Individual membership dues and contributions have been supplemented by corporate and foundation grants and by commercial sales. Increasingly, green groups are also relying on government support. Some of the funds were used to draft congressional testimony and to pay for campaigns to block a local public referendum on whether to establish the sanctuary. In past cases, lands have been sold at prices above their appraised value. Such practices recently prompted property rights activists in New York state to file a lawsuit against The Nature Conservancy and the Adirondack Land Trust, charging that both sold land to the state Department of Enviromental Conservation at more than double its appraised value.
Federal law prohibits use of government funds for lobbying.
Unfortunately, efforts to halt this practice were stalled in the last session of Congress. The modern enviromental movement that has grown up since Earth Day in 1970 has little in common with what it once was. Groups of hunters and outdoors people once determined what local conservation societies would do. Now Washington professionals and full-time activists funded by government agencies and private philanthropies set the agenda. Groups dedicated to conservation and the wise use of natural resources have been replaced by environmental groups dominated by an ideology of preservation .