Subject:
          For moderation - The Ivory Ban-wagon and Anti-Environmentalist Hate Propaganda
    Date:
          Wed, 16 Aug 2000 10:38:57 -0500
   From:
          Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
      To:
          [log in to unmask]




Hi Maria-Stella, and hi everyone,

>Jim,
>thanks for the information. Some comments below:
[snip]
>I am sure that Environmental Values does not engage in employing people to
>phone homes, 'explain' their side of the issue without the opposite
>opinion, raise false concerns to the public, and then ask permission to
>contact ON THEIR BEHALF the appropriate members of the council, parliament,
>congress, etc. I am also sure Environmental Values does not immitate the
>variation of the way that different kinds of people write, in order to
>appear persuasive to the ones contacted, by for example changing the shapes
>and colours of envelopes, and using different styles of handwriting and
>publishing, as specific PR companies are alleged to do. I am sure no staff
>in Environmental Values went out to buy pink envelopes and a pen, in order
>to immitate the writing style and culture of old ladies, when they contact
>members of the congress or parliament. Therefore, i have the impression
>that yourparallelism to PR companies is not as successful as is humorous...!

OH, you mean like many well known environmental organizations do . . . . I hope you caught the stuff I posted yesterday
about the ivory ban and
groups like the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). Like the "urgent memorandum" signed by Paul Schindler, which was a
fund-raising appeal that
"had been prepared by a California company skilled in direct-mail solicitation," as the Bonner article noted.

Here's a couple more excerpts from that article that may interest you as well.

"All the organizations that called for [the ivory] ban deny that they were motivated by anything other than the best
interests of the African elephants,
that if ivory trading were not made illegal it would be impossible to control poaching. Others demur.

" 'All groups that have used the elephant as a P.R. gimmick have made bundles, I mean bundles,' Craig Van Note,
executive vice president o
Monitor, a Washington-based consortium of conservation and animal-welfare groups, told me during the CITES meeting in
Lausanne. 'Elephants are
very sexy,' he said, adding that when it came to raising money, they were more alluring than dolphins or pandas and as
popular as whales. From the
moment the wildlife foundation started its elephant campaign, [AWF Vice President Diana] McMeekin says, the group was
under pressure from the
public relations company that did its fund raising to adopt a tougher line. She says the organization resisted, and when
it did finally call for a complete
ban in May 1989, it was only after 'considerable soul-searching.' "

Jim here: Hmmmm. . . . the African Wildlife Foundation used a public relations firm. I wonder which one?

"The foundation escalated its 'Don't Buy Ivory' campaign on Feb. 12, 1989, with a full-page Sunday ad in The New York
Times. 'Today, in
America, Someone Will Slaughter an Elephant for a Bracelet,' the ad declared over a picture of an elephant carcass. 'In
the past 10 years, the
population has been sliced almost in half. In 1979 the total elephant population of Africa was estimated at 1,300,000.
Today, less than 750,000
remain. Some 70,000 elephants are killed each year to meet the worldwide demand for ivory.' At that rate, the elephant
would disappear in Africa by
1999, the ad asserted. 'It's a sickening thought. In 10 short years we could have to explain to children why there are
no more elephants.' The
foundation asked readers to help stop 'the slaughter' of African elephants by sending in a tax-deductible donation of
$25, $50, $100 or more. It
provided a coupon for the reader to clip or a toll-free number to call.

"The response was staggering, beyond anything that the foundation, or Saatchi & Saatchi, the international advertising
giant that provided its services
without charge, had anticipated. It is unusual that an ad raises enough money to pay its cost; organizations place them
anyway, to get their message
across and their names before the public and in the hope of expanding their mailing lists with the names of people who
write in. The Times ad cost
$40,000. Twelve hundred people responded, and the organization received $42,526."

. . .
"The International Wildlife Coalition was the next to get into what was becoming a very lucrative game, with an ad in
The Times headlined 'African
Chainsaw Massacre.' This organization claimed the elephant would be extinct by 1997, and it went on: 'The last elephant
to die will likely be a baby.
. . . The last thing this baby will see before it dies will be its mother being killed and mutilated with a chainsaw.'
Founded in 1983 out of the growing
popularity of animal rights, the organization hadn't paid much attention to elephants; it concentrated instead on saving
whales, in 1988 spending more
than $120,000 on that cause and only $11,000 on elephants (it even spent more on kangaroos and sea turtles than on
elephants). The 'Chainsaw
Massacre' ad cost $22,000 and brought in $25,000, a phenomenal amount given the organization's size and its previous
lack of devotion to
elephants. In the following year, the organization says, it spent $170,000 on elephants."

--from Bonner, Raymond. "Crying Wolf over Elephants: How the International Wildlife Community Got Stampeded into Banning
Ivory." New
York Times Magazine, February 7 (1993): 16-19, 30, 52-53.

Jim T.


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