Wikidrain exposes NGO Skullduggeery!!!

Wikidrain - Telling YOU what THEY don't want you to know!

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Just look at this! No need to comment! Document leaked to us by a member of Verdant Future who's wondering how her subscription gets spent!

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Internal Memorandum: Restricted Circulation

From: Gabriel Oak, President, Verdant Future International
To: Executive Board Members, Verdant Future International
Date: 02.12.2007

Subject: Strategic Concerns

I have for some time been concerned by a number of issues which impact on the long-term sustainability of Verdant Future as a campaigning NGO and radical force for change. Though the agenda for our board meeting on 16.12.2007 is not yet finalised (and your suggestions for items to be included will be welcomed) I will ensure that it allows time for extended discussion of the concerns listed below. Your consideration of them in advance of the meeting will be appreciated.

• Though Verdant Future has gained a significant number of members who have defected from less militant environmental NGOs such as Shared Heritage International, overall membership has been essentially static for some years. We have lost members - and their subscriptions - in Britain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. This trend must be reversed.
• There is some evidence that Shared Heritage International continues to recruit membership from middle-class and middle-aged groups who are attracted by its “moderate approach” and by its generally cooperative and non-confrontational approach to working with business and industry.
• Every opportunity should be taken to expose the Shared Heritage stance as naïve and counterproductive in environment-protection terms. Such exposure should ideally not come directly from Verdant Future but we should be on the lookout for opportunities for alerting sympathetic journalists to the consequences of Shared Heritage cooperation with business interests.
• Informal contacts with the Washington Patriot indicate that this newspaper might be interested in doing a series on Verdant Future’s activities. An option worth investigation is whether a Verdant Future campaign focused on Cromwell Energy’s activities in Discordia would be suitable.
• Previous experience is that high-profile exposures by Verdant Future of shortcomings in environmental management by globally-respected companies have been the most powerful method of attracting and retaining subscription-paying members. Should such companies have formal or informal links to Shared Heritage International then so much the better.
• Verdant Future’s chief objective remains halting development of fossil fuel sources. The best method of doing so is to demonstrate that even those companies that attempt to operate to the highest environmental and social-protection standards are still falling short of their stated objectives. In this respect Cromwell Energy’s proposed development in Discordia may provide a fruitful source of evidence since the Interim Government there will make it very difficult to operate to such standards.
• Cromwell is all the more vulnerable in that its track record elsewhere and its adherence to high environmental and ethical standards are respected by a number of ethical-investment mutual funds and charitable foundations. Such bodies may hold up to 5% of total Cromwell stock. Were these holdings to be disposed of, the inevitable slide in Cromwell share price that would follow might well lead to a Cromwell decision to withdraw from Discordia.
• The poor Human Rights Record of the Discordia Government offers a parallel route of criticism of Cromwell and opens the possibility of, at best and an alliance, and at worst, information sharing, with some respected Human Rights NGO such as Humanity First.
• It is understood that one of our members may have a relation working for Cromwell in Discordia. This member should be encouraged to gain as much information as possible from him on Cromwell’s activities but without revealing her affiliation with Verdant Future or her intention to transmit this information confidentially to us. It is important that Cromwell does not know the source of any such disclosures.
• Please share with me your views on the foregoing.

Gabriel Oak
Gabriel Oak, President