$US 44 Million for the Boreal Forest & Mining “Reform.” Why Is Pew Spending So Much Money in Canada? – by Vivian Krause (Fair-Questions.com – September 27, 2011)

Vivian Krause is a Vancouver-based independent researcher and writer who investigates the environmental movement’s lobbying efforts in Canada and their sources of funding. www.fair-questions.com

In previous blog postings, Vivian Krause stated that, “According to my preliminary calculations, since 2000 USA foundations have poured at least $300 million into the environmental movement in Canada.” Currently, she estimates that about $50 million a year is being funnelled into Canadian environmental organizations from U.S. sources.

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 $44 million for the Boreal Forest Initiative in Canada.

For the rest of this blog posting, please go to Fair-Questions.com website:  http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/2011/09/pew-boreal-forest-44-million.html