Dear HCN,
Criticize Alex Cockburn
if you must, and he certainly gives one plenty of opportunity (HCN,
5/11/98). No one ever accused him of keeping his opinions to
himself. And, no one would ever accuse him of infallibility –
remember, he thinks Lee Oswald was a lone Socialist
hero!
But, claiming that environmental groups use
threats to public lands and species as a means of “making money” is
hardly startling news. Jon Margolis’ ad hominem attack conveniently
dismisses such an obvious notion.
As I write
this, the foundation-dependent community is holding a much-hyped
Wilderness Conference in Seattle. There has been but one new
wilderness in the Pacific Northwest in the last 14 years – Opal
Creek. Yet, not one of us who actually did the heavy lifting for
two-plus decades on Opal Creek was invited to share our success. In
fact, when this glaring oversight was pointed out to the
conference’s organizers, we were pointedly
rebuffed.
Why? Well it cost us money to save Opal
Creek – tens of thousands. It was a classic grassroots effort. And,
that’s not a model of success for the foundation grant-dependent
groups. Neither, apparently, is our effort to turn around the
former timber town of Detroit, Ore., whose remarkable stance
against further logging HCN featured in a well-written article
recently. We’ve had a lot of success (and some dismal failures) in
Oregon’s Santiam Canyon, but you’d never know it by looking at the
list of presenters at any mainstream enviro conference.
For example, prominent among the conference’s
sponsor groups is the Kettle Range Conservation Group. KRCG was
founded in 1976 with the sole stated purpose of gaining wilderness
designation for Washington state’s Kettle Crest in the 1978
Seiberling additions.
Despite the worthiness of
the Kettle Range and despite the many good folks working for and
volunteering for the KRCG, 22 years later not one acre has been
designated wilderness. But KRCG now has a six-figure budget, grants
from big foundations and an office on Republic’s main street. KRCG
is far from the exception, more like the rule, in the
foundation-dependent community.
Also prominent
among the conference groups is the Hells Canyon Preservation
Council (HCPC), which now ignores as unrealistic (read: unfundable)
its own visionary national park proposal.
In
1993, the plaintiff groups in the spotted owl lawsuits gave in and
surrendered the injunctions and approved of Clinton’s Northwest
Forest Plan. Immediately, each group was rewarded with a six-figure
grant to, in their own words, “monitor the implementation of Option
9 in a tight campaign fashion.”
Now, with the
monitoring money gone and Option 9 still liquidating ancient
forests, these same groups have re-invented themselves as the
Forest Water Alliance and put out PR pieces and raised funds based
on the fact that “Option 9 is cutting old growth.”
No mention of the fact that in 1993 they
attacked conservationists who wouldn’t go along with their game
plan and who pointed out then how bad the Forest Plan was. I was
attacked in the mainstream press as a “renegade,” a “fringe
element” and a “dissident” simply because I and three other
experienced forest activists tried to intervene in the release of
the injunction.
Failure is lavishly rewarded in
this movement. Success is a threat to future fund-raising – that
failure to invite Opal Creek’s successful defenders a case in
point.
The Right constantly accuses Jesse Jackson
of being a “poverty pimp,” meaning that rather than having an
interest in ending poverty, Jackson “uses’ poverty to raise funds
and build a bureaucratic empire.
The conservation
movement is beset by “stump pimps,” “wolf pimps,” etc. That is what
Cockburn is railing and warning against. Someone has to look at
just why big foundations, many with their wealth deriving from oil,
seek out and fund groups and individuals who will put the interests
of ecosystems subordinate to the interests of their grant
portfolios. Cockburn has done a fine job of pointing this out. He
once quoted me saying, “There appears to be an inverse relationship
between the size of an organization’s budget and the amount of
acres they succeed in protecting.” I still stand by that
quote.
Michael
Donnelly
Salem,
Oregon
Michael Donnelly was
co-founder of Friends of the Breitenbush Cascades, Friends of Opal
Creek and the Santiam Watershed
Guardians.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Of “stump pimps’ and “wolf pimps’.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
