For some of us, the Lacey Act has required revision long before Gibson Guitar had its facilities in Nashville and Memphis raided by the Justice Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The need to review Lacey really goes back over a decade when David McNab was convicted in 2001 for illegally importing lobster tails from Honduras. This was a point highlighted in the Washington Post this week, when the Consumer Alliance’s Andrew Langer noted that “Given that it’s Gibson Guitar, it’s certainly much, much higher profile than a seafood importer in the Gulf.”
But if Langer’s prescience over the need to fix Lacey is worth merit, then so were his early warnings about complying with wrongheaded standards set by Green groups. The Wall Street Journal featured an interview this weekend with Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, who was quick to point out that the brand has “long been active in conservation efforts—with the Rainforest Alliance, the Music Wood Coalition and other groups.”
Wait a minute. Conservation groups the Journal says? Let’s take a closer look.
The Rainforest Alliance – not be confused with its radical cousin, the Rainforest Action Network – has run a long standing campaign to raise the costs of bananas and disseminate distorted information about the fruit’s farming practices. The Rainforest Alliance has now taken to threatening children into celebrating a “Green Halloween” or else trick-or-treaters would be accused of environmental destruction.
And the Music Wood Coalition was founded by the extremist NGO Greenpeace. Given Greenpeace’s consistent assault on private business, it should be clear to a company like Gibson that Greenpeace does not have their best interests in mind. Greenpeace has since validated this stab-in-the-back approach. Greenpeace and other extremist Green NGOs now oppose prudent reform of the Lacey Act against Gibson’s current efforts.
These groups are far from conservation groups, and as Langer pointed out, these relationships with the environmental movement have done little or nothing to exempt Gibson from federal investigation, highlighting yet again that “if you lie down with dogs be prepared to get up with fleas.” Gibson’s current predicament has done nothing but to prove – unequivocally – that the standards set by environmental groups do absolutely nothing to protect businesses from the prospect of prosecution.
If Gibson’s relations with Greenpeace and Rainforest Alliance weren’t bad enough, Gibson’s CEO often touts their relationship with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
What is FSC?
FSC is a left-wing propaganda organization that seeks to control the marketplace for timber products such as timber for homes, wood flooring, paper for children’s books, and anything that may be associated with a tree. They pressure and threaten, along with Greenpeace and ForestEthics, household names like Staples and just recently Victoria’s Secret into sourcing FSC-certified products. FSC also refuses to support wood products coming from the developing world, lacks transparency, raises costs for consumers, and certifies wood that contains critically endangered tropical species. In other words, FSC is not an organization with reputable credentials and not worthy of Gibson’s partnership.
The greater lesson of Gibson’s fall from grace is a simple one. As Langer has written, “at the end of the day, greens are hostile to free enterprise and private property deep down in their bones. No amount of caving to their demands will placate them.” So whatever the outcome of efforts to reform Lacey, this lesson is one that Gibson and its fellow companies in the music industry must follow. The result of the Gibson raid was increased loathing from other members of the Green movement. The Consumers Alliance hopes that other companies ultimately do not choose this same path.
British Parliament to Consider Illegal Logging Bill
Dr. Caroline Lucas, a British Member of Parliament and representative of the Green Party, has introduced a private members’ bill that looks set to receive a second reading on Friday, November 25. If passed, the legislation would “make it illegal in the United Kingdom for a person or company to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase timber or timber products illegally taken, harvested, possessed, transported, sold or exported from their country of origin; and for connected purposes.”
Although private members’ bills are rarely passed, Dr. Lucas has been able to pick up bipartisan support with some members of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru offering their backing. Dr. Lucas has previously accused the government of failing to honor an election pledge to pass a law to prevent illegal logging. The government claims, however, that the EU’s Timber Regulation, due to come into force in 2013, makes any domestic legislation unnecessary. Dr. Lucas has repeatedly claimed that the EU regulations don’t go far enough, claiming that there is “a significant loophole in the current EU legislation, which means that only those who first place illegally logged timber onto the EU market can be prosecuted – and not those further down the supply chain.” This is an issue we will continue to monitor.
Environmental Tragedy Down Under: A Personal Story
Recently we were contacted by Matt and Janet Thompson, an American couple living in Western Australia who, after watching our “DarkPeace” video, felt compelled to contact us and tell their story. The Thompsons have documented their struggles against radical environmentalists in two short videos (here and here). It’s a story of struggle and tragedy, with one close friend and business associate taking his own life. The Thompsons are an inspiration to those of us familiar with how Green ideologues do their utmost to prevent economic development, even at the expense of economic development and job creation. A friend of the Thompsons summed up the senselessness of these Green ideologues in a recent letter to the editor, attacking Greenpeace for breaking into property and destroying crops used to help Australian farmers feed the world. Unless elected officials heed this warning and take action, these kinds of devastating policies embraced by these bureaucrats will continue to wreck lives and families.
USAID – Putting the “Con” in Conservation
In browsing the website for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), you are quickly reminded of the organization’s primary goals, notably “the twofold purpose of furthering America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world.” As we have repeatedly documented in this newsletter, if there’s something USAID stands for, it’s most certainly not free markets. Rather than helping developing nations grow their economies, USAID has a checkered history of embracing initiatives such as the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT), which puts environmentalism above people.
USAID’s latest initiative is a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to use remote sensing technology to “conserve Guinea’s forest reserves.” The summary of this initiative on USAID’s website is, unfortunately, rather characteristic of an agency that appears to have little or no understanding of economic development or how to create favorable conditions for growth. Put it this way, for a development agency receiving billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, it’s clearly a sign of failure that, in over a thousand words, there is a great deal of boasting about conservation, but no mention of “growth,” “economy,” “trade,” or “jobs.”
Much of USAID’s misguided approach to international development stems from the fact that it partners with, and provides funding to, environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Groups like WWF have no intention of allowing developing countries to put their domestic resources to use for the purpose of economic growth. Therefore rather than endorsing trade initiatives or basic structural economic changes, WWF partners with USAID in launching conservation initiatives that prevent job creation and perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
Guinea is hardly a one-off. In previous newsletters we’ve highlighted other examples of USAID wasting U.S. taxpayer money in Nepal, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. But the most troubling thing about all of this is the central role played by WWF, an organization that received $10 million in funding from USAID in 2009. If USAID is to truly represent American interests overseas through encouraging economic development, it must end all financial relationships with environmental groups like WWF. This is simply because WWF’s radical ideology is anathema to the notion of economic development. The sooner we get USAID focusing its resources on trade rather than remote sensing technology, the better.
Recent News from the Green Movement
When Greenpeace isn’t coercing businesses into complying with their comically-flawed forestry standards, they are looking for other ways to smear renowned brands with yet more “standards.” Greenpeace’s latest initiative is to “grade” electronics companies out of ten on “energy, greener products and sustainable operations.” Not surprisingly, Greenpeace isn’t that impressed with any of them, with HP topping the chart with a score of 5.9. Interestingly Greenpeace writes “With enough public pressure, who’s to say we can’t make the electronics industry become truly sustainable?” What this means in simply English is the following: “Electronic industry, change according to Greenpeace’s standards or prepare for war.”
The timing couldn’t be better. Last week we documented how Greenpeace had embarrassed the environmental movement by tacitly acknowledging that they actually had no scientific evidence to back up their claims that endangered rainforest fiber they had found in paper actually came from Indonesia. The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) shot back at Greenpeace after the organization claimed that PEFC’s forestry standards were, according to reports, “weak and ineffectual.” As PEFC rightly points out, the main difference between them and Greenpeace is that the latter “is a pressure group that uses campaigns as a principle means to achieve its goals, whereas PEFC, a membership organization engaged in multi-stakeholder standard setting, uses social dialogue to further its objectives.” We know all about Greenpeace and its relationship to the deeply-flawed FSC. A piece of advice to Greenpeace: before throwing around baseless allegations, try getting your own house in order.