Corporate Support of NGO Transnational Transfers in Nature Protection

Abstract

Relatively little research to date has explored non-state transnational transfers (NSTT) in any comprehensive way. What kinds of activities and practices are being transferred? Which actors are involved? By what processes do these transfers take place? And what impacts might these transfers have on the various stakeholders, including nation-state recipients? In this chapter, we attempt to answer these questions in part by exploring NSTT of biodiversity conservation interventions pursued by three important transnational conservation organizations: The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund – United States (WWF-US), and Conservation International (CI). Consequently, we investigate some of the transfers of nature protection ideas and actions from mostly the United States to other parts of the world, largely nation-states in the tropics where most of the planet’s biodiversity exists.2 We also briefly outline two conceptual models to illustrate how the transfer processes likely work in very basic ways. What is unique about this chapter in this volume, however, is that we explore transfer relationships between two private organizational types, nongovernment organizations, NGOs, and their corporate sponsors. These organizations, corporations, and NGOs, located mostly in developed countries, typically transfer their activities to organizations and governments mainly in less developed countries.