before anyone ever knocked on
Grandmother's door. As arranged, The Nature Conservancy then sells
the land to the Interior Department FOR FULL MARKET VALUE PLUS
OVERHEAD, FINANCING AND HANDLING CHARGES.
Hundreds of complaints have been recorded
concerning the practices of the Conservancy's land grabbing
operation. One family in Indiana had to sue to get back their
father's land that was signed over to The Nature Conservancy when
he was very old and mentally incompetent to handle his affairs.
Agents of the Conservancy had helped him in changing documents
that left his entire estate to The Nature Conservancy. The family
won back their property but only after being forced to spend a
fortune in legal fees.
Unfortunately space allows only a minor look at
the mammoth operation of The Nature Conservancy. Its power, wealth
and control is almost beyond comprehension. Yet it is able to
maintain an image of idealism and concern for the environment.
The truth is The Nature Conservancy is really
little more than a massive, ruthless real estate machine using its
tax exempt status and ties to the government to create wealth for
itself.
So If ever you receive a knock on the door from
a smiling representative of The Nature Conservancy, slam it in his
face and rush to you neighbors to sound the alarm, or the saying
"there goes the neighborhood" could take on a completely
different meaning.
