PEW Trust and other sneaky groups

[dogfish]

A few buddies are comms, sent me an e-mail today quoting this article. Before anyone cries out about the commercial bias, remember that the PEW trust has the ultimate intention of creating MPAs in several places, which would hurt us guys as well.

All pew funded studies and talking heads are sneaky bastids.

http://www.fishingnj.org/netusa23.htm

(this information was originally printed in a column by N. Stolpe in Commercial Fisheries News available at http://www.fishingnj.org/netusa17.htm) Evidently the Pew myopia concerning what?€™s really going on in the oceans isn?€™t a recent development.

[albiealert]

Theres a couple of videos now on youtube about overfishing in the oceans. Think PEW is behind them also.

[DarkSkies]

Good thread, the pew people are as shifty as they come. What's scarier is they have tons of money to back up their agenda. Won't be happy till the whole landscape is dotted with mpas.

[nitestrikes]

Frankiesurf, thanks for the Jim Donofrio link. He mentioned the Pew Trust like 5 times, and it got my attention.Who the heck is this group that doesn't even fish, yet manages to intervene in all sorts of decisions affecting fishermen?
So I did some digging. Holy Toledo Batman, they are everywhere! They hire scientiests on fishing advisory committees. They have about 30 different names and organizations to hide their true agenda. All the little nerds that werre picked on in school, grew up to be angry pansies and joined the Pew Trust.
Does anyone have any personal experience dealing with these azzhats?

[voyager35]

This is a huge organizaton, folks. $5 billion in assets, spending budget of $250 million/year. They are a formidable competitor.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental organization, founded in 1948 with over US$5 billion in assets. Its current mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and stimulating civic life."[1]


[edit] History

The Trusts, a single entity, is the successor to, and sole beneficiary of, seven charitable funds established between 1948 and 1979 by the adult children of Sun Oil Company founder Joseph N. Pew and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. The four co-founders were J. Howard Pew, Mary Ethel Pew, Joseph N. Pew, Jr., and Mabel Pew Myrin. The Trusts is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with an office in Washington, D.C..


In 2004, the Pew Trusts changed from a foundation into a nonprofit. It can now raise funds freely and devote up to 5% of its budget to lobbying the public sector.
According to the 2007 Annual Report, five of the 12 persons currently serving on the Board for the Trusts are named Pew, including the Chair. Two of the five are physicians.

[edit] Current concerns

The Trusts' public policy areas include the environment, state policy, economic policy and health and human services.
The Trusts, with other groups, backed an effort to create marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean, near the Marinas Islands.[5] The protect area was officially designated in January 2009, and includes the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean canyon in the world. Another marine protected area that the Trusts and other groups sought to protect is Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument which was protected by President Bush in 2006.[6]
The Trusts also funds the Pew Research Center, the third-largest think tank in Washington DC, after the Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress.

[edit] Financial facts

According to the 2007 Annual Report, as of 30 June 2006, the Trusts owned over US$5 billion in assets. For the 12 months ending on that date, total revenues were about US$264 million and total expenses were about $197 million, of which $12 million were for operating costs and fund raising expenses.




I had a thought, maybe not the most charitable one. How do you beat an organization like this? With guerrilla warfare. Colbert and other political pundits have suggested making a social statement by going onto Wikipedia and posting unflattering but true information about the subject. Why not make it a misssion to research the worst violations of this huge conglomerate? If they are so bad and underhanded, there have to be web examples out there of mis-behavior or manipulation.



This is from their home page:

It looks pretty impressive, but it would be even more impressive if somewhere there was an asterisk that said
* we manipulate and smooth date to fit our agenda wherever possible, and throw our money around to influence scientists and others to put forth our agenda, whether it is completely true or not.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_category.aspx?id=110

Environment

The global environment is at a crossroads. The rapid pace of technology and population growth is placing unrelenting pressure on the world’s natural resources. Many of our natural systems have been pushed to the breaking point.

The build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel is changing the planet’s natural systems, upon which all life depends. Overfishing and pollution have ravaged the oceans, leaving commercial fisheries at the point of collapse. On land, areas that have not been inalterably changed by human civilization are under increasing stress from activities ranging from logging and mining to agriculture and development.

Pew is a major force in educating the public and policy makers about the causes, consequences and solutions to environmental problems. We actively promote strong conservation policies in the United States and internationally. Pew applies a range of tools in pursuit of practical, meaningful solutions—including applied science, public education, sophisticated media and communications, and policy advocacy.

Pew’s environmental activities have grown steadily over the past two decades, as has our staff of attorneys, scientists, economists, media professionals and campaign advocates. The Pew Environment Group comprises more than 80 staff—with a presence throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean—making it one of the nation’s largest scientific and environmental advocacy organizations.

[voyager35]

Maybe we're on to something here. A google search on "Pew trust scandals"yielded over 4 million hits.

something smells at Pew, about candid remarks made after campaign finance reform
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/FW0605.pdf

How the Pew Charitable Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
http://www.counterpunch.org/pace10092004.html





http://www.heartland.org/publication...mon_Scare.html
Environment & Climate News

The Heartland Institute's national monthly outreach publication for common-sense environmentalism.

Experts Criticize Pew Trusts for False Salmon Scare

Scientists, European press slam study's hidden agenda

Environment & Climate News > April 2005
Environment
Environment > Fish

Email a Friend
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment & Climate News > April 2005
Publication date: 04/01/2005
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
European scientists and media, who subjected the Pew Charitable Trusts to withering criticism a year ago after Pew released a study claiming farm-raised salmon presents greater health risks than wild salmon, launched a new round of criticism of Pew in the fall, after further scrutiny uncovered more problems with the study.

Euro Press Fights Back
"Pew's tactics have become bitterly controversial in North America," asserted the January 23, 2004 West Highland (Scotland) Free Press. "They have adopted a philosophy of paying for research and journalism out of their bottomless resources in order to influence public opinion towards the causes to which they are committed."
The "national media mugging of the salmon farming industry stemmed not from any impartial, unsullied source, but from an organization with an agenda," summarized the Free Press in a separate editorial. "Their record stands rather on the wildest extremes of the environmentalist movement. Pew's lavish amounts of money are used not for impartial scientific inquiry but to further the aims of that movement."
"The salmon scare which threatened last weekend to bring British salmon farming to its knees," noted the January 15, 2004 London Times, "is a sorry saga of flawed science, selective research and hidden commercial bias. That it was allowed into the pages of the apparently respectable journal Science is inexplicable. Its worldwide promotion by an organization with a vested interest in undermining farmed Atlantic salmon in favor of the wild Alaskan variety is a scandal."
"That well-planned and funded assault on the global seafood trade has European nations eyeing the credibility of the United States research community," added the International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources. "Imperious, incompetent, arrogant, and erroneous are reflective of the invectives being hurled at the so-called 'U.S. study.'"

Criticism Continues
The Free Press remains incensed about Pew's questionable motives and tactics, as noted in a September 10, 2004 editorial: "Far from being an independent, uncommitted organization, Pew worked as publicists and financers for militant 'green' groupings across the world. ... The level of incompetence involved in the research process was awesome--they did not know, it transpires, where the salmon they were testing came from. They did not even know whether it was wild or farmed.
"Dr. David Carpenter himself has admitted that Pew Charitable Trust were on a mission. 'There may be some legitimacy,' he said, 'in saying the reason they chose to fund this study was that they had another agenda well beyond the health effects.'
"We could not have put it better ourselves," the editorial concluded.
At the fifth Biennial Conference on Fish Processing, held September 16 in Grimsby, England, Scottish salmon expert Dr. John Webster delivered a presentation titled "Salmon Quality and Safety: Real and Perceived." Said Webster, "There are a series of flaws in the work funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. The research methodology is regarded as scientifically flawed by the World Health Organisation and food safety agencies worldwide. And the research completely ignored the considerable body of data on environmental contaminants in foods, including salmon, in the public domain already."

U.S. Media Hyped the Study
The salmon scare began when the January 9, 2004 issue of Science magazine published a Pew-funded paper by David Carpenter of the University of Albany Institute for Health and the Environment. The beneficiary of a $2.5 million Pew grant, Carpenter claimed to have compared the PCB levels of wild and farmed salmon from various regions of the world.
According to Carpenter, farmed salmon contained dangerously more cancer-causing PCBs than wild salmon, and humans could safely eat no more than one serving per month of farmed salmon. The study was particularly critical of salmon raised in Scotland and other northern European regions.
A January 9 article in the Los Angeles Times was typical of the U.S. media's coverage of the study. Noted the Times, "Salmon raised in ocean feedlots, the main source of supply for American consumers, contains such high levels of PCBs, dioxins, and other toxic chemicals that people should not eat it more than once a month, according to an extensive study reported today in the journal Science."
The Times then noted Carpenter's "chief concern ... that pregnant women can pass on these contaminants to their fetuses, impairing mental development and immune-system function."
"Our recommendations are that women and girls should reduce their consumption of farmed salmon and other contaminated fish until they are through reproductive age," the Times reported Carpenter as saying.
Similarly, the Washington Post quoted Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the activist Environmental Working Group, as stating the study "leaves little room for the farmed fish industry to argue away the problems of polluted farmed seafood."

Fears Debunked
According to the Center for Consumer Freedom, "Canada's ... chief health authorities report: '[C]onsuming farmed salmon does not pose a health risk to consumers.' Likewise, the British Food Standards Agency (the UK's equivalent to our FDA) notes that the results of the Pew-funded study show the levels of PCBs and dioxins in salmon are 'within up-to-date safety levels set by the World Health Organization and the European Commission.' ... Pew failed to point out that the majority of the PCBs and dioxin are found in the fish's skin and fatty outer layer, which most people don't eat."
Dr. Charles Santerre, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University, observed that the "dangerous" PCB levels (0.06 parts per million) asserted in the study were merely 3 percent of the tolerance level prescribed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2 ppm).
Santerre considered the Pew-funded study flawed because it did not take into account the nutritional benefits of eating salmon, which is rich in proteins, vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids, particularly important for pregnant women. On January 9, the Los Angeles Times quoted Santerre as saying, "I would calculate 6,000 people getting cancer over their lifetime [by consuming farm-raised salmon], that's an approximation, versus potentially saving the lives of 100,000 individuals every year."
Santerre told ABC News that day, "I strongly believe that all the data we have today suggests that everyone should be eating more farmed salmon."

[bababooey]

They manipulated the data when they claimed the seas would have no fish by the year 2048. What else did they manipulate?


HIJACKING FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

How Pew Charitable Trusts has co-opted the management process using paid-for science and a well-oiled media machine.

In late 2006, “Fisheries Face Collapse by 2048!” was the headline read and heard around the world – at least in the world of Washington, DC. It just so happens that Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act at that precise moment.

The press stories sighted a study led by Dr. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University. While objective observers might question elements of the study, it was the media hype that the Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew” or “the Trust”) wanted out there as part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to influence the Congressional debate on the Nation’s primary fisheries law.

Dr. Worm, a regular recipient of funding from Pew, working with SeaWeb, a Pew-funded public research group that specializes in media campaigns, worked on the message and the timing to get as much media coverage as possible. They were successful. Big media loves a crisis, and when you have the money and the manpower it’s easy to plant a good fish tale.

[storminsteve]

This "WILD" group is actually advicing the gov't on fisheries policy. Wake up fishermen!


Updated: February 8, 2010, 11:58 AM ET
Wild connection

Radical preservationist group could have hand in management plan


http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/s...ory?id=4897071
Updated: February 8, 2010, 11:58 AM ET
Comment Email Print Share
By Robert Montgomery
ESPNOutdoors.com


Whether you're attending a magic show in Las Vegas or dealing with government, it's always a good idea to "watch the other hand" if you really want to know what's going on. Both magicians and politicians are masters of deception and misdirection.
That sad fact of life has become abundantly clear to the recreational fishing community, as its advocates intensify their efforts to keep public waters open and accessible to anglers. And as they push, they need anglers all across America to push with them.
Click here for archive


This is necessary because, as ESPN previously reported, environmental/preservationist groups are pressuring Obama to by-pass Congressional oversight and act unilaterally in approving a management strategy for our oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes.

This comes at a time when the recreational fishing community had been led to believe that a public and transparent process would follow the recommendations of his Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and decisions would not be made without careful deliberation.
Because of administration ties to these groups and support for their agendas, issuance of an Executive Order almost certainly would mean closure of public waters to recreational fishing under the guise of a "spatial planning" strategy.
It also would mean that the administration successfully deceived the angling community that a fair and open process would be used to develop a management plan.
To speak out against issuance of an Executive Order, go to the Keep America Fishing web site and send a letter to Obama, your elected officials, and the task force.
"Clearly the environmental community is making a push on this," said Gordon Robertson of the American Sportfishing Association. "We can't let just their voices be heard. We must make them listen to the recreational fishing community as well."
In response to this concern, Andrew Winer, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told angling advocates, "I want to assure all of you that the rumor remains incorrect and that there is no plan to issue an Executive Order before the public comment period is closed."
The big problem with that is deadline for public comments on the task force's management framework proposal is Feb. 12.
"If an Executive Order were to be issued — and we hope that it won't be — it shouldn't be for months," said Gary Kania of the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation. "A deliberative process is needed before decisions are made, with consideration given for all of the comments that have been made.
"We're meeting with the members of the Congressional Sportsmen Caucus to raise this issue. Enhancing Congressional oversight is what's needed. Let's get them involved in something of this scale."
And while anglers seem to have been deceived about the fairness of the process, they have been misdirected as well. While they have focused their energies solely on dealing with the task force, a federal agency has been conspiring with a low-profile, but radical preservationist group, The WILD Foundation, to create a "marine wilderness" management plan that very well could interconnect with the task force.
WILD's objective: "We believe that at least half of the Earth's surface (land and water) needs to be permanently protected in an essentially wild condition, in a manner that keeps all of life interconnected."

Its partner: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

If WILD has its way, anglers would be denied access by motorized boats to half of the nation's oceans, coastal waters, and Great Lakes, with the way opened via the task force for similar limitations on inland waters.
"You could have to paddle for two miles to fish in a marine wilderness area," Robertson said.
Here's what WILD says on its web site:
"WILD has teamed up with its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) colleagues to work closely in seeking public input, with WILD spearheading the non-governmental community through the MWC (Marine Wilderness Collaborative, and the USFWS driving government agency participation through the Intergovernmental Working Group on Marine Wilderness."
The recreational fishing community didn't learn of this partnership until early February, although WILD posted information regarding the project on its web site on Dec. 18.
"It's standard procedure for the Fish and Wildlife Service to reach out to non-governmental organizations for partnerships," Kania said. "But this is a pretty radical agenda that the WILD Foundation is proposing.
"What we want to know now from Fish and Wildlife is how long we have to comment on this."
In trying to keep anglers out of vast areas, what WILD and other groups fail to grasp is "how conservation works," Robertson said. "It's paid for by the people most interested in it. If they can't be involved, they'll be less interested, and the end game would be much less investment in fisheries management."
Through license fees and excise taxes on fishing equipment, anglers contribute millions of dollars annually for fisheries research and habitat improvements, as well as coastal wetlands planning and restoration. Additionally, they assist resource agencies in numerous ways, including data collection to determine status and management strategies for sport species.

Denying access to the nation's 60 million anglers not only would collapse this life-support system for our fisheries, it would devastate the economies of communities dependent on recreational fishing. Just as importantly, it would do irreparable harm to a family-oriented pastime that keeps us in touch with and appreciative of the natural world.




As a Senior Writer for ESPN/BASS Publications, Robert Montgomery has written about conservation, environment, and access issues for more than two decades.
For more information

Find out more about the battle for public waters at KeepAmericaFishing.org, a Web site maintained by the American Sportfishing Association.
To learn more about the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and its Interim Report, click here.

[CharlieTuna]

Here they are involved with the UK in helping to designate the worlds largest marine reserve.

Chagos: UK Poised To Designate World's Largest Marine Reserve; 'A Conservation Legacy Almost Unrivaled In Scale'

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Pew Environment Group praised the United Kingdom (U.K.) for taking one further step towards designating the world's largest marine reserve.
The proposed marine reserve would protect a group of 55 located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Known as the Chagos Archipelago, the islands and their surrounding waters cover 210,000 square miles (544,000 square kilometers), an area larger than France. With some of the cleanest seas in the world, the islands are home to one of the most ecologically healthy systems on the planet.



The Chagos Archipelago and its surrounding waters comprise the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas territory of the U.K. Following a three-month public consultation, the U.K. government is now considering the designation of a Chagos Protected Area, which would safeguard the area's rich diversity of marine life

by prohibiting extractive activities, such as fishing. More than 275,000 people from around the world have signed petitions supporting this designation. A final decision is expected sometime this spring.


"If designated, the Chagos Protected Area would establish a conservation legacy almost unrivalled in scale and significance anywhere in the world's oceans," said Joshua S. Reichert, Managing Director of the Pew Environment Group, which is a member of the Chagos Environment Network (CEN). The CEN is a group of leading conservation and scientific organizations seeking to protect the of the Chagos Islands and their surrounding waters.

In addition to the Pew Environment Group, CEN is comprised of a number of U.K.-based organizations and individuals: the Chagos Conservation Trust; the Linnean Society of London; the Marine Conservation Society; the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; the Zoological Society of London and Professor Charles Sheppard of the University of Warwick.

If the marine protection proposal is accepted, the Chagos Islands would provide an important global reference site for research in crucial areas such as ocean acidification, coral reef resilience, sea level rise, fish stock decline and climate change.

The Chagos Islands provide a safe haven for dwindling populations of sea turtles and hundreds of thousands of breeding sea birds, as well as an exceptional diversity of deep water habitats, such as trenches reaching nearly 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) in depth. The waters around the islands contain the world's largest coral atoll and many thriving species of corals and reef fish. At least 60 species listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of live in these waters.

"The Zoological Society of London is proud and excited to be engaged in the initiative to protect the Chagos Islands, one of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on Earth," said Dr. Heather Koldewey, Curator, Aquarium Projects. "Working with the Pew Environment Group has proved an effective partnership in working towards a common goal - the largest marine reserve of its kind in the world."

Through its Global Ocean Legacy initiative, the Pew Environment Group works in partnership with local citizens and governments, such as the CEN, to help establish world-class, highly protected marine reserves that will provide ecosystem-scale benefits and help conserve the world's marine heritage. The Pew Environment Group's efforts have played a pivotal role in the designation of marine reserves including the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006 - now the world's largest no-take marine reserve - and the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 2009.

"Designation of the Chagos Islands as the world's largest marine reserve would set a new benchmark for responsible ocean stewardship," said Reichert. "Overnight the U.K. government would be a world leader in the protection and conservation of marine resources."

[Frankiesurf]

Lubchenco is creaming in her panties as we speak.

[bababooey]

Lubchenco is creaming in her panties as we speak.

Jane Lubchenko as a younger woman --

[DarkSkies]

Sent in by Finchaser, thanks!




http://www.endoverfishing.org/southe..._9_04_2009.pdf

[DarkSkies]

Some info on the groups who are often behind or financing MPA/ Fishing/ Recreational user/ access proposals.....