Excerpt:
WWF is “proud of our approach because it gets results.” Yes, we all know
that the environment has improved drastically since 1961 [the year WWF was
founded]. That must be why Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard entomologist,
Edward O. Wilson, upped his 1972 species extinction rate from 75 to 200
species a day in 2002.
In a message dated 3/11/2012 12:56:52 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
WWF beds with Monsanto to steal public lands, promote GM crops
Rady Ananda
Living Green Magazine, March 8 2012
http://livinggreenmag.com/2012/03/08/green-business/new-film-wwf-beds-with-m
onsanto-to-steal-public-lands-promote-gm-crops/
A 2011 film by Wilfried Huismann, The Silence of the Pandas, targets the
World Wildlife Fund, the largest, most trusted, and best-funded
environmental "protection" organization in the world. Its reputation does not live
up to its actions, however, which green wash industries that are destroying
the environment as well as indigenous cultures.
Covering WWF’s genesis on Sept. 11, 1961 (a rather treacherous birth
date), the film follows the money showing how donations from government heads
and the oil industry enabled its birth. The film then reveals that WWF has
since joined forces with GM agribusiness to reapportion the planet for
energy production and genetically modified food.
Box: "We need to start focusing on food production. It takes 15 years to
bring a genetically engineered product to market. The clock is ticking. We
need to get moving." - Dr Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, World
Wildlife Fund, 2010.
Originally aired in June on German TV under the name, Der Pakt mit dem
Panda (The Pact with the Panda), the film prompted a frank denial from WWF,
which admits it works with industry because:
“The world’s environmental and conservation challenges are not going be
solved without the help and support of big business.”
WWF is “proud of our approach because it gets results.” Yes, we all know
that the environment has improved drastically since 1961. That must be
why Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard entomologist, Edward O. Wilson, upped his
1972 species extinction rate from 75 to 200 species a day in 2002.
Even the United Nations recognizes the Holocene Extinction that has only
worsened over the past 50 years during WWF’s existence. This recently led
the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to declare
the environment “a total disaster.”
Perhaps WWF’s "proud results" refer to the donations it receives. Its
2010 financial statement reports nearly $500 million in revenues for the past
two years. Big business has tremendously profited from resource extraction
over the past 50 years, as well. WWF denies, however, that donations from
companies like Monsanto affect its policy in any way.
Others dispute this. "WWF has integrated itself in the main lobby groups
of the World Trade Organisation to promote the privatization of the world’s
remaining forests and to encourage the role of meaningless environmental
certification," wrote Argentine biologist Javiera Rulli in 2010.
Indeed, the 60-year-old journalist, author, filmmaker and three-time
winner of the Adolf Grimme Award (German TV's top prize), Wilfried Huismann is
accustomed to research. He’s worked for German television for the past 24
years and has produced over a dozen documentaries. Dear Fidel – a close
look at the CIA and the Cold War through the eyes of one of Castro's lovers –
is another of his productions that has been translated into several
languages.
The Silence of the Pandas visits different parts of the globe where WWF
cooperates with agribiz, including Argentina. The film characterizes WWF and
Monsanto as "the secret rulers in Argentina," destroying traditional
agriculture and tribes – the only humans who know how to live outside industrial
civilization.
The film exposes how global oil players such as BP and Shell, along with
the auto industry, also benefit from GM biodiesel to the detriment of the
environment and tribes.
Genetically modified soy requires the use of Monsanto's Roundup, an
herbicide that damages human DNA, causing birth defects, abortions and cancer.
Even crop dusters are adversely affected by fumes from their toxic spraying,
the film shows.
The United Soy Republic of South America, an advertising slogan, lives up
to its name by using GM crops to contaminate those in Brazil and Paraguay
which had previously banned them. In 2003, the head of WWF Argentina, Dr
Hector Laurence, also served as president of the Agricultural Assn, AIMA;
director of GMO company, Morgan Seeds; and as a representative of GM seed
company, Pioneer.
The "soy desert of Argentina" is already the size of Germany, says
Huismann, and the plan is to double it. WWF greenlights this process by declaring
the Gran Chaco region "degraded by human exploitation." They mean by
indigenous people, ignoring that huge sections of Chaco have been deforested
for soy plantations, which have altered the climate, leading to drought.
Industrial civilization is trying to solve its energy problems with
biofuels, at the expense of food production. Argentines see this as Northern
Hemisphere theft from the Southern Hemisphere.
At the 2010 Round Table for Responsible Soy, which WWF founded in 2004, it
sided with Monsanto’s theft of public lands by deeming GM soy production,
enabled by toxic agrochemicals, "sustainable." Over 230 groups immediately
condemned the finding.
WWF justifies this by explaining that the RTRS operates independent of
WWF, yet fails to explain its vote.
WWF also refused to publicize its position on genetically modified crops
to Huismann. Through a little digging, he discovered that WWF vice
president, Dr Jason Clay, who managed the WWF deal with Monsanto, is listed on the
Global Harvest Initiative. Members of this corporate-agribiz lobby group
include Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, and the World Wildlife Fund.
At a 2010 speech reproduced in the film, Dr Clay said, "We need to freeze
the footprint of agriculture." Of the eight ways he envisions doing that, “
One is genetics. We have got to produce more with less.” He urged the
group to focus on all crops, not just temperate ones.
"We need to start focusing on the food production…. It takes 15 years …
to bring a genetically engineered product to market. The clock is ticking.
We need to get moving," he said.
Despite this, WWF denies giving its blessing "to genetically modified soy
or any other Genetically Modified Organism." One then has to wonder why
its senior VP would urge the opposite.
Meanwhile, working with WWF, the government of Indonesia has apportioned
nine million hectares of forest for palm oil production in Papua, the film
notes. WWF denies any collusion here, as well, but its own report exposes
that lie.
GM palm monocultures, along with other development projects that benefit
industrial civilization at the expense of indigenous people and the
environment, have inspired a secession movement in Papua. Resource-rich Papua
wants independence from Indonesia to protect its subsistent, yet sustainable
way of living.
State-sanctioned torture, along with military enforcement of land theft
and eco-destruction, has President Obama’s seal of approval. Despite known
human rights abuses, in 2010, the US began openly providing the Indonesia
government with military support to quash tribal resistance.
Ah, life under Empire. Independent films like Silence of the Pandas help
dispel the façade.
This article was originally published by Rady, along with her other
excellent blogs, at www.foodfreedomgroup.com. Reprinted here through Creative
Commons permission.
See the article and watch the documentary at
http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2011/09/14/new-film-wwf-beds-with-monsanto-to-steal-public-lands-promote-gm-c
rops/
................................................................
Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
Profiles: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/GM_Watch:_Portal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GMWatch/276951472985?ref=nf
This email should only be sent to those who have asked to receive it.
To unsubscribe, contact [log in to unmask], specifying which list you wish
to unsubscribe from.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To unsubscribe from the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]
Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp
To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp
|
