WASHINGTON—The world's wealthiest green group may be investigated by the US government in the light of allegations that it has engaged in practices more commonly associated with the enemies of the environment.
Nature Conservancy felled trees, allegedly drilled for gas beneath the last breeding ground of an endangered bird and sold unspoilt 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.
Attwater's prairie chicken
The conservancy group has $3bn in assets and a million members, and is ubiquitous in the US. Its image as the preserver of the country's wilderness has been severely tarnished by the investigation.
The paper says the oil company Mobil gave the charity a stretch of coastline in Texas that supports the almost extinct Attwater's prairie chicken. But the Post claims that, instead of shielding the land, Nature Conservancy sank a gas well, losing a $10m lawsuit concerning another charity's claim to the oil rights, and exposing the birds, in the words of one of Nature Conservancy's scientists, to "a higher probability of death".
The revelations, confirmed by the Guardian, encompass a scheme in which the conservancy's wealthy supporters, among them the chat show host David Letterman, were sold land by the charity at far less than cost, in return for accepting restrictions on how they could develop it.
Those buying the land would often make up the difference with a roughly equivalent donation to the conservancy, claiming a large tax deduction for the gift, meaning that the US treasury sweetened the deal. The buyer was free to develop the land as long as the charity's environmental restrictions were followed. But they were often not strict enough to prevent the owner installing tennis courts and clearing trees for a better view.
Mr Letterman, a conservancy trustee, bought part of an 87-hectare stretch on Martha's Vineyard, though it was not clear whether he made a parallel donation.
The charity says it has suspended the "conservation buyer" scheme pending a review. But Democrat and Republican senators are seeking an investigation, bringing into the Washington spotlight a long-running debate on how close the green movement should get to big business.
Nature Conservancy is certainly very close. Among those with seats on its council are some of America's most notorious environmental offenders: Pacific Gas and Electric - the polluting anti-hero of the movie Erin Brockovich - Exxon Mobil and General Motors. It receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year from business, some for letting companies use its name and logo on products.
"Talking philosophically, there's a spectrum, and, yes, the conservancy is very pragmatic," Jordan Peavey, its spokeswoman, told the Guardian. The charity has admitted that it made mistakes, but, Ms Peavey said, "We have our niche, and we're very effective at what we do. That enables
us to get work done that groups like Greenpeace couldn't do - not to pick on them particularly, because they can do things that we couldn't."
A former head of land acquisition for Nature Conservancy, David Morine, told the Post: "It was the wrong decision to get so close to industry. Business got in under the tent, and we are the ones who invited them in. These corporate executives are carnivorous. You bring them in and they just take over. [That policy was] the biggest mistake in my life."
It is the Texas gas drilling that may do the most damage, because it seems so profoundly at odds with the charity's stated mission of "saving the last great places on Earth".
The plan was to buy more land for the Attwater's prairie chicken, which the US National Wildlife Federation calls the country's most endangered bird, but little went right. Oil spills and a gas explosion hurt the operation.
There is no evidence that the drilling directly harmed the birds, but the conservation efforts failed, too, and the number of birds has fallen from 36 in 1998 to an estimated 16.
Mark Hertsgaard, author of the book Earth odyssey, said: "I don't see how you could make up a worse scenario than that ... I think it tells you something about the lack of accountability in the movement, and the lack of an atmosphere in which people are going to call each other on things. It really points to a much bigger problem, which is, how do you deal with corporate power and capitalism."
As for the conservation buyer scheme, Ms Peavey insisted that it did not entail selling land to conservancy trustees and donors at a loss, because the development restrictions decreased the value.
"You're giving up substantial rights to develop, in perpetuity - owners hundreds of years from now will still have to abide by those restrictions;' she said. "So while it is true that the land was sold at a cheaper price, it was because it was worthless, by independent appraisals."
The US green group Nature Conservancy sank a gas well on the Gulf of Mexico coast, above, where the severely endangered Attwater's prairie chicken, below, nests Main photograph: Jim Olive
In its 52 years, the Nature Conservancy has been a force for good in protecting the global environment. With its "bucks and acres" program to buy land and thereby promote biodiversity, the Conservancy - with $3 billion in assets the world's richest environmental group - has acquired millions of acres, and it manages millions more. Those good works notwithstanding, a recent series by Post reporters revealed a number of disturbing aspects about the Arlington-based group's operations.
One is the tricky position the organization has put itself in by taking contributions from corporations, many of which have sorry environmental records at best. The Conservancy's corporate donations, which include donations from The Washington Post Co., have soared in the past decade, and that money comes with a price: the opening of the Conservancy to accusations that corporate polluters are using its name to "greenwash" their activities and that it remains largely silent on issues such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and global warming to avoid antagonizing corporate sponsors. That appearance is only heightened by the presence on the Conservancy's governing board of executives from companies such as American Electric Power Co. (named top air polluter among U.S. power companies by the Natural Resources Defense Council) and General Motors (named "Global Warmer Number One" by Environmental Defense). The Nature Conservancy argues that it occupies a particular niche in the ecosystem of environmental organizations - that is, preserving biodiversity- that keeps it pretty well out of the policy arena and therefore dissipates the potential conflicts it faces. What's more, it contends, corporate money that would not otherwise go to the environmental movement is used toward a worthy end. Whether that tradeoff is worth the cost and whether the Conservancy has drawn the line in the right place is a matter best left to the group's members.
The more troubling issues concerns questions of corporate governance similar to those that have faced for-profit corporations in recent years. To its credit, the Conservancy says it is taking steps to address some of these matters. For example, it will no longer make loans to officials; the group's president had obtained a $1.55 million home loan. It's taking another look at whether it will again engage in "resource extraction" activities on its land; the group was criticized when it simultaneously sought to protect the endangered Attwater's prairie chicken and drill for oil under its nesting grounds.
The Conservancy is also reexamining its "conservation buyers" program (in which it buys ecologically sensitive parcels and sells them at a discount with development restrictions) and the insider nature of some of its transactions with Conservancy trustees.
That's fine. If, as the Conservancy asserts, its goal is simply to "find a suitable buyer," there are better ways to structure that process than one in which charity insiders appear to get the first shot at pristine parcels on which to build their vacation homes.
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