Alexander unveiled his nuclear plan in July.One of the few Congressional Republicans who talks about the need to address climate change, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, made an interesting argument against wind and solar energy this week. He’s concerned about the amount of land required to produce energy from wind and solar, writing in the Wall Street Journal, “I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment.”

He draws on a recent study by Nature Conservancy scientists who detail how much land is required to produce energy from different sources, an issue they dub “energy sprawl.” Alexander focuses on a small part of their findings—that wind and solar plants require a good deal more physical space than nuclear plants:

It’s a disingenuous argument, because the problem with nuclear power has never been land use. (See Radioactive Waste Disposal, Cost, and Security for more on the very difficult nuclear question.) I’m not arguing here that Alexander’s dead wrong in his long-standing love for nuclear energy, just that this is a thin argument for nuclear.

Oh, and Alexander says he won't support a cap-and-trade climate bill unless it includes his personal wish for 100 new nuke plants.

Bonus second point: If you’re an environmentalist who cares about endangered species and wild places, you shouldn’t be concerned about wind farms or solar plants. You should worry about biofuels.

At least, I’m having a hard time avoiding that conclusion after looking at a key graphic from the energy sprawl report:

Courtesy PLoS ONE

The chart measures the land required per unit (terawatt-hour) of electricity from different sources. Note that the top five sources are all for biofuels, derived from different crops. Note how much less land wind, solar voltaic and solar thermal energy require in comparison.

I won’t rehash the economic and ecological problems with biofuels here, but this should cool off the notion that wind and solar won’t fly for land-use reasons. Of course some places are more sensitive than others, but if there’s room for mountaintop removal coal mining, we have room for wind and solar plants.

There’s a certain man-bites-dog appeal in stories about environmentalists who oppose clean energy projects because they disrupt wild places and endangered species. Take the conflict over solar panels and transmission lines in the Mojave Desert. Or the quarrel over the Cape Wind project at Nantucket Sound. Or the fight over wind turbines in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

These conflicts are intriguing, sure. But the sprawl study, which appeared in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science, suggests that biofuels such as ethanol pose a far greater threat to open lands.

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At the climate negotiations here in Bonn, the main discussions on adaptation have come to a close after a “second reading” of the draft negotiating text. Ecosystem-based adaptation, which we blogged about last week, has gained strong support from country delegations and is included in the text that is coming out of these meetings. But with six months to go to before a climate deal will be finalized in Copenhagen, there are plenty of details and potential obstacles to be addressed inside and outside these negotiations before nations will be able to make use of any adaptation agreement.

The talks here have pooled suggestions and ideas from across the globe about what ecosystem-based adaptation is. They have also marked some differences, reservations and many areas of agreement. But they are based in the very principles of the climate treaty (the UNFCCC) that provides the basis for these negotiations: that adverse effects on the environment can have significant impacts on socio-economic systems and human health and welfare.

What will be necessary in the months ahead is to make sure that these principles are not undermined as the political and financial terms of the deal are negotiated. How can we do this?

For The Nature Conservancy, our focus will be on efforts that bring developing and developed countries together to show what ecosystem-based adaptation is in practice. To show how we can build upon years of traditional and modern conservation experience to help people and natural systems fact the impacts of climate change. To show that efforts that add to the sustainability and long-term survivability of people and nature are a good return-on-investment.

But we also need the political and financial will of developed nations.

Developed countries – with their  long history of emissions and significant financial resources --  are being called to help the world’s most vulnerable developing countries, who’ve had limited emissions but are facing the hardest impacts.

There are many different estimates about how much it will cost to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Estimates by the UNFCCC are in the range between US$28 to 67 billion per year by 2030. Other estimates (e.g. World Bank and Stern Report) indicate that current needs in developing countries could range from $4 to 41 billion annually.   But one thing all estimates have in common is they call for substantially larger sums of money than we’ve seen for any climate assistance to date.

Securing adaptation funding was already an issue, even before these negotiations for a new climate agreement began. In the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries made legally-binding commitments to finance actions on mitigation, adaptation and technology.  Yet much of that has not been delivered, making developing countries skeptical about what developed countries will deliver in the future. The negotiations here have included discussions around ensuring this financing will be available, but there is a long way to go before countries come to agreement on how.

The United States has the opportunity to dispel some of those concerns by including significant funding for adaptation in legislation now moving through the House of Representatives.  Unfortunately, that bill’s funding for adaptation is well below what is needed to bring countries together or give developing countries – who will be hardest hit by climate change – the support they need to survive the impacts.

As the negotiations here come to a close, it’s clear that the international community must forge ahead quickly to ensure that local communities are equipped for the future that lies ahead. 

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It's sometimes easy for nature to get lost during the international climate change negotiations here in Bonn. Terms like "technology diffusion," "financial mechanisms" and "mitigation commitments" often dominate the talks.

But what does nature have to do with climate change and how does nature play into these negotiations?

A group of some of the world's top scientific experts released findings [PDF] in Bonn this week to help give negotiators those answers.

During a side event [PDF] at the Bonn talks on Tuesday, the expert group - officially called the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change and convened by the Convention on Biological Diversity - said nature has a "vital role to play" in helping communities adapt to and overcome the impacts of climate change.

While there is ongoing discussion here to develop a consistent term to describe this ecosystem-based approach to adaptation, it comes down to one basic principle everyone seems to agree on: ensuring that the world's natural resources are healthy and strong enough to survive the impact of climate change and can continue to provide the food, water, shelter and income we all rely upon for survival. People in developing countries in particular, whose livelihoods depend directly on nature, are the most vulnerable to climate change.

While there may be times when hard infrastructure is necessary, the expert group said that ecosystem-based adaptation is often more cost effective and more accessible to rural and poor communities than man-made infrastructure and engineering.

Unlike sea walls and levees, the experts said, using natural resources to combat climate impacts has the added benefits of supporting economies, promoting biodiversity, maintaining food and water supplies and providing other services such as eco-tourism and productive fisheries that contribute to sustainable livelihoods.

Ecosystem-based adaptation harnesses the power of nature to help human communities adapt to climate change. Strategies can include such things as protecting mangroves to shield communities and infrastructure against storm surges, ensuring forest systems stay healthy to provide clean drinking water or connecting fragmented lands to allow plants and animals to migrate away from areas impacted by climate change. These services provided free by nature would be extremely costly to replace, even if it were possible to do so.

The experts added that the value of ecosystem services must be taken into account in adaptation strategies.

In the first few days in Bonn, a range of developing countries voiced support for ecosystem-based adaptation to be part of the final climate change agreement that will be reached in Copenhagen this December.

"For island nations like ours - where we are truly on the front lines of climate change - ecosystem-based adaptation is essential to keeping our communities, economies and cultures alive," Deborah Barker-Manase, a member of the Marshall Islands Delegation and Deputy Director of her government's Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination, said during a side event Wednesday. "We have traditional knowledge and practices that we have used for generations to keep our natural resources healthy and productive. We now need the help of the global community to ensure our resources can survive the impacts of climate change."

In their policy recommendations submitted in preparation for the Bonn talks, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Costa Rica all called for natural resource protection to be used as a tool to confront and adapt to climate change. The US submission also explicitly recognized the "value of promoting ecosystem-based adaptation strategies and approaches."

But while there seems to be a growing support to ensure that nature is part of the climate change solution, the question remains of whether countries will ultimately provide the political will - and financial backing - to make it happen.

The scientific expert group, The Nature Conservancy, IUCN and many developing countries have been working to demonstrate how ecosystem-based adaptation works on the ground and how it can be incorporated into the negotiations.

Without this type of guidance within a Copenhagen agreement, there is a concern that countries may inadvertently use adaptation strategies that provide short-term benefits but cause long-term environmental damage that will simply exacerbate climate impacts.

Following some very slow opening days here in, negotiators this week and next will now move into closed door negotiations where the fate of how the world decides to combat climate change - and whether ecosystem-based adaptation will be one of the tools adopted - will be debated. It is these meetings -- and the coming months leading to Copenhagen - that will determine if governments will take the steps needed to protect nature against climate change and let nature protect us.

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Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

For my money, there's nothing more delicious than a book that lays bare the rot of a corrupted industry from an insider's perspective. In the hands of a skilled observer, the subject can spring to life. Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis's hilariously disturbing account of Wall Street's investment-banking industry in the late 1980s, comes to mind.

Green, Inc., by Christine MacDonald.

Lewis's book traces its lineage to Mark Singer's Funny Money, a masterpiece of nonfiction that exposed the double-dealing and corruption that led to the collapse of the savings and loan industry. Singer's impeccable reporting and lively writing carries the reader to the little Oklahoma bank at the epicenter of the financial catastrophe and plops him down right in the middle of the boardroom.

So, it was with a certain amount of anticipation that I picked up Christine MacDonald's book Green, Inc. (Lyons Press, $24.95) a self-described insider's tale of how the environmental movement has been hijacked by self-serving leaders and corporate stooges. The book's press release promised to reveal chapter and verse of mismanagement, malfeasance, and "double lives." An ambitious goal, no doubt, and I couldn't wait to tear into it.

The author immediately sets her sights on the Big Three of the conservation movement: Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. arm of the World Wildlife Fund -- though she doesn't pass up the opportunity to slam the Environmental Defense Fund and its leader, Fred Krupp, along with countless, but unidentified, environmental websites (what she quaintly calls ejournals), and other various and sundry enablers. She carries a special grudge for Peter Seligmann, CI's chair, and his sidekick, CI President Russell Mittermeier, whom she paints as a couple of overcompensated, jet-setting playboys who devote more time to fawning over starlets and corporate chieftains than they do saving the planet.

MacDonald is convinced -- to paraphrase a Watergate standard -- there is a cancer within the environmental movement. The malignancy can be traced to the alliances between conservation groups and corporations that took root in the 1980s and exploded over the past two decades. CI, The Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund all have come to rely on corporations and their foundations. The conservation groups might refer to the corporations as blue-chip companies. Not so, MacDonald. She calls them, "the devils of deforestation."

MacDonald wasn't always so down on big-name environmental organizations. Indeed, it was only a few short years ago that she abandoned her journalism career to take a "dream job" at CI. Her formal title: Manager of the Media Capacity Building Program of CI's Global Communications Division. In short, public relations.

It wasn't long after joining CI in 2006, MacDonald writes, that she realized that something was "deeply wrong in today's clubby, well-upholstered world of conservations." It wasn't long, either, before she was out of a job. A year after joining CI, MacDonald's position was eliminated in a reorganization. Necessity collided with opportunity and Green, Inc. was born.

Christine MacDonald.

MacDonald's accusations are many and sweeping, but, for the most part, neither original nor revealing. She complains of widespread nepotism in the environmental industry, but fails to prove the hires are incompetent or unqualified (nor does she name names to back up her point). She condemns CI for taking millions from a foundation formed by former Intel founder Gordon Moore for a biodiversity center, but the only evidence she can muster of any wrongdoing is from unnamed "critics" who call the foundation a "glorified fishing club."

She devotes a great deal of space to troubles within The Nature Conservancy -- from incompetence and mismanagement to run-ins with the Internal Revenue Service. All interesting and true, but hardly new. The Washington Post broke the Conservancy story in 2003; MacDonald's retelling sheds no new light.

And that's true of most of the book. MacDonald wants the reader to accept her premise that the environmental movement has been irreparably corrupted merely because of corporate partnerships -- i.e., guilt by association. The author is unable to see any value in conservation groups embracing such alliances in a bid to steer environmental policies within the business community.

Nonetheless, there are glimmers of a real story in MacDonald's book. In particular, I wanted to know more about CI's relationship with the Bunge Ltd., a diversified conglomerate accused of violating Brazilian environmental laws and using lawsuits and threats to silence its critics. And MacDonald is right to insist that environmental groups should be more vocal in criticizing U.S. corporations when they run afoul of environmental policies, especially those companies that have alliances with various green organizations.

In the end, though, MacDonald can't forgive nonprofits for adopting "business operating practices and jargon," and turning their back on the days of "late-night work sessions [that] would end in sing-a-longs."

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A giant tract of land in southeastern British Columbia will become protected habitat, the Canadian government and Nature Conservancy Canada announced Thursday. The so-called Darkwoods area, purchased from a private forester, adds up to 550 square kilometers of mountains, valleys, and wetlands (that's 212 square miles, for metric-system hatas). The area is home to endangered mountain caribou, grizzly bears, bull trout, red-tailed chipmunks, and 100,000 migratory birds of 265 different species. The Canadian government and the Nature Conservancy Canada jointly paid $125 million to both purchase the land and pay into an endowment fund to ensure the area continues to be protected in the future. "Darkwoods is a conservation initiative of global significance," says the Nature Conservancy's John Lounds. "It's part of a greater vision that will set new standards for conservation success."

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Every ecosystem in the eastern United States is tainted by air pollution, says a new report from The Nature Conservancy and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. The report looks at the impacts of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and ground-level ozone in six different habitats, and concludes that those damn pollutants are pretty much everywhere. Coauthor Dr. Tim Tear breaks it down: "Mercury contamination results in fish that are unsafe to eat. Acidification kills fish and strips nutrients from soils. Excess nitrogen pollutes estuaries, to the detriment of coastal fisheries. And ground-level ozone reduces plant growth, a threat to forestry and agriculture." Eastern ecosystems, downwind from many large urban and industrial areas, have the highest levels of deposited air pollution -- that is, pollutants whisked on the wind that eventually settle to the land -- in North America. The report calls, of course, for better federal monitoring and regulation of said pollutants.

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The stereotypes of biz-begrudging enviros and planet-pillaging business leaders were upended years ago. These days, green groups and corporations team up on everything from preserving land to pushing for climate regulations. Now, in the latest example of cross-pollination, they're even swapping executives.

Mark Tercek

Photo: Mark Godfrey/The Nature Conservancy

Mark Tercek, who took the helm of The Nature Conservancy this week, spent more than two decades as an investment banker and managing director at Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. In recent years, he oversaw the company's Environmental Strategy Group and Center for Environmental Markets, and pioneered Goldman's sustainability initiative, which includes commitments to use recycled office products, report publicly on the firm's carbon footprint, and invest in emerging green sectors. During his tenure, Goldman invested $1.5 billion in renewables and clean technology and helped preserve 680,000 of pristine wilderness in Chile's Tierra del Fuego region.

Still, what makes a go-getting moneyman the right leader for a conservation organization? How compatible are conservation goals with the bottom line? I spoke to Tercek recently to find out.

(Full disclosure: Amanda Griscom Little's brother is an employee at The Nature Conservancy.)

Why did you leave Wall Street for the world of green advocacy?

I'm a long-time admirer of The Nature Conservancy. I think its mission -- to conserve biodiversity on a global basis -- is an absolutely vital one. For me to have the opportunity to put to work everything I've learned over 24 years at Goldman Sachs to help the team at The Nature Conservancy achieve its mission -- how could I say no? How could I resist that kind of incredible opportunity?

What skills from your business background prepare you for the job?

Goldman Sachs is a hard-charging, ambitious organization that seeks to get difficult things done by collaborating effectively with other people -- by consensus-building and rallying people together to pursue important tasks. The firm has produced very capable leaders who have gone off to do very interesting things -- leaders like Hank Paulsen, secretary of Treasury; Gov. [Jon] Corzine [of New Jersey]; and Bob Rubin, former secretary of Treasury.

I've had the good fortune at Goldman Sachs to have a couple of important leadership positions, most recently spearheading our efforts in the environmental area. I think I've learned about how to unite people around ambitious, clear goals and achieve those goals in the most direct, efficient, and fulfilling way.

What inspired you to make the environment a focus in your work?

Tierra del Fuego.

Photo: kafeole

As a citizen of the world, I have a tremendous sense of appreciation for the natural world -- for the services the ecosystem presents and provides to us. As a parent, my wife and I have tried to expose our kids to the great wonders of the natural world, and that has reinforced my interest in the environment. And over the last five years, I've become increasingly engaged with and concerned about the environmental problems the world confronts today. So right now I feel very fortunate, genuinely and 100 percent fortunate, to have been selected to lead The Nature Conservancy.

I like your phrasing -- "the services the ecosystem presents and provides to us." It has the ring of a banker's pragmatism. Can you elaborate on the values yielded by ecosystems?

The benefits that the natural world provides mankind are obviously enormous, valueless. You can't quantify them in a crass, accountant-like way. The wonders of biodiversity are sufficiently important that they, in and of themselves, should motivate tremendous effort toward conservation. Further, there are spiritual benefits -- people might use other words -- that flow to mankind from biodiversity that justify conservation efforts.

But if you want to go even further in the analysis and look at the more concrete ecosystem services that nature provides, these economic values are staggeringly large. Academics, scientists, economists are only beginning to think hard and comprehensively about how to value them. If you think about forests acting as lungs for the planet, or forests as stores of carbon, or forests as sources of providing clean water, protecting rivers from silt, providing flood control -- you can just keep ticking through the natural world and the economic value of its services is huge.

I think you could say these economic values have never been properly calculated or factored into an enormous range of economic decision-making. Organizations like The Nature Conservancy have a great opportunity to help governments and businesspeople better understand the dollar-and-cents values of those services.

A Bush administration official once told me she believed that the invisible hand of Adam Smith has "a green thumb." Do you believe that markets can be trusted to move in the direction of the greener good?

Markets can do a tremendous amount of good here, but I think there's often the need for regulatory intervention to make things happen in the right way. Consider greenhouse-gas emissions, for instance: They impose a cost -- an "externality" in economic terms -- on society. If you don't put a price on emitting those pollutants, you'll have, as a result, bad decisions and bad outcomes. So I believe that regulatory measures such as a cap-and-trade program are needed, and that, properly structured, the market can allow very good things to happen.

We often hear these days that "green is green" -- that protecting the environment fattens the bottom line. But this is not always true. When are profit motives incompatible with environmental goals?

There are lots of win-win opportunities for the private sector to do things that are good for their business and also good for the environment. On the other hand, there are also instances when private interests and the public good don't overlap. And it's in those instances that we need good regulatory oversight.

The Nature Conservancy has historically been fairly apolitical and steered clear of lobbying and advocating for particular policies. Going forward, do you see the Conservancy lobbying for specific climate policy?

The Nature Conservancy's mission is protecting nature to conserve biodiversity. Climate change poses an enormous risk not only to everything that the Conservancy will seek to do going forward, but everything it has already done. We are members of the United States Climate Action Partnership, and as part of that coalition we've endorsed a policy approach for legislation that puts a price on emitting carbon, but in a market-friendly way. We also see a role for the Conservancy in helping shape policies that provide incentives for reducing deforestation.

Last year Goldman Sachs brokered a deal to prevent a number of planet-warming coal plants from being built in Texas. Do you plan to be fighting against coal plants in your new role at the Conservancy?

The Conservancy is in the process of developing a comprehensive energy platform that will inform our work moving forward. For now, I can tell you that you should expect to see the Conservancy partnering with businesses and governments alike to work toward achieving our mission.

The Nature Conservancy gets large corporate donations. Is there a conflict of interest that arises when an NGO is presented with corporate money?

We're very careful in all of our fundraising to not put ourselves in the position of conflict so that our fundraising ever gets in the way of our objectives. We are focused like a laser on our core mission, and we would never let our fundraising get in the way of that.

Do you have to vet the backgrounds of the companies that donate to be sure they haven't been involved in any major environmental transgressions?

We try to be very careful about all of the ways we operate and all of our partnerships with companies, multilateral organizations, government, other environmental organizations, so that the work we do is never tainted or upset.

One of the challenges The Nature Conservancy has encountered when protecting valuable ecosystems around the world is collaborating with indigenous people who work and live around these areas. How should conservation groups deal with local communities in the regions you're trying to protect?

Conservation will only work, by and large, if it works for the people who live in the area where positive outcomes are being sought. There really aren't left in the world any more large areas without people. We try very hard to pursue conservation opportunities that have a whole host of benefits but always, importantly, start with and include the local folks who live there.

In 2003, The Nature Conservancy was criticized for controversial land deals and other practices. What will you do as president to ensure that the organization maintains high ethical standards?

We are tremendously committed to and focused on acting at the highest level of transparency and good governance. My board fully supports me; my senior management team is focused on that. It's an enormously high priority to get those matters right. In my read, the organization has all the right resources in the right places to make that the likely outcome.

Who is your environmental hero?

It's hard to pick a single one. The names that immediately arise are E.O. Wilson, who has taught me a lot about appreciating the beauty and wonder and preciousness of biodiversity. The work of Gretchen Daily has helped me understand the value of ecosystem services. The work of Jared Diamond has made me more cognizant of how mankind can make big mistakes.

What do you and your family do at home to lighten your environmental footprint?

On a day-to-day basis, my family is trying hard to improve its behavior so that we reduce our footprint, but we are very humble about this and we have a long way to go. Living in New York has been great, because we can commute by public transportation and get around town on foot in a way that is fantastic.

Can you share an anecdote about a favorite outdoor or wilderness adventure?

An experience my family and I recently enjoyed was hiking for 10 days in the glaciers of the Torres del Paine region in Patagonia. As a family in modern-day America, it's hard ever for us all to be together, undistracted by the modern world -- much less in a place so beautiful.

Of all the striking ecosystems you've visited, which has been your favorite?

Tierra del Fuego. Its beauty is just extraordinary -- you'd need to be a poet to put it into words. And it's interesting and encouraging to me that private-sector actors -- Goldman Sachs in collaboration with environmental organizations -- could come together along with the Chilean government to protect in perpetuity this enormous area the size of Rhode Island for the benefit of Chilean people. It excites me to think that we're at a turning point where there's even more opportunity to [replicate this kind of collaborative conservation model] over and over, throughout the world. The private sector is waking up and understanding the stakes and the opportunity. So new players are working in concert with the traditional players to make even more great things happen.

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Some 500 square miles of privately owned forest in the northern Rocky Mountains will be protected under a deal announced Monday by the Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Land. The groups will pay Plum Creek Timber $510 million for the checkerboard tracts of land in northwest Montana. The deal is "the largest land purchase, for conservation purposes, in American history," says Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). The purchase will create a more continuous habitat for wildlife, including grizzly bears, lynx, moose, wolverines, and bull trout, and keep developers at bay; Plum Creek will be allowed to continue sustainable timber harvest in some areas. Baucus was instrumental in the deal, having successfully added a tax-credit bond mechanism to the recently passed farm bill that allows nonprofits to apply for federal grants for conservation land purchases. Half of the $510 million will be available through the Baucus provision, and the rest will be raised through donations.

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Looking for a bright side to the real-estate crunch? Look no further: Some developers, financially stressed by the housing slump, are selling land to folks who want to conserve it. It's a win-win situation: developers aren't stuck building expensive real estate that no one wants to buy, and conservation groups like the Trust for Public Land and Nature Conservancy get more funding and buying power. "Two to three years ago, local farmers and ranchers were eager to sell off their land and cash out," says the Nature Conservancy's Cristina Mestre. "Now, we're being approached en masse [to buy development rights]."

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Kids -- and adults -- these days are "videophiliacs" who prefer their nature through the TV screen rather than personally experienced, says a new study estimating that U.S. folks' participation in outdoor recreation has dropped as much as 25 percent over the past 20 years. Researchers looked at four metrics: visitation to public lands, number of fishing and hunting licenses issued, time spent camping, and time spent backpacking and hiking. Only day hiking has increased since the mid-1980s, and just slightly. "We were surprised by the results, and in some sense, quite frightened," says Patricia Zaradic, coauthor of the research, which was funded by the Nature Conservancy and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The trend bodes ill for human health, and ain't good news for the planet either: warns coauthor Oliver Pergams, "We don't see how future generations, with less exploration of nature, will be as interested in conservation as past generations."

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The company that owns China's problem-stricken Three Gorges Dam is expected to sign a pact with The Nature Conservancy to conduct a feasibility study on flood risk and floodplain management within the Three Gorges Dam reservoir. The Three Gorges Dam Company and the green group have also agreed to cooperate on researching eco-minded management of four more dams that are planned to be built upstream on the Yangtze River. These four dams have the potential to increase output of ecologically sustainable hydropower and generate more money from electricity generation, which could then be put toward warning systems, flood insurance, and floodplain protection downstream, says The Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy says it doesn't support dams, but nonetheless, "These dams will be built," says the group's Yangtze River project manager. "We must use our experience and knowledge to reduce their ecological impact."

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The subhead doth not mislead you: The president of the Nature Conservancy, Steven McCormick, has abruptly resigned.

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Enviros buy out trawlers in California bay

Attempting to conserve rapidly vanishing bottom-dwelling fish stocks off the central California coast, Environmental Defense and The Nature Conservancy have teamed with bottom-trawling fishers to create three "no-trawl zones" covering a total of nearly 6,000 square miles. In exchange for their endorsement, the fishers in California's Morro Bay will get not only a healthier fishery, but for now, what many of them wanted anyway: a way out of the business. The conservation groups are buying the trawlers' permits and boats -- deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The agreement between the fishers and NGOs is now part of the official federal plan to aid Pacific Coast fishery recovery. If similar buyout deals go down in Monterey Bay and Half Moon Bay, TNC could soon be the largest holder of trawling permits on the West Coast. The group plans to lease about half the permits to fishers under tighter rules intended to make the catch more sustainable; the other half will go unused.

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Grass banks aim to protect prairies and help ranchers

Hoping to preserve both the prairie and the livelihoods of ranchers, green groups like The Nature Conservancy have created "grass banks" by buying up land and allowing ranchers to graze there for cheap. In exchange, ranchers agree to conserve habitat on their own land for ferrets, curlews, and other species. The New Mexico-based Quivira Coalition created the first grass bank in 1997; four or so others exist, and another five or six are in startup phases. So far, these programs have been lifesavers for endangered ranchers, but conservation benefits are not as clear. Critics say that grass banks encourage overgrazing, are cost ineffective, and are temporary: if the program ends, nothing keeps ranchers from dropping their conservation efforts. Says Stephanie Gripne, who studied grass banks as part of her doctoral program, "It's not a good strategy, but there aren't a lot of other strategies."

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Many green leaders joined the Washington establishment and Big Business this week in applauding President Bush's nomination of Henry "Hank" Paulson -- Wall Street titan and heavyweight conservationist -- to replace outgoing Treasury Secretary John Snow and spearhead the administration's economic policy making. But while Paulson proved popular in many circles, a handful of right-wing groups bristled at the pick, claiming that Paulson's pro-environment views were too radical.

President Bush introduces Hank Paulson.

Photo: White House.

Much vaunted as chair of the investment firm Goldman Sachs since 1999, Paulson is less known for his role at The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest conservation organization. He joined the group's board of directors in 2001 and now serves as board chair. TNC President and CEO Steve McCormick hails Paulson as "a voice for environmental issues at the highest levels of business and government. His mark on the conservancy is indelible. He has helped us think big -- very big -- about our conservation ambitions."

Paulson believes environmental health and financial well-being are inextricably linked. "The environment and the economy have been totally misconstrued as incompatible," he told Muckraker in an interview earlier this year. "They are opposite sides of the same coin -- you can't consider one without the other."

He's put this view into action at Goldman Sachs. Under Paulson's leadership, the firm has ramped up its investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, including solar, wind, and biofuels. "We've made well over a billion in [clean-technology] investments," he said. "We're not making those investments to lose money."

In 2004, under Paulson's watch, Goldman donated 680,000 acres of wilderness in southern Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society, to the consternation of a few shareholders.

Paulson also worked with environmental groups including the World Resources Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council to develop a comprehensive environmental policy framework [PDF] for Goldman Sachs, unveiled last November. "It's certainly one of the most far-reaching that has been developed among leading companies," said WRI Senior Associate Jon Sohn. He said the policy statement broke ground by essentially calling for mandatory government limits on greenhouse-gas emissions and by saying the company would encourage its clients to adhere to high environmental standards.

As Paulson told Muckraker, "I believe that the best, strongest, most efficient companies are going to have the best environmental practices. It is axiomatic." He also asserted that companies with good green reputations have a competitive edge in luring top talent: "I believe our forward-looking environmental policy makes us more attractive to younger recruits."

On a personal level, Paulson is known to have a strong affinity for nature. Raised on a farm in Illinois, he wanted to be a forest ranger until he went to college, according to Fortune. "I've seen him many times in the out-of-doors and he can't get enough of it," said McCormick. "He's an insatiable bird-watcher, but also incredibly curious about the natural world in general. It's infectious." McCormick recalled a trip he and Paulson took to China, where they were surveying some wilderness in the Yunnan Province. "The road was washed out, our vehicle couldn't go any farther, and most of us wanted to turn around. But Hank jumped out and started putting the road back together by hand -- brick by brick -- until eventually a backup vehicle came along and rebuilt the passage. He can't be stopped."

Paulson also gives big to green causes. He and his wife Wendy, a former TNC board member who leads bird walks in New York City's Central Park, this spring donated $100 million of their Goldman stock to an environmentally focused family foundation. In the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, they donated $608,000 to the League of Conservation Voters, which works to elect candidates with strong environmental records, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Paulson's remaining net worth is estimated at more than $700 million, and according to The New York Times, he's privately expressed plans to give that wealth away.

Though reportedly a Republican -- he raised at least $100,000 for Bush's 2004 reelection campaign -- Paulson is at odds with many in the GOP over climate change. He sees it as a serious problem that can't be adequately addressed with voluntary measures, and he's committed Goldman Sachs to making a 7 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from its offices by 2012.

"Hank has a very profound sense of what's right and wrong," said McCormick. "He hasn't shied away from bringing his environmental sensibility to bear in the finance world -- even in the face of criticism -- and I think he will bring that sensibility to the Treasury."

This is precisely what some right-wing organizations fear. "We vehemently oppose the Paulson nomination," said Peter Flaherty, president of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center. "This guy has promoted environmental initiatives that blatantly contradict the interests of Goldman shareholders -- policies like Kyoto that would more or less close Western economies down, would stop any growth. It's just crazy to even consider it. So how can we trust him to promote the public interest over environmental interests?" (While Flaherty acknowledged that neither Goldman Sachs nor Paulson has endorsed Kyoto, he insisted, "The Conservancy has supported it, and Paulson's at the head of it. That's enough for me.") A few other free-market groups have also come out against Paulson.

Flaherty is trying to rally opposition to the nomination, but his efforts will almost surely be in vain. Paulson is widely expected to be approved by the Senate.

Though certainly green by Wall Street standards, Paulson is no radical, nor is he even necessarily aligned with mainstream environmental thinking. White House budget director Rob Portman suggested to The New York Times that Paulson might not be eager to restrict economic activity for the sake of the environment. "I would call him more of a conservationist," Portman said. "The distinction might be that he focuses on preserving and protecting sensitive environments, sensitive land, and some of that land has endangered species in it."

Whatever Paulson's opinions on environmental policy, there's no guarantee he'll be able to play them out at the Treasury Department.

"Keep in mind that the Bush administration's first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, also had strong environmental convictions, but he fought battle after losing battle to get his superiors to take these issues seriously, and was effectively shut down," said David Sandalow, an environmental and foreign-policy scholar with the Brookings Institution.

In The Price of Loyalty, O'Neill describes a memo he sent to Bush in February 2001 with advice on developing a climate-change strategy. Needless to say, it had no impact.

Both O'Neill and Snow are widely thought to have been hired as "salesmen, not architects, of Bush policy," said Sandalow, "so [the administration] would be significantly changing their tune if they intended to give Paulson a substantive rather than symbolic role."

Then again, Paulson has attained such a high level of financial success and renown on Wall Street that many argue he would not accept the Treasury position without a guarantee that he would be more than a mouthpiece. "This is not a guy who is going to leave a $38-million-a-year job [as he reportedly made in 2005] and a position of widespread acclaim to get pushed around," said Kevin Curtis, a vice president at National Environmental Trust.

Goldman Sachs spokesperson Peter Rose indicated that Paulson has no intention of being silenced on the environment or any other issue, saying simply, "He's a man who speaks his mind."

Conservation International Chair and CEO Peter Seligmann, who has worked with Paulson on conservation efforts in the past, observed that Paulson would be entering the fray at a decidedly different historical moment than his predecessors. "The rise of gas prices and the growing scientific evidence and consensus on global warming is changing the way even the Bush administration talks about energy and climate issues," he said.

Seligmann contends that Paulson could even represent a tipping point within the Bush administration: "There are a number of people among Bush's closest advisors including [Secretary of Energy] Sam Bodman, [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice, and even [White House Chief of Staff] Josh Bolten* who share a fast-growing interest in better environmental and energy strategy. My hope is that Paulson will raise the level of understanding around these issues within this inner circle, and rally a critical mass that will push the administration to make substantive moves in the right direction."

That hope may seem far-fetched. But if Bush pulled out all the stops to convince a reluctant Paulson to come aboard, as has been widely reported, one would think the president would be open to hearing what the man has to say.

* [Correction, 02 Jun 2006: This article originally misquoted Peter Seligmann as saying John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was among Bush advisors with an interest in better energy and environmental strategy. It should have read Josh Bolten, White House chief of staff.]

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Macaws and effect in Central America.

A year ago, President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, the controversial plan has inspired protests across the U.S. and in Central America. And while past trade agreements have been ratified by Congress in less than two months, the Bush administration has delayed the vote on CAFTA multiple times, unable to rally the support needed for it to pass.

The latest vote is scheduled for this month, but CAFTA's passage is by no means inevitable. Many Democrats and some Republicans, having learned from the fallout of NAFTA -- for example, the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs -- are expected to vote against it. They're taking this stand because the agreement is weak on both labor and environmental standards, and because they are beginning to realize such treaties promote not free trade, but corporate trade.

The environmental movement has also learned from NAFTA. An impressive coalition of professional and grassroots organizations is fighting CAFTA on the basis that it "would allow foreign investors to challenge hard-won environmental laws and regulations, and fails to include adequate measures to ensure environmental improvement throughout Central America and the United States." Members include Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, among others.

Missing from this fight is an elite subset of the movement: the international biodiversity conservation organizations. Not one of the four major groups in this field -- Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society -- has demonstrated the courage to oppose CAFTA, despite ample opportunity over the past year.

When asked about his organization's position on CAFTA at a recent talk at the University of California-Berkeley, Kent Redford of WCS replied that his organization "does not engage in policy work." (The speech, offering an indication of priorities, was titled, "Has Poverty Alleviation Abducted Conservation?") Conservation International's vice president for conservation and government said, "We don't have a position." A World Wildlife Fund representative wrote, "WWF has not been tracing CAFTA either in Central America or in our U.S. office. As a result, we don't have a position on CAFTA ..." Nor has The Nature Conservancy stated a position.

Their silence is inexcusable. Consider the immediate threats CAFTA poses in a region that, while accounting for less than 1 percent of the world's land mass, is estimated to hold 8 to 10 percent of the planet's species:

In the face of these outrageous threats, how to explain the silence of these four groups, which are so well-endowed in budgets and policy staff?

We might look to an important paradigm shift. In the heady days after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, all of the major biodiversity groups embraced the concept of sustainable development. But over the past few years, the conservation pendulum has been swinging back to a stricter preservationist ideology. Little by little, the international conservation organizations have shifted to market-based approaches to conservation.

A decade after Rio, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, these groups championed public-private partnerships. They also lauded the new reign of "ecosystem services," whereby any aspect of the environment can be had, for a price. It's not that the big organizations don't "do" policy; rather, they do only a certain kind of free-market policy work.

To facilitate the uptake of this free-market approach, international conservation groups have opened their doors to transnational corporate leaders. Today, three-quarters of Conservation International's board and half of the slots on The Nature Conservancy's board are given to representatives of major corporations -- including Wal-Mart and Gap, Inc., two companies actively lobbying in support of CAFTA. Are these corporate dollars a Faustian bargain for the international environmental movement? Are they subtly distracting these large conservation organizations from seeing the links between political economy and environmental degradation?

In these final critical weeks of debate, we need the lobbying support of the international conservationists working in Central America. Together, the four major groups control well over half of conservation dollars available worldwide, and wield enormous influence. Their partnerships with in-country organizations make them perfectly suited to lobby both on the ground and in Washington, D.C. They could give detailed testimony about CAFTA's impact on the regional environment. They could also lend support to the courageous Central Americans who have already spoken out vociferously against CAFTA.

Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Wildlife Conservation Society: it's time. We challenge you, with all your resources and your clout, to see beyond corporate interests. Join the many others in the environmental community who oppose this dangerous trade agreement.

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