Controversy Over the Nature Conservancy's Land Acquisition

These are items on other Web sites that are of interest to the nonprofit world. The Chronicle has no control over their content or availability. To reach the Philanthropy Today staff, send an e-mail message to daily.news@philanthropy.com

Compiled by Noelle Barton, Caroline Bermudez, Maria Di Mento, Candie Jones, Heather Joslyn, and Cassie Moore.

RSS / Atom

October 29, 2007

Controversy Over the Nature Conservancy's Land Acquisition

The Nature Conservancy, one of the world’s largest environmental groups, has purchased 161,000 acres of prized land in the Adirondacks for $110-million, but to preserve it, the group will allow logging, which has drawn criticism in some quarters, reports The New York Times.

The 161,000 acres of land was purchased from Finch, Pruyn & Company, a timber business. As part of the acquisition, the conservancy agreed to continue logging to supply wood to the Finch Paper mill in Glens Falls, N.Y., for the next 20 years.

Anonymous foresters quoted by the newspaper say the conservancy may cut at least 65,000 tons of pulpwood trees per year for the mill. Additional varieties of trees may also be cut. Furthermore, to pay off debt and high property taxes, the conservancy will, in the near term, sell off land to private owners.

Michael T. Carr, executive director of the Adirondack chapter of the Nature Conservancy, says, “Right now, people are not sure if we’re going to cut trees or hug them.”

(Free registration is required to view this article.)

Comments

What could one effectively comment on such blatant hypocrisy? If the so-called environmental group can even be open about their totally contradictory intentions, who can hope to get through to them? Philanthropy of any kind requires a source of funds from somewhere, but to destroy a large part of the beneficiary itself is “killing the goose that laid the golden egg”, “biting the hand which feeds one”, etc. One can only hope that nature itself will teach these nasty humbugs a good lesson.

— Eugene Yakub Oct 31, 02:10 PM #

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Princeton U. to Return Artifacts to Italy
Next: French Charity Accused of Smuggling Children