conservation at any cost

Coverage of The Nature Conservancy's brokerage of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina mentions by Triangle Business Journal completely ommitted the financial details of the deal. Taxpayers would likely be shocked at the hefty price they are paying for the brokerage services of The Nature Conservancy. Yet if news reporters like this one at Triangle Busines Journal take their coverage facts solely from the press releases put out by The Nature Conservancy, we are certain to avoid focus on the cost to taxpayers or the huge brokerage payments paid for the deals. Clearly The Nature Conservancy relies on a "conservation at any cost" mentality of Americans today to continue to accrue hundreds of millions of profits (sorry, TNC is "non-profit" and non-taxable so we don't call the money "profits"). The ability to sell to taxpayers and governments makes TNC the world's largest and richest land broker.

We are not saying that this deal is not in the best interest of taxpayers or that the motives are suspect, but we are saying that full disclosure and reporting of the financial aspects of these huge transactions is absolutely essential.