Consumer alliance illustrates how Rainforest Action Network and the Rockefeller Brothers crushed a legitimate business
WASHINGTON, DC – Recent news reports are confirming what the Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity (CAGP) has documented since the organization was launched in 2010: environmental front groups, liberal foundations, uncompetitive industries and retailers are colluding to hinder the global trade of forestry and agricultural products. As part of its ongoing direct advocacy campaign to highlight these left-wing, anti-business activities, CAGP issued the following comment:
“CAGP has consistently cautioned against the radical environmentalists working to halt natural resource development in Asia and their biased financiers. In Australia, the truth was laid bare in new reports that guerilla warfare was launched by conservationist Alec Marr with the help of RAN and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund against Tasmania-based pulp company Gunns. This collusion between RAN and wealthy elitists like Steven Rockefeller forces thousands of the working poor out of a job and threatens investment integral to local communities. These tactics are morally bankrupt,” said, Andrew Langer, spokesman for CAGP.
The account of Gunns in the Sydney Morning Herald showed how environmentalists colluded to destroy the forestry enterprise – pressuring its customers, threatening its banks and marching on its land. What was even more telling is how activists like Marr’s partner Virginia Young teamed up with Steven Rockefeller to secure $200,000 for RAN’s disposal for this campaign – an effort that destroyed investment and jobs. These guerilla tactics and financing are couched in environmental conservation; but in reality they only threaten economic development.
Langer continued, “Despite what environmental activists do or claim their agenda can actually harm the environment. Meanwhile forestry operators and agricultural companies supply the products the world demands, while creating jobs for working families. Wealthy nations can prioritize environmental protection, while nations that have their economies hobbled by ill-conceived political action cannot. When environmentalists team up with misguided donors and work to halt business and trade, the countless products that create jobs, investment and prosperity globally cease to move. RAN and the Rockefellers are condemning the people who rely on this commerce to lives of poverty and that is shameful.”
