WWF Helps Industry More than Environment [View all]
from Der Spiegel:
The WWF is the most powerful environmental organization in the world and campaigns internationally on issues such as saving tigers and rain forests. But a closer look at its work leads to a sobering conclusion: Many of its activities benefit industry more than the environment or endangered species.
Want to protect the rainforest? All it takes is 5 ($6.30) to get started. Save the gorillas? Three euros and you're in. You can even do your part for nature with only 50 cents -- as long as you entrust it to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which is still known by its original name of the World Wildlife Fund in the United States and Canada.
Last year, the WWF, together with German retail group Rewe, sold almost 2 million collectors' albums. In only six weeks, the program raised 875,088 ($1.1 million), which Rewe turned over to the WWF.
The WWF has promised to do a lot of good things with the money, like spending it on forests, gorillas, water, the climate -- and, of course, the animal the environmental protection group uses as its emblem, the giant panda. ................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/wwf-helps-industry-more-than-environment-a-835712.html