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You may recall that time the federal government moved to seize control of rain puddles as part of its expansion of authority over all waterways, a policy defeated under President Trump but quietly reinstated and then revised by the Biden Administration. This is much worse.

Today, January 2, 2024, is the deadline for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to grant final approval for the formation of a novel entity, the Natural Asset Company (NAC), representing a new asset class for private corporations to monetize nature as an investment opportunity. The move would see the introduction of land valuation and use standards promoted by radical environmentalists, operating in accordance with global environmental objectives, with the support of the U.S. government, and to the financial gain of globalist financiers.

In addition to generating profits, NACs are designed to put an end to human “overconsumption” of nature, a viewpoint sympathetic to the radical environmental objectives being pursued by the United Nations (UN) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Through NACs, “stakeholders,” including foreign investors, set the rules for land use, potentially including requiring “sustainable” farming and conservation practices or even forbidding farming or development altogether. News of the new asset model led Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks to issue an alarming public statement applicable to all U.S. states:

The proposed creation of Natural Asset Companies is one of the greatest threats to rural communities in the history of our country. Under the proposal, private interests, including foreign-controlled sovereign wealth funds, could use their capital to purchase or manage farmland, national and state parks, and other mineral-rich areas and stop essential economic activities like farming, grazing, and energy extraction. Recreating on Utah’s incredible natural lands could also face significant curtailment.

Property rights activist Margaret Byfield echoed concerns with respect to the potential for foreign influence over U.S. land use:

Another feature of these new companies is that the land belonging to sovereign nations and private landowners alike can be subject to the control of NACs. Sovereign nations, such as the United States Government, can provide their lands to private investors, including those outside the United States. China, for example, may be able to invest in an NAC and effectively be a stakeholder in our national parks. Russia could assume control of lands currently leased to produce oil and place them off limits for future natural resource development.

Through NACs, corporations raise investment dollars to purchase rights to land, including public lands, on a potentially massive scale, and are granted decision-making authority over the use of the natural resources. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Utah’s Oak warned that NACs could remove productive tracts, including farmland, from active use:

NACs would register to go public on the NYSE. The money raised would purchase land and effectively lock it away from human impact. Grazing, energy extraction and other economically critical activities would disappear on NAC-protected land. Farmland used to feed the nation and world would go back to natural landscape, erasing human activity. The resulting conversion of investor money into unusable wildlands has the potential to be one of the most significant misallocations of capital in history.

Private landowners face additional, unknown repercussions, according to Byfield:

…Private landowners would, possibly even involuntarily, also be ceding their control of land to NACs, who would in turn require them to use the land in a “sustainable” way. NACs would prevent the productive use of the land, which would hurt the landowners financially, but also reduce the supply of minerals, food, and other goods that come from the land.

Anticipated community-level impact, including loss of tax revenue and subsequent income streams that fund local projects, was addressed by the Allegheny Forest Alliance:

This Rule change would give NACs unprecedented control by a corporation over the land/resource they license and, potentially, other adjacent land uses, such as agricultural lands, residential neighborhoods, parks, or cities/towns. The investment return that presently funds communities comes from ecotourism revenue, carbon credit sales on natural lands, and commodity crop production on working lands.

Government agencies are poised to enroll our public lands in NACs, viewing this scheme as a revenue source for the taxpayer and calling it conservation and necessary to combat climate change. The AFA believes it is a dangerous land and resource control vehicle that sidesteps the legislative process.

The Biden Administration is prepared to turn over public land to NACs according to Byfield, referring to a document from the U.S. Department of Commerce:

The Biden administration has already suggested that it would cede this power to the NACs. The Office of Science and Technology Policy has also created a method to track the values of nature and place those so-called natural assets onto the federal balance sheet. It described this effort as “the transition we need for sustainable growth and development, a stable climate, and a healthy planet.” The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are taking similar steps to facilitate the enrollment of our federal lands into NACs.

Through NACs, access to natural resources will effectively be placed under the control of a small number of elite financial organizations whose track records do not demonstrate a commitment to environmental conservation but do show interest in economic and social transformation. According to researcher-journalist Whitney Webb in an article warning about NACs:

Framed with the lofty talk of “sustainability” and “conservation,” media reports on the move in outlets like Fortune couldn’t avoid noting that NACs open the doors to “a new form of sustainable investment” which “has enthralled the likes of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink over the past several years even though there remain big, unanswered questions about it.” Fink, one of the world’s most powerful financial oligarchs, is and has long been a corporate raider, not an environmentalist, and his excitement about NACs should give even its most enthusiastic proponents pause if this endeavor was really about advancing conservation, as is being claimed.

… the NAC is merely the issuer while the potential buyers of the natural asset the NAC represents can include: institutional investors, private investors, individuals and institutions, corporations, sovereign wealth funds and multilateral development banks. Thus, asset management firms that essentially already own much of the world, such as Blackrock, could thus become owners of soon-to-be monetized natural processes, natural resources, and the very foundations of natural life itself.

The process of establishing an NAC, was outlined by Webb:

Per the IEG, NACs first begin with the identification of a natural asset, such as a forest or lake, which is then quantified using specific protocols. Such protocols have already been developed by related groups such as the Capitals Coalition, which is partnered with several of IEG’s partners as well as the World Economic Forum and various coalitions of multinational corporations. Then a NAC is created and the structure of the company decides who has the rights to that natural asset’s productivity, as well as the rights to decide how that natural asset is managed and governed. Lastly, a NAC is “converted” into financial capital by launching an initial public offering on a stock exchange, such as the NYSE. This last stage “generates capital to manage the natural asset” and the fluctuation of its price on the stock exchange “signals the value of its natural capital.”

Who is behind NACs?

NACs originated with the Intrinsic Exchange Group Inc. (IEG), together with the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) (“the Exchange). Webb revealed that the would-be controllers of the earth’s natural riches are also behind projects that will facilitate increased government surveillance and control over banking, freedom of movement, and other liberties. According to Webb in 2021:

The creation and launch of NACs has been two years in the making and saw the NYSE team up with the Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG), in which the NYSE itself holds a minority stake. IEG’s three investors are the Inter-American Development Bank, the Latin America-focused branch of the multilateral development banking system that imposes neoliberal and neo-colonalist [sic] agendas through debt entrapment; the Rockefeller Foundation, the foundation of the American oligarch dynasty whose activities have long been tightly enmeshed with Wall Street; and Aberdare Ventures, a venture capital firm chiefly focused on the digital healthcare space. Notably, the IADB and the Rockefeller Foundation are closely tied to the related pushes for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and biometric Digital IDs.

So, what are Natural Asset Companies (NACs)?

A good summary of NACs, including how they are formed and operate, and what might be done to stop them, is found in a second article by Byfield from August 2023, but the following are some additional considerations and information sources.

The IEG website’s main page states that NACs “…are fundamentally different than traditional companies because they are chartered to protect, restore, and grow the natural assets under their management to foster healthy ecosystems.” And IEG’s answer to conserving nature is monetization intended to “generate the funding needed to manage, restore, and grow healthy ecosystems around the world and bring us closer to achieving a truly sustainable, circular economy.” A circular economy is the end goal of the UN and WEF in which recycling and minimal waste is the central concept for consumption and production of everything from household goods to construction materials. For example, people would share and lease products and appliances as long as possible and then repair, reuse, and recycle waste materials, including steel, instead of extracting or producing new ones. NACs would allow a relatively small number of powerful institutions to determine whether or not natural resources are extracted and therefore determine the course of overall manufacturing and consumption.

An SEC document containing proposed operating principles, notes that NACs could be “used to implement the conservation, restoration, or sustainable management plans” as well as generating revenues:

The Exchange proposes that NACs would be corporations that hold the rights to the ecological performance produced by natural or working areas, such as national reserves or large–scale farmlands, and have the authority to manage the areas for conservation, restoration, or sustainable management. The Exchange states that these rights could be licensed like other rights, including “run with the land” rights such as mineral rights, water rights, or air rights, and that NACs would be expected to license these rights from sovereign nations or private landowners.

According to the SEC, NACs will use the UN’s natural asset accounting system and employ reporting practices addressing environmental and social objectives, human rights, and equity. This will take place “consistent with” UN-aligned business standards:

The Exchange states that the Reporting Framework is based on the natural capital accounting standards established in the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting Framework (“SEEA EA”), and that the proposed EPR would measure, value, and report on the ecosystem services and natural assets managed by a NAC.

[The Exchange] proposes to require NACs to provide website disclosures that it states are designed to provide transparency regarding the NAC’s social and environmental objectives. These would include requiring NACs to adopt and publish an Environmental and Social Policy, a Biodiversity Policy, a Human Rights Policy, consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and an Equitable Benefit Sharing Policy.

This arrangement suggests an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)-type system which some have described as working like a grift or extortion method through which large corporations and financers use a series of carrots and sticks to force dependent organizations to toe the “social justice” policy line.

An IEG page devoted to details about the NAC, including asset valuation, states that:

“NAC’s equity is a store of value like any other security or asset, and includes the stocks of water, timber, biodiversity, soil, carbon, fish, and other natural assets that make life on Earth possible.”

“Natural Asset Companies are designed to capture the full value of natural assets…. Values for ecosystem services are calculated based on a Technical Ecological Performance Study, which is the study conducted to characterize, measure, and value the ecosystems managed by a NAC.”

The term “full value” often signals that special fees and surcharges will be introduced to account for unseen costs. Looking at the list of “values captured,” the “technical” study should be expected to employ “valuation approaches” in the form of descriptive narratives normally associated with national parks or conservation lands translated to dollars in addition to the traditional monetary accounting values assigned to land and its products.

NACs represent a fundamental restructuring of the value of natural assets and introduces the opportunity for government-mandated environmental restrictions and fees, all taking place in accordance with UN standards.

It suggests that, going forward, land, if we’re even permitted to use it or any product extracted from it, will never again simply be sold by the acre, rather will probably require environmental studies and involve a host of “environmental sustainability” valuation surcharges and, likely, “equity fees” plus special government costs or oversight taxes in the final price.

It’s important to note that NACs are structured to use earnings to expand initial holdings, suggesting that there will be an ongoing land- and resource-grab that would place untold acres of public and private parcels under the control of these very powerful financial institutions. Reduced supplies of conveniently-located and useable land could mean that average citizens wanting to purchase developable tracts would pay an inflated price, a further obstacle to land ownership. This scenario brings to mind the impact on markets when Wall Street private equity firms and investment managers purchase entire housing developments and then rent homes back to citizens. The act of snapping up available housing arguably contributes to inflated costs of even modest homes, placing them beyond the grasp of first-time buyers. Similarly, NACs could alter the market and make land purchase increasingly unaffordable for ordinary citizens, independent farmers, and anyone other than the wealthy. Middle class wealth has traditionally been generated through the accumulation of property and a new asset category that incentivizes corporate control of raw land, resources, and even homes could devastate middle class efforts to establish wealth that might lead to middle class financial power and political influence.

NACs are in line with the “environmental sustainability” goals pursued by United Nations and the World Economic Forum

Using NACs to take land out of productive use would facilitate the globalization objectives of WEF’s Great Reset and support its partnership with the UN as they implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030. UN member countries, among them the U.S., have pledged to support SDGs, which include detailed guidelines for implementing social, educational, environmental, and political practices. This set of milestones can only be achieved through economic “degrowth,” an anti-capitalism model implemented by governments to deliberately slow down both production and consumption. Part of that involves taking land out of productive use as a method of environmental conservation. Underlying degrowth is the intention to establish a socialist-style “equity” of living standards between developed western nations and the rest of the world so that all global citizens are relegated to a common, “environmentally sustainable,” lower standard of living. The utopian SDGs, including the number one priority to “eliminate poverty,” have been challenged as unrealistic and unobtainable, generating assertions that SDGs and the “climate crisis” itself are pretexts for redistribution of power and resources to elites under one-world governance.

In addition, NACs may aid the UN’s targeting of agriculture as a source of global greenhouse gas emissions and “climate change.” The war on farmland has resulted in a host of radical environmental measures being implemented worldwide to shift to less-productive but eco-friendly fertilizers, shut down farms, and cull hundreds of thousands of methane-producing cattle. NACs may also further the larger SDG agenda which includes, among other things, weaning the world from fossil fuels, making cars unaffordable, banning certain appliances and yard implements that operate with natural gas or petroleum, restricting movement within “15-minute cities,” and pressing citizens to consume insects and lab-grown proteins.

With the January 2 decision deadline upon us, where do we stand?

The SEC first announced on September 29, 2023 that it would soon make a determination on creation of NACs and gave a short window for comments that was later extended. Three members of the U.S. Senate, Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and James E. Risch (R-ID), wrote to the SEC in early November 2023, challenging NAC approval. The Republican senators confirmed that “federal lands, including national parks and other publicly owned lands,” as well as private lands could be negatively impacted by an NAC:

We are concerned that corporate involvement in the stewardship and control of our federal lands would create unintended consequences. The proposed rule could lead to a preservationist-only approach to federal land management instead of an “all-of-the-above” working lands approach as intended by the creation of our federal land programs….This rule-making comes as other federal agencies work to bolster permanent federal conservation acres. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is creating conservation areas surrounding existing National Wildlife Refuges. These areas can be used to create NACs. The Intrinsic Exchange Group Inc. (IEG) calls these “Conservation Areas” and describes them to include protected lands, private lands with easements, and sustainable communities. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) also issued a proposed rule that prioritizes conservation of the federal lands over the multiple uses authorized by Congress under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). We have concerns about the intentions of prioritizing conservation over the multiple-use approach on our federal lands in tandem with financial incentives for corporate management.

In mid-December, 32 House Republicans authored a letter, posed questions to the SEC, requested that the period for comments be reopened, and suggested that the SEC was “seemingly trying to push it through quickly and discreetly.” U.S. State Treasurers contacted the SEC on December 20 with similar concerns and even more penetrating inquiries. Perhaps as a consequence of this official scrutiny, the original comment period for the SEC’s decision was extended for 21 days, according to an SEC document dated December 21. So far, there is no statement confirming any SEC decision to establish a new date beyond the original January 2, 2024 target, however the House letter stated that “we understand that there has been an informal extension of the deadline for this decision to be made.”

As we await the SECs decision or a delay, we should consider Byfield’s conclusion that, “This effort would be a huge windfall for the federal government and the NACs. The government would create an entirely new revenue stream that would solely benefit the Davos-type crowd that gives the current administration support. Both Big Government and radical environmentalists stand to benefit. …They would control our lands and profit from them at the same time. Handing rights to America’s greatest national treasures – along with the air we breathe – to wealthy special interests….”