Sometimes, one person's discovery of improper behavior or outright illegality is enough to start a widespread trend of investigation into a specific area of social activity. We all remember Watergate, Monicagate, and Enron. Sometimes, such an initial investigation can eventually result in a flood of information that shines light on an entire category of activity. Take non-profit, non-governmental organizations, and for our purposes, consider those that specialize in "environmental" issues. Steven Pearlstein writes for the Washington Post, and his recent (May 7 Page E 1) article "Nonprofits: Not so Transparent" may be remembered as a trendstarter by those who are interested in the ethics of non-profit business deals.

Pearlstein's discovery had to do with The Nature Conservancy, an organization famous for buying up land that its Board of Directors deems ecologically significant, and "saving" such land from development. Sometimes, this is apparently what has been accomplished. And some other times, parcels of land owned by the Nature Conservancy were sold to members of its own Board, after the member had made a very large "donation" to TNC. Pearlstein considered this discovery to be on a par with the everyday kind of news about large for-profit corporations; sometimes, their executives hide certain financial dealings and do things that the shareholders might never dream could happen. And what relevance could this possibly have for those of us who are concerned about the political and economic clout of certain NGOs at IWC and CITES?

Sometimes, the campaigns and goals of environmental NGOs have been misleading, to say the least. The environmental impacts of campaigns to ban hunting, trapping, sealing, fishing and whaling have often been environmental disasters that have caused vast social and economic damage as well. Add to this the fact that some famous NGOs have secretly supported environmental terrorism, economic terrorism, and conducted political blackmail, and we have every reason to applaud investigation into their business plans and actions. Our advice: Use the World Wide Web to investigate any NGO that impacts the sustainable use of natural resources. Oversight is a big job, and until governments take this responsibility seriously, it is up to everyone to keep an eye on influential charities, to insist that they obey the law and operate in an ethical manner.