[MUSIC] This is Mike Rosenberg with Strategy and Sustainability. And then we're in session four which is about environmental interest groups. And in this In the second segment we're looking at the conservationists, which are kind of the oldest and most classical type of group. And I think it's important to spend some time on them. So you can see in the list of some of the conservationists in the United States and around the world, that some of these groups are very old, and I've left the Sierra Club, even though it's changed over time, in this category. And you can see the year that these organizations were founded, 1875, 1892, 1895. The Audubon Society 1905. Ducks Unlimited which is an organization which is only there to protect ducks. Mainly by duck hunters by the way, in 1937. And some of these groups have lots and lots of money. Ducks Unlimited had a budget of $163 million last year, which is bigger even than the Sierra Club. Which kind of gives you some idea of where some of this stuff is. And newer organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, the African Wildlife Foundation, etc. And what ties all these groups together, in my view, is their fundamental commitment to the protecting wild places. Their focuses is really to conserve natural areas and their original state. Their scope and even those are different parts of the planet and there's a dark people are interested in mash lands, it's always I'm trying to protect wild places and keep them wild. Key strategies they used is usually the legal framework. They usually talk about lobbying, legislation, lawsuits or even buying land in order to set it aside for conservation. The funding model is really about the members, members dues, having donors that gives them specific money with specific targets. Grants from different foundations and organizations and even governments. And then fees for service for things like the outings the Sierra Club does for magazines, etc., etc. What sets them apart in my view is that the people who join these organizations as staff typically do so from a sincere commitment to nature, a deep love of nature. And they're very often very highly experienced, well trained, great lawyers, people who are serious professionals in what they do, which is to use the law to protect this part of the world. The philosophy and really there's two different threads of philosophy which I think are relevant. There are many many more of course, but one is Ralph Waldo Emerson and we talked about him before and he wrote the essay in 1836. And in it he says that man is so distracted by the modern world that we cannot even comprehend nature. And that in that lack of comprehension, we cannot really comprehend ourselves. So he urges us to be alone with nature. And only by being alone with nature can we understand it and actually understand our place in the world. He's a direct inspiration for Henry David Thoreau. Who, of course, spent a few years by himself on Walden Pond and wrote a book called On Walden Pond. And he was also an inspiration, of course, to U.S. President Teddy Kennedy. Who really was the guy who put conservationism on the map. Signed the legislation that protect a lot of the areas we talked about before. And really set the tone for what became conservation in, at least in the United States. Now on the other side of the Atlantic, there's a gentleman called Roger Scruton, who's a much more modern philosopher. He's still writing. And he wrote a book a few years ago called, How to Think Seriously About the Planet. In which, he talks about the connection of people to place, which he calls oikophilia. Now I'll talk about this a little bit later in this session, but Scruton sees a connection between People who care a lot about the outdoors, about environmental legislation. And he kind of rejects anybody from outside, anybody from far away. He's a deep critic of European Union and its environmental policies as it affects England, you know, and believes that the people who use the land, the people who haunt in the land and fish on the land are probably the most, best place to protect it for now and the future. So if you're interested in philosophers to look at either one of these or both of these writers. And the engagement with business by these organizations is often quite close. If you look at the board of any of these organizations. And this is the board of the Wildlife Conservation Society Yes I'm part of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the people on the board who are they? They're business people, academics, artists, philanthropists, environmentalists, but Frederick Manicky who's on the board, chairman on the board, his investment company has traded in the New York Stock Exchange. Diane Christensen, she's an asset management. She's been managing her family's foundation for years and years. And you'll find a lot of people from big companies, Audrey Choi, the fourth on the board here. She works for Morgan Stanley. So you have a lot of people very, very successful business people who end up on the board of these organizations which shows you a little bit the interconnection that is between them. Famous example going back to Sierra Club, now this is the Nippon Dunes in California and Pacific Gas and Electric wanted to build a nuclear power plant there. In the early 60s and the head of the CR Club at the time was David Brower, but his boss was the Chairman of the board, William Siri. So Siri cut a deal with Pacific Gas and Electric saying listen, you can build a nuclear power plant in the Diablo Canyon and we'll help you do that. We'll give you our support. As long as you help us protect the Pacific Dunes the Nippon Dunes. Yeah and this is an example of how you can work with conservationists. Their interest is in protecting wild places, they're not against the system, they're not against development. They're just trying to protect part of the planet, so typically you can work with them about which parts to protect. Which parts to exploit and it's all about balance and finding some kind of sensible solution. You know, in this case, to provide southern California with the electric power needed but at the same time to protect the Nipomo Dunes. Conservationists are a very, very important part of the environmental movement. But they're different than some of the others which we thought we're interested. [MUSIC]
