Conservation Influencers

The Pew Charitable Trusts

USA

The Pew Charitable Trusts derives its name from its founders, the Pew family, which made their money in the oil and the military ship building industries. Originally, there were seven separate trusts that were created by different members of the family after World War II to carry out, as a matter of principle, philanthropic work below radar. But Pew began changing its ethos in the final two decades of the 20^th century. Most notably in 1990, when Pew appointed Joshua Reichert, a man who, in Pew’s words, ‘was known for his willingness to incur significant risk, and pursue bold strategies,’ to lead its environment and oceans programme work.

For example, in 1994 Reichert established and financed the National Environmental Trust (NET), to educate the public about global warming. Then in 2007, he initiated the merger of NET with Pew to create what the press release called the new ‘green team’ under his leadership. And in 2008 he founded and funded the militant campaigning group Oceana, with a particular emphasis on creating vast and numerous marine protection zones which exclude fishing vessels and other industrial activities.

With many billions of dollars in assets, Pew has always been the most influential US-based NGO attending CITES’s meetings (second only to WWF). In 2009 Reichert upped the stakes by appointing a former Chief of the U.S. CITES Scientific Authority as his Director of International Environmental Policy. In her new role with Pew (2009 – 2013), Sue Lieberman, whose previous job was Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme (2001-2009), made confrontation her goal.

For example, at CITES’ CoP-16, in 2013, she completely abandoned Pew’s self-effacing tradition. Courting sensational media headlines, she accused a bloc vote of East Asian countries of wanting to catch sharks for their fins ‘without any regulations’. She then polarized the debate still further by alleging that East Asian countries were prepared to ‘wipe out these species’ in return for ‘short term benefits’.

Ahead of CoP-18 in Geneva, 2019, Pew reported that every year as many as ‘273 million sharks are killed by commercial fisheries’. As a consequence, it claimed, ‘shark populations have suffered declines worldwide’. Pew does not ask how, if the annual catch rate is around 270 million sharks, this statement is compatible with its other core claim. Namely that, ‘half of shark species [the ones considered most commercially exploitable] and their relatives [sic] assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature are categorized [correctly] as Threatened or Near Threatened with extinction’.

Leaders

Susan K. Urahn, president and chief executive officer

Governance

Board of Directors chaired by Robert H. Campbell.

Finance

According to Pew’s audited financial report, its annual revenue in year ending June 2019 was USD373,917,307. Total expenses were USD341,274,842, of which, according to form 990, salaries accounted for USD128,269,422.

About the directory

Conservation Influencers is a searchable directory of the animal activist, environmental and ecological lobby. It examines the history, mission, methodology and reputation of NGOs to assess their impact on the global conservation cause.

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Franz Weber Foundation

From 1990 until 2015, Franz Weber Foundation (FFW) managed the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park in Togo, which was, according to an in-depth investigation by Duke University, ‘established by forcing the local communities off their land and without taking into consideration their point of view’. That same study cited convincing evidence from reports published in 1990, confirming that competition for land use was already ‘creating conflict between the local communities and park managers’. In 2015 Togo refused to renew FFW’s contract because, the report says, ‘local communities were still excluded from the management of the natural resources of their land’ and FFW had ‘failed to fulfil its contract’. Franz Weber Foundation plays a major role within CITES because it funds and manages from Switzerland the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), which represents 32 African range states, some of which have barely any elephants and others none at all. Contrary to the wishes of the range states in Southern Africa, which manage most of the world’s wild elephant populations, the AEC at CITES’ CoPs repeatedly tables proposals to put all of the world’s elephants in appendix I. And the AEC uses its voting power to keep in place prohibitions on ivory sales and all other trade in elephant-related derivatives, including skins and hair, which Southern African nations wish to legalise.

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