Alan Oxley | ConservationBytes.com

Corporate wolves posing as environmental sheep

10 06 2014

A slicing article by Bill Laurance (incidentally, he will be speaking at The University of Adelaide on 26 June). Originally published in The Ecologist.

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What do the Australian Environment Foundation, the Renewable Energy Foundation and the Global Warming Policy Foundation have in common? They are all fiercely anti-environment – and we must beware their ‘eco-doublespeak’.

George Orwell would have appreciated the Australian Environment Foundation. That’s because Orwell was a master of doublespeak – where words take on purposely obscure or opposite meanings.

Despite its name, the Australian Environment Foundation is not pro-environment. In fact, I consider it anti-environment, at least by the prevailing definition of that term.

For instance, the AEF opposes wind farms, many mainstream efforts to combat climate change, and what it labels “green thuggery” – such as initiatives to make cattle ranching more environmentally benign via the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.

World Heritage Sites – who needs them?

In Australia, the AEF likes the Tony Abbott government’s efforts to remove World Heritage listing for 74,000 hectares of native forests in the Tasmania Wilderness World Heritage Area, to promote industrial logging.

In fact, the AEF likes it so much that it’s written to all of the members of the 21-nation World Heritage Committee, urging them to back the government’s bid when they consider it in Doha, Qatar this month.

If the government is successful, it will only be the second time in history that a natural World Heritage site has been de-listed.

A recent director of the AEF is Alan Oxley, an industrial lobbyist and former Australian trade ambassador who’s spearheaded opposition to numerous environmental initiatives around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, climate change, corporate lies, Environmentalism, Merchants of Doubt, politics, William Laurance
Categories : environmental policy, propaganda

A very pissed-off New Guinean versus the Destroyer of Forests

31 03 2011

I really don’t know where this came from (weird e-mail trail), but it was too good not to share.

For those of you who follow ConservationBytes.com, you might remember a fairly recent post where a group of leading conservation biologists exposed one of the most dangerous men in the world – Alan Oxley, the (very embarrassing to admit) Australian destroyer of tropical biodiversity and future welfare of hundreds of millions of people.

It seems he and his commercial interests (and my, do those fellas lay it on thick) have turned their attention to destroying the last tracts of intact South-East Asian forests (and associated biodiversity) in Papua New Guinea. Kiss some of the most endemic, biodiverse and biowealthy areas on the planet good-bye.

So it was interesting to receive this email that had been sent to Oxley’s front-company, International Trade Strategies (ITS) Global, by one very pissed off Papua New Guinean. I have no idea who ‘Bush Kanaka Mangi’ is, but he sounds the real deal and I wouldn’t want to be Oxley if he ever came across him. I cite verbatim¹:

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Mr Alan Oxley,

HONESTLY : I am sick of getting this bloody rubbish, bullshit from you and your company ITS Global about palm oil is good for PNG, logging is good for PNG. Who the hell do you think you are ????, you seem in all your articles and consultancy reports as the expert about our country and more knowledgeable about the Melanesian society very well. My assessment of all your electronic newsletter which you circulate widely, your reflections and recommendations all are in no way closer or nearer to the way we Papua New Guineans think and want to do things and develop our nation, all of what you say are totally and purely and absolutely RUBBISH and yet you claim to know everything and know the problems of PNG and our people and on ways to solve our problems and continue your bullshit campaign in support of R&H and all its doing here destroying our forests, our society, manipulating our systems and creating confusion and hell is loose here. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, biodiversity, deforestation, ITS Global, Livelihoods, oil palm, Papua New Guinea
Categories : agriculture, biodiversity, carbon, conservation, corruption, deforestation, exploitation, oil palm, palm oil, poverty, propaganda, rain forests, tropical

Wolves masquerading as sheep: the fallout

29 10 2010

Well, we’ve managed to stimulate quite a lively conversation after dropping the Open Letter about Scientific Credibility and the Conservation of Tropical Forests regarding the questionable tactics employed by Alan Oxley and his industrial lobbyist organisations.

Mr. Oxley has responded with vitriol, hand-waving, red herrings and straw men, and failed to address even a single one of our accusations. I am particularly amused by his insinuation that we, the proven scientists, don’t know what science is – but that he does.

Below I reproduce Mr. Oxley’s reaction to our original letter, followed by our response.

I’ll let you, the reader, decide who is most reasonable.

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REACTION FROM ALAN OXLEY

There is too much pseudo-scientific hype today about environmentalism and forestry and not enough fact.

I put this double-barrelled question to the Group of 12 scientists who have rather laboriously wandered over the work of World Growth: What biodiversity is expressly protected by a global cessation of conversion of forest land to other purposes and how is that biodiversity scientifically measured? And let’s have some technical response, not political blather. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, biodiversity, deforestation, Forest, greenwashing, Paul Ehrlich, World Growth Institute
Categories : Borneo, carbon, climate change, conservation, conservation scholars, deforestation, environmental policy, fragmentation, habitat loss, Indonesia, logging, Malaysia, oil palm, palm oil, poverty, propaganda, protected area, rain forests, South East Asia, tropical

Wolves in sheep’s clothing: industrial lobbyists and the destruction of tropical forests

25 10 2010

As of this morning, a group of distinguished scientists (which I have had the honour of being invited to join) has released an Open Letter to be published in various media outlets worldwide. The letter addresses some of our major concerns over the misinterpretation of facts, and openly misleading statements, by proponents of deforestation in the Asian tropical region. Professor Bill Laurance, an old favourite on ConservationBytes.com, has led the charge and organised a most impressive and shocking list of assertions. I produce the letter below – I encourage all my readers to distribute it as far and wide as possible in the social media-verse.

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An Open Letter about Scientific Credibility and the Conservation of Tropical Forests

To whom it may concern:

As professional scientists employed by leading academic and research institutions, we are writing to alert the general public about some of the claims and practices being used by the World Growth Institute (WGI) and International Trade Strategies Global (ITS), and their affiliated leadership.

WGI and ITS operate in close association. ITS is owned by Alan Oxley, an Australian industrial lobbyist, former trade representative, and former Ambassador who also heads WGI. According to its website¹, ITS also has “close associations” with several politically conservative US think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.

In our personal view, WGI and ITS — which are frequently involved in promoting industrial logging and oil palm and wood pulp plantations internationally — have at times treaded a thin line between reality and a significant distortion of facts. Specifically, we assert that: Read the rest of this entry »