Nature Conservancy faces potential backlash from ties with BP

This isn’t the first time TNC has faced controversy over ties to big energy.

Over the years TNC has been accused of “greenwashing” because of their ties to big energy companies.  Of course they claim that the relationships have been productive ones that help conserve more land but their ties to BP are really hurting them now.  In my opinion their record is a mixed bag.  Some of the places they have been able to protect are really important but, in the West, they often continue to graze livestock on many lands even though the lands are not suitable for it.

Here is an older story about how The Nature Conservancy got into trouble with big energy, there are many others during this period as well: How a Bid to Save a Species Came to Grief. Washington Post, 2003.

Nature Conservancy faces potential backlash from ties with BP.
By Joe Stephens – Washington Post

Official disagreement whether Interagency Bison Management Plan is worthwhile

In fact, the Montana state veterinarian and MT Dept. of Livestock are the only ones who think it has worked-

Interagency Bison Management Plan or IBMP is the controversial bison management plan adopted in 2000 to keep brucellosis from spreading from Yellowstone Park bison to cattle outside the Park.   No brucellosis has spread from bison, so a few Montana state officials say that means it has worked. However, there are almost no cattle in the area that the bison would occupy if they were allowed to leave the Park.  It is a great irony that the disease itself has spread from the area’s wide ranging elk to cattle on several occasions.

The IBMP has cost over $20-million and taken a huge toll on what could be free roaming bison.  It has also been a great cost by generating public resentment and conflict and violations of local people’s private property rights, civil liberties and the wild integrity of Yellowstone Park itself.

The plan should be abandoned.

Hazy results: Officials disagree on whether program to keep park’s bison from spreading brucellosis has been successful. By Eve Bryon, Helena Independent Record.