Rethink Campaigns

Who Funds Enviro Groups in Canada? The Rob Breakenridge Show

For tonight's interview on Rob Brackenridge's show, click here:   

Vivian Krause on The Rob Breakenridge Show 

"The Next Great Pipeline Debate - and U.S. Funding," reports Gary Mason in The Globe & Mail

In today's The Globe and Mail, Gary Mason writes 

"The politics of oil is a grimy business.

Look at what’s going on in the United States right now and you can see just how dirty things can get. Debate around the Keystone XL pipeline has been rancorous and divisive. In the end, concern for jobs is likely to trump worries over the pipeline’s environmental impact.

The movement against Keystone has mostly played itself out in America. But the next great pipeline debate will unfold right here in Canada. The stage is already being set...."

Mason continues....

"The debate over Enbridge is likely to take many different turns before it runs its course. But one of the talking points could well be the role that American charitable foundations are playing in Canadian environmental politics.

The federal government recently said no to a funding agreement to develop a Pacific North Coast oceans management plan. Environmentalists accused Ottawa of bending to pressure from the West Coast shipping industry and big oil interests, allegedly concerned that the oceans plan was a cover to oppose the Enbridge pipeline. (Both groups deny lobbying the feds to torpedo the oceans strategy.)

The Conservative government may also have been concerned by the findings of researcher Vivian Krause. In the past few years, the tenacious Vancouver-based and independently financed writer has parted the curtains on the extent to which environmental groups in Canada are funded by American organizations. (Her website, fair-questions.com, is visited regularly by everyone from the RCMP to the federal auditor-general to the Oval Office in Washington.)

Environmental groups doing preparatory work on the oceans management plan had received nearly $30-million in funding from the U.S. green donor, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of California, before Ottawa killed the initiative.

According to Ms. Krause’s examination of U.S. tax returns, American foundations have spent about $300-million since 2000 funding the environmental movement in Canada. In recent years, some of that money has gone toward fighting tanker traffic along the B.C. coast.

In 2006, for instance, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund of New York paid a couple of Canadian environmental groups a total of $200,000 to “prevent the development of a tanker port and pipeline that would endanger the Great Bear Rainforest.” The Brainerd Foundation of Washington State gave money to the B.C.-based Dogwood Initiative to “help grow public opposition to counter the Enbridge pipeline construction.”

Ms. Krause estimates there’s $50-million in American funding pouring into the Canadian environmental movement every year. “The heart of the matter is the sovereignty of our country,” says Ms. Krause, who has no declared link to the oil industry. “Canadian policy and law should be decided by Canadians, not by American foundations. The Canadians on the front lines of these environmental initiatives are every bit as Canadian as I am, but their billionaire funders aren't.”"

Mason concludes:

"It’s not difficult to imagine this line of thinking becoming part of the Enbridge narrative. Nor is it hard to envisage it being embraced by a federal government looking for any reason to make this project happen.

But be certain: The only thing messier than oil itself is the debate that surrounds it."

To read Gary Mason's op-ed on-line, click here.

"Government Withdraws Support for B.C. Deal Over U.S. Influence," Reports Peter O'Neil for Postmedia News

In The Montreal Gazette, Peter O'Neil reports:

"Vivian Krause was on her way from her home in North Vancouver to Calgary, and then Fort McMurray, when she learned Thursday that the Harper government is finally acting on her long-standing concerns about what she believes is undue influence in Canadian policy-making by U.S.-funded environmental groups.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in a letter to the B.C. government, three West Coast First Nations groups and the Tides Canada environmental group, said it is withdrawing support for an unusual deal.

A U.S. environmentalist-oriented trust, stepping in for a Canadian government Fisheries Department facing years of budget restraint, had agreed in 2010 to spend $8.3 million on the development of an oceans management plan for the North Coast through the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative. PNCIMA is a project in which federal officials from various departments, along with a B.C. government bureaucrat and First Nations representatives, work together to develop an oceans management plan as required by the 1996 Oceans Act.

But there have been fears, fuelled by Krause's research, that such environmental groups are using U.S. money to thwart development projects, such as Enbridge Inc.'s $5.5 billion proposal to ship Alberta bitumen crude by pipeline to the West Coast for Asia-bound tankers."

To continue reading, click here.

$65 Million Foreign Funding Reported by DUCKS UNLIMITED CANADA (2009/2010). Who from and why?

"One place where all our worries come together is in northeastern Alberta, Canada. There, in an area the size of Florida, is a massive deposit of oil mixed with sand. It's the second largest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia, and work has begun to extract it. Processing these so-called tar sands is a nasty business that involves large amounts of water and natural gas. It's hard to imagine a worse situation."

- The William & Hewlett Foundation

Background

The Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation are billion-dollar American foundations based in San Francisco.  Both the Moore Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation have clear agendas to "reform" resource-based industries in Canada, particularly the oil and gas industry, the mining industry and the salmon farming industry. The Moore Foundation funded an "antifarming campaign" to shift consumer and retailer demand away from farmed salmon and has granted $13 Million for campaigns to "reform" the salmon farming industry, including funds for its "immobilization." The Moore Foundation has also granted $2.1 million for the "reform" of the B.C. mining industry ($710,000 and $1.3 million).

The Hewlett Foundation has described the Alberta oil industry as "nasty business." "Its hard to imagine a worse situation," the Hewlett Foundation has said about the Alberta oil industry.

In 2004, the Moore Foundation paid Tides Canada $70,000 "to develop a strategic plan to address the oil and gas industry in British Columbia."  

The question is, what did that "strategic plan involve? Did it involve, for instance, the channeling of tens of millions of dollars through Tides Canada and Ducks Unlimited to a large number of small environmental groups, First Nations, scientists and P.R. firms? Since 2003, the Hewlett Foundation has granted a total of $25.7 million for various projects to tackle the energy sector in Canada, including the Boreal Forest Initiative which is heavily funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts - and co-ordinated by Ducks Unlimited? 

To continue reading, please click here.

$32.4 Million Granted to Tides Canada From Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation

Below, here are links to information in the on-line database of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. As listed below, since 2003, the Moore Foundation has made at least 24 grants to Tides Canada Foundation and the Sage Centre (also known as Tides Canada Initiative Society). The total amount of these grants is $32.4 million:

• $350,000 in 2003 for a Donor Advised Fund for Wild Salmon Conservation

• $400,081 in 2004 for the Rainforest Solutions Project

• $277,525 in 2004 for the Transboundary Watershed Alliance

• $600,000 in 2004 for the Donor Advised Fund for Wild Salmon Conservation (Renewal)

• $469,227 in 2006 for Taku Watershed Conservation – Salmon Habitat Protection

• $600,000 in 2006 for British Columbia Salmon Conservation – Small Grants Fund

• $500,000 in 2006 for the Stikine Conservation Network

• $250,000 in 2007 Test Case -- Legal Framework for Aboriginal Rights and Title

• $655,000 in 2007, Strategic Acquisition of Guide Outfitter Operating in Taku Watershed

• $529,629 in 2007 for Great Bear Deal Implementation/ Coast Opportunities Funds Start-up

• $5,842,736 in 2007 for British Columbia Salmon Conservation - Great Bear Rainforest  (NOTE: This grant is listed in the 2007 tax return but as far as I can tell, it is not in the on-line database as of Nov. 30, 2011).

• $1,811,939 in 2008 for the Skeena Integrated Management Reform

• $162,785 in 2009 Sustainability Plan

• $395,910 in 2009 for the British Columbia Wild Salmon Conservation – Small Grants Fund

• $2,418,405 in 2010 for the Salmon Aquaculture Innovation Fund

• $858,576 in 2010 for the British Columbia Wild Salmon Conservation – Small Grants Fund

• $1,212,150 in 2006 for Increasing Environmental Non-Governmental Organization

• $889,946 in 2007 for Informing Area-Based Management

• $1,241,635 in 2008 for Securing the PNCIMA ABM process through an ENGO strategic plan

• $736,132 in 2009 for Developing an Innovative Oceans Partnership to support PNCIMA

• $8,413,822 in 2010 for Supporting PNCIMA

• $893,881 in 2010 for British Columbia Marine Conservation - Small Grants Fund

• $2,496,506 in 2011 for the Taku Tlatsini Conservation Fund

• $455,120 in 2011 for Collaborative Scientific Analysis in British Columbia

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Last up-dated: November 30, 2011

$US 57 Million for the Boreal Forest & Mining "Reform." Why Is Pew Spending So Much Money in Canada?

The Pew Charitable Trusts ("Pew") is one of the largest charitable foundation's in the United States. In its annual report for 2011, Pew reports that it has $4.9 billion in assets that originated from the founders of Sun Oil, an American oil company. 

Pew recognizes boreal forests and the need to protect them in Russia, South America, Indonesia and Africa but the place where Pew is investing more far more money than anywhere else, is Canada.

Pew considers that about 60 percent of the entire national territory of Canada is boreal forest. Of that, 12 percent is already protected by Canada. For Pew, however, that's not enough. 

Since Canada has the world's largest temperate rainforest and the world's largest boreal forest, global interest is natural.  But lets not forget, Canada's forests are also home to some of the world's largest deposits of energy and minerals.  This fact is not lost on Pew.  In fact, some of Pew's grants for the Boreal Forest Initiative are titled, "British Columbia mining."  

Pew isn't the only American foundation that is funding the "reform" of mining in British Columbia. Pew's "reform" of B.C. mining is funded both directly and indirectly. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation paid Pew $710,000 in 2008 and a further $1.3 million in 2011 for "British Columbia mining reform."  Both grants were to support First Nations.  The grant for $1.3 million was for "the direct engagement and participation of affected First Nations communities in key decisions."

Pew has granted $15 million for a marine research project at the University of British Columbia. This project is called Sea Around Us and is led by Dr. Daniel Pauly, a celebrity scientist who often appears in the media. But according to my analysis of Pew's on-line database, not one single grant has been made to address the pine beetle, the single most serious problem afflicting Canadian forests.  B.C.'s pine beetle-infested forests aren't even on the map of forests of concern to Pew (shown to the right). 

According to Pew's on-line database, since 2000 Pew has spent at least $57 million for the Boreal Forest Initiative in Canada.

In addition to the grants listed above, in 2011 the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation granted $1.1 Million to Pew "for support of the International Boreal Conservation Campaign." Whether these funds have been re-granted by Pew is not clear from Pew's on-line database.

Arctic Conservation

In addition to the grants listed in the above table, in 2008, Pew also granted to $2.1 million to Ducks Unlimited in Memphis Tennessee, for the Oceans North Arctic Conservation Project. The stated purpose of this project is, "To protect large parts of the U.S. and Canadian Arctic marine environment by providing critical campaign support for the Trusts Oceans North campaign. Acting as a single administrative hub for several dozen consulting arrangements and indigenous partnerships in each country, Ducks Unlimited will coordinate closely with the Arctic Program Directors for efficient and effective management of the arrangements necessary to achieve the campaigns goals."

$US 57 million in Pew Grants for the Boreal Forest Initiative in Canada:

Below, here are links to the 16 grants for a total of $57 million that Pew has granted for the Boreal Forest Initiative since 2001:

2009

• $6.1 Million for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign "To protect the Canadian Boreal Forest."

• $4.4 Million for the Canadian Boreal Initiative "To protect Canadas Boreal Forest by providing support to the main partner in the International Boreal Conservation Campaign, providing annual support for Ducks Unlimited boreal campaign staff, the Canadian Boreal Initiative project within Ducks Unlimited, and consulting contracts with the Boreal Songbird Initiative and other key IBCC campaign partners."

• $710,000 for the Boreal Forest-British Columbia Mining "To protect Canadas Boreal Forest by providing support to a key partner in the International Boreal Conservation Campaign, for a land use planning and mining policy reform initiative focused on British Columbia."

2007

• $7,000,000 for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign "To protect North Americas boreal forest by providing support for the Canadian Boreal Initiative and other conservation organizations."

• $4,860,000 for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign "To protect North Americas Boreal forest by continuing to host the Canadian Boreal Initiative."

• $1,200,000 for the Boreal Songbird Initiative "To raise awareness of North Americas boreal forest and the birds that breed there and provide international momentum for protection of the boreal forest and for implementation of the boreal forest conservation framework."

2006

• $5,336,000 for the International Boreal Forest Conservation Campaign "To protect North Americas boreal forest by providing support for the Canadian Boreal Initiative and other conservation organizations."

• $1.1 million for the International Canadian Boreal Forest Initiative "To protect North Americas boreal forest by undertaking field work in Canadas Northwest Territories and other provinces and providing Canadian and American senior managers and other staff to participate in the International Boreal Conservation Campaign."

• $700,000 for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. "To protect North Americas boreal forest by educating and informing the public about the boreal forest and its communities; cooperating with specific place-based campaigns in Canada to focus U.S. attention on special places; and creating attention about market-driven consumption of boreal products."

• $672,000 for the Boreal Songbird Initiative "To raise awareness of North Americas Boreal Forest and the birds that breed there and provide international momentum for protection of the Boreal Forest and for implementation of the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework."

2005

• $1,884,000 in support of the Canadian Boreal Initiative.

• $150,000 for the Boreal Forest Initiative "To support efforts to advance wild salmon conservation goals and address threats to ecological integrity of the Stikine River watershed in British Columbia, Canada."  Question:  Why is this funded as as part of the Boreal Forest Initiative?

Earlier Grants (2001 - 2004)

• $12 million in 2004 For the Canadian Boreal Initiative "To continue work that has been instrumental in protecting significant amounts of boreal wilderness at the provincial and territorial government level."

• $4,500,00o in 2003 "For a scientifically based, public education campaign supporting permanent protection of wilderness in the Canadian boreal forest."

• $4,500,000 in 2002 "For a scientifically based, public education campaign supporting permanent protection of wilderness in the Canadian boreal forest."

• $2,000,000 in 2001 "To establish a nongovernmental organization to lead conservation efforts to protect the Canadian boreal forest."

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Last up-dated: November 30, 2011

Disclosure: Who Funds Vivian Krause?

Many questions have been asked about whether I am funded by a particular company, an industry or a political party. These questions are fair. After all, I'm asking the same questions of others.

This post is intended to answer questions about the employment income that I've had since I left the salmon farming industry nine years ago. Here, I also disclose the consulting fees ($17,750) that I was paid by the salmon farming industry, five years ago.

As I've said before, for several years now, I have been working from my own home, on my own nickel. I felt that the information that I had unexpectedly come across was important, and needed to be compiled. However, I couldn't find an organization that would fund me.  I went ahead and did the work anyway. Thanks to the support of my daughter's father and other family and friends, I was able to do so. Ultimately, I sold my home and have been lived since then from my savings.

Most of my employment experience is with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) with whom I worked in Guatemala (1990-1995) and Indonesia (1996-2001). After I returned home to Canada in the summer of 2001, I began to work in the salmon farming industry where I held a position as Corporate Development Manager for North America, from January of 2002 and to October 13 th, 2003. NUTRECO is a large, multi-national agriculture and aquaculture company. At the time, NUTRECO owned Marine Harvest and was the world's largest producer of farmed salmon and fish feed.

In January of 2007, I worked as a consultant to Millerd Holdings Ltd. which has interests in processing farmed salmon on Vancouver Island. In July 0f 2007, I worked briefly as a consultant to Salmon of the Americas, an international salmon farming trade organization. For those consultancies, I was paid $10,000 and $7,750, respectively. That included my expenses. I have not worked for the fish farming industry since July 31, 2007.

In May/June of 2010, I worked briefly for John Duncan, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Northern Vancouver Island.

For details about the presentations and honorariums that I have received (if any), please click here.

Last up-dated April 15, 2012.

Marine Protection or Market Protection? Why did the David & Lucile Packard Foundation help start Tides Canada?

"A lot of folks can take credit for the improved market for wild salmon, from the California Salmon Council and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, to the chefs that revolted at serving farmed salmon, but the programs Packard (the David and Lucile Packard Foundation) helped fund played a big part in boosting our markets and no one in our industry should ever forget that.”

- Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations

Back in 2000, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation ("Packard") allocated $640,000 to Tides Canada for “start-up costs” and “the creation of a re-granting fund to support marine protection efforts in British Columbia.” In 2001, the year that the funds were actually paid, the Packard foundation also paid $346,500 to Tides Canada "for general support and for support of sustainable aquaculture in B.C." That same year, Tides Canada reported that "a dedicated funder" made it possible for the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (The Farmed & Dangerous Campaign) to do what limited funding would otherwise never have allowed: to meet on a monthly basis. Tides Canada has been asked but has declined to identify the “dedicated funder.”

U.S. tax returns show that the same year that Packard paid Tides Canada $640,000 for start-up costs for a re-granting fund, Packard also paid $50,000 to the Georgia Straight Alliance “for the strategic planning process and related activities on Salmon Aquaculture.”

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) refers to the Farmed and Dangerous campaign as part of a "truth squad."  ".... keeping up the pressure on salmon farmers with truth squads will help to open more markets for wild salmon," says the PCFFA. 

The Farmed and Dangerous campaign is only one of the programs run by the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR). CAAR also has a program called Wild Salmon Supporters.  This program promotes specific, high-end restaurants that sell wild salmon in major cities of the U.S. and Canada, for example, The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, and the Rattlesnake Club in Detroit.  Of all the things that CAAR could do to protect wild salmon, why is CAAR promoting high-end restaurants that sell wild salmon - most of which is Alaskan - in the U.S.?  Is this protecting wild salmon? Or is this helping to protect the market for wild salmon?

To read this whole piece, click here.

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Where did Alexandra Morton's NonProfit get $822,210 (2000-2010)?

Almost single-handedly, or so it seems, Alexandra Morton has brought the salmon farming industry to its knees in British Columbia.

In just one example of the influence that she has had, Morton brought legal action against the federal and the B.C. government.  The end result is that British Columbia lost jurisdiction over aquaculture - not only for finfish but for shellfish too.  Indeed, Alexandra Morton has had a hefty influence on public opinion and public policy, and even on Canadian law.  As such, its fair to inquire about Alexandra Morton's sources of funding and her actual research findings.

Tax returns show that between 2000 and 2010, Morton's non-profit (Raincoast Research Society) had total revenues of $913,796. Of that, less than 10 percent was from tax-receipted donations, according to my calculations based on Canadian tax returns.  A total of $822,210 (90 percent) was from grants from other charities, gifts and other revenues. The question is, where did those funds originate? And most importantly, did any of those funds originate from the American foundations of which the editors of the journal SCIENCE, where Morton's sea lice research has been published, were trustees? This is a fair question because it is important to know whether the editors of the journal SCIENCE may have had conflicting or competing interests at the time that Morton's sea lice research was published in the prestigious journal SCIENCE.

To continue reading, click here.

For my e-mail to Alexandra Morton, Sept. 6, 2011, click here.

Note: This is an up-date to an earlier post from  January 7, 2010.

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Letters to Alexandra Morton, David Suzuki & U of Alberta Sea Lice Scientists

The letters below were sent to David Suzuki, Alexandra Morton and the University of Alberta sea lice scientists in the spring and early summer of 2009. In these letters, I outlined why I believe that, some of the claims that have been made about sea lice research findings, are false. I appealed to these scientists and to Alexandra Morton to please clarify the actual sea lice research findings and funding sources.

For the letters that I've sent to David Suzuki since 2007, please click here.

Here are the letters:

• June 11, 2009: Sea Lice Research Findings

• June 18, 2009: Sea Lice Research Funding

• Sept. 22, 2009: Sea Lice Research Findings and Funding

• Nov. 4, 2009: Letter to the President of the University of Alberta  

Replies:

• June 15, 2009: Reply from the David Suzuki Foundation

• June 11 - 17, 2009: Reply from Alexandra Morton

• January 12, 2010: Up-date from the University of Alberta

• Received 18 February 2010: Response from the University of Alberta