The Stakeholder Selection Process

A key issue in tomorrow’s exciting world of stakeholder ‘capitalism’ is - exactly who selects those stakeholders, why, and for what purpose? Because - regardless of who - you better hope they represent your interests. And in that regard, hope is the appropriate word.

So for this purpose I browsed the web, expecting to drag up just a few key documents on the topic of biodiversity conservation - from the likes of the World Bank or the Global Environment Facility. Little did I know that apparently, this stakeholder selection process appears to require an advanced degree… of sorts - probably from the Rockefeller University or an equivalent purveyor of the best scientific consensus available.

A frequent feature during the stakeholder selection process is sending potentials a survey to be filled out - which, if you think about it, is bloody convenient, because it allows for inconveniencies to be filtered out without even having to speak to them. But before we start properly mocking that, let’s quickly summarise what we discoverd in prior documents -

The 12 Malawi Principles¹ also known as the Ecosystem Approach taught us -

• That management should be decentralised to the extent possible. This, of course, means that someone will decide when and if this decentralisation is convenient.

• That the ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales. There’s the call for someone to judge what’s appropriate. This further ties in with the ‘Landscape Approach’, and the Global Environment Facility, as they structure those blended finance deals using the ‘Landscape Approach’.

• We then add that the ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information. But exactly who will dictate what’s relevant?

• And yet more arbitrary decisions are called for through the ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.

To sum up this lot - someone will decide upon the level of decentralisation, the spatial and temporal scale, what comprise relevant information, and which sectors of society and science disciplines are considered relevant. The Convention on Biological Diversity also supply us an ‘Advanced User Guide’ should you need further detail². That document, however, does not detail how the stakeholder selection process should proceed.

The Ecosystem Approach

Next up, the Landscape Approach³ taught us that -

• The objective is adaptive management, which in short means act on input as they come in. It enables arbitrary rule, but that’s not the point here, because it doesn’t answer the key question as to who said ‘stakeholders’ would be in the first place.

• Stakeholders ‘will only join the process if they judge it to be in their interest‘. It doesn’t state in whose interests, but it does further detail that ‘Solutions to problems need to be built on shared negotiation processes based on trust‘, which in reality is a setup for what comes next - ‘Trust emerges when objectives and values are shared‘. In other words, only people in broad agreement are likely to become ‘stakeholders’.

• We then see that ‘Developing a landscape approach requires a patient iterative process of identifying stakeholders‘, which essentially means that ‘stakeholders’ during the earlier stages will be removed from consideration, further confirmed by ‘Stakeholders and their concerns are not static but will change‘. The same principle (5) further adds ‘… aspire to involving all stakeholder groups in decision-making, the transaction costs of doing this comprehensively can be prohibitive…‘, which then means budgetary constraints can be used as an excuse to dismiss… ‘problems’.

• The article continues ‘Trust among stakeholders is a basis for good management‘, and further adds that ‘The need to coordinate activities by diverse actors requires that a shared vision can be agreed upon. This requires a broad consensus on general goals, challenges, and concerns, as well as on options and opportunities‘. I mean, it should be painfully obvious - if you’re in disagreement, then you’re not to be trusted, and that leads to poor management (allegedly), and thus the iteration of stakeholders will see you booted.

• Finally, we see that ‘People require the ability to participate effectively and to accept various roles and responsibilities. Such participation presupposes certain skills and abilities (social, cultural, financial)‘ which in reality could easily mean you have to accept some hard-left Marxist ESG carp as gospel, or you simply will fall short of the skillset required, which also is helpfully summarised thusly ‘Effective participation makes demands of stakeholders‘. But which demands?

And to summarise - ‘stakeholders’ will join the project if they ‘share values’, because those (allegedly) leads to ‘trust’, which is a prerequisite for ‘good management’. To remove the few who erroneously slipped through the filter, they can always institute some new ‘skill requirement’, which will be used to eliminate you through ‘stakeholder iteration’. In other words, this is an outline of how to create a bench in total agreement with those who pick these ‘stakeholders’, thus leading to a dictatorship… but it doesn’t actually highlight who’s driving the process.

The Landscape Approach

So with all of this in mind - let’s find out who selects those other stakeholders, in what capacity, and… well, who the hell is really in charge?

First document to dig through comes courtesy of the GEF/WWF⁴. Given that the Global Environment Facility structure these deals, it’s probably a reasonable place to start; the document is titled ‘STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PLAN‘, released in 2022.

And… we quickly learn that it’s not actually terribly exciting. Sure, ‘30 percent of land aeras and of sea areas globally‘ managed and conserved, sure, this ‘will require a range of governance and management approaches’, involved a ‘wide range of stakeholders’, which… it’s a bit short of declaring. The primary reason I’ve included it is because it supplies a range of references which actually are very good.

The primary section of interest is titled ‘Project Stakeholders’, and through this, we start to get a glimpse of how this actually works -

‘Stakeholder engagement is central to the objective of the project... Throughout the full process, stakeholder engagement will be a focus and include relevant government ministries, national and international NGOs, IP federations/representation, local community leaders, and other key sectoral and interest groups.‘

… conveniently sorted in order of importance, no doubt…

‘Stakeholders will require specific engagement strategies, and this may include the use of social media and high-impact messaging‘

To be quite honest, it seems somewhat the joke to replace democracy with a process, running adverts on Facebook, but there you go. And finally -

‘During the design stage, project partners have identified broad categories of stakeholders, as well as their expected interest in the project and their expected participation, …‘

So we realistically look at who said ‘project partners’ might be.

The first reference we’ll go through is one, courtesy of the Convention on Biological Diversity, for the simple reason that they’re the highest authority on the topic. Released in 2018, we have the ‘CBD/COP/DEC/14/8‘ otherwise known as ‘Protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures‘⁵. And this is a very interesting document, though not entirely serving the purpose.

‘Recognizing the relevance of international initiatives, experiences and activities, such as the Latin American Technical Cooperation Network on National Parks, other Protected Areas, and Wildlife (REDPARQUES) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Man and the Biosphere Programme and its World Network of Biosphere Reserves, for their contribution of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures,‘

A straight up reference to the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, which the GEF for the record monetise on behalf of the billionaire class. Nice!

It further drags in the ‘Satoyama Initiative’, adds both biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, …

‘… governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values”‘

… continusously refers to the completely unelected IUCN, and from page 16 onwards makes all sorts of interesting additions in a section on ‘Engagement of rights-holders and stakeholders‘, such as -

‘Identify relevant rights-holders and stakeholders, considering livelihoods, cultural and spiritual specificities at various scales‘

… which could tie in with the Ecosystem Approach and its ‘decentralised’ management, and further adds -

‘Build a common understanding across rights-holders and stakeholders of the objectives and expected outcomes;‘

Which… sounds just as bit as though they already know the outcome in advance, and consequently, the stakeholder selection is just Kabuki Theatre.

And finally, on page 17 we find the entirely expected -

‘Ensure that management is effectively informed by reporting and analysis through appropriate feedback mechanisms in order to facilitate adaptive management‘

… which is of course utterly unsurprising. The document carries on a bit, but still no dice. We need to look elsewhere.

And let’s just get that slightly odd reference out of the way, because it’s an important one. The Satoyama Initiative⁶ details -

‘The objective of OFSDP-II is to enhance forest ecosystem along with sustainable livelihood of local people by improving sustainable forest management, sustainable biodiversity conservation and community development, thereby contributing to harmonization between environmental conservation and socio-economic development in the Project area in Odisha‘

… and there you have it. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others under the Ecosystem Approach.

The next document spans only 2 pages, but carries with it interesting admissions; it’s the ‘Standard on Stakeholder Engagement‘⁷., and it’s from the document which in full is titled the WWF Environment and Social Safeguards.

It’s another shortie, but why it matters is this -

‘Involve the following as part of stakeholder planning and engagement:
o Stakeholder identification and analysis;‘

… and why that’s of importance is listed above -

‘Specifically, WWF GEF and GCF Project Teams will:‘

… yeah. It comes down to the project teams, and those are run by the WWF-GEF⁸, or… the Green Climate Fund⁹. More on the latter in a minute. Finally, to complete, it’s… more of the same. But it does hint as to where to go next -

‘Develop an appropriately scaled Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP)‘

And on the Green Climate Fund’s site we find that… apparently, our governments have agreed to cough up $100bn/yr by 2020¹⁰! Funny. I don’t recall any announcement in that regard whatsoever, nor even a vote on the matter! We also find that this is routed through the World Bank, acting in the capacity of trustee (as per usual), and that this relates to the UNFCCC, which is about as surprising as Ursula von der Leyen - running unopposed - being re-selected for the supposed role of ‘EU President’.

But the website also refers to the ‘Nationally Determined Contributions‘, which is another stellar example of… what’s the word for it… oh yeah… treason¹¹, in detail outlining precisely how those ‘politicians’ have ensured that the European economy remains… deeply uncompetitive, causing a swift collapse in living standards soon enough while most of the world carries on building coal plants.

And I’m sadly not kidding in that regard. Your ‘elected representatives’ have quite literally torched the future ‘well-being’ of your children in order - no doubt - to collect that cheque courtesy of the billionaire class. Only one corrupt as hell member of parliament could ever - ever - agree to these as per below insane demands, leading to escalating prices… everywhere, while destroying the economy through incessant tax confiscation for alleged sake of ‘restoring biodiversity’.

Which the billionaire class then capitalise on.

It really, really, really does appear as though the politicians have declared war on the people. Really does. Because our futures were sacrificed for certain.

Regardless, we’re getting slightly off-track, so here’s the next reference; ‘Procedures for Implementation of Standard on Stakeholder Engagement‘¹², also courtesy of the WWF-GEF collaboration who were outed as dictating stakeholder selection above.

‘Stakeholder engagement is an inclusive process conducted throughout the project life-cycle‘

Which could easily lead to ‘iteration’, but even if people are not removed, there are other options as we shall soon discover -

‘Stakeholders are persons or groups who are directly or indirectly affected by a project, as well as those who may have an interest in a project and/or the ability to influence its outcomes, either positively or negatively.’

… which does a tremendous job, outlining exactly how important this selection process is…

’Stakeholders may include local affected communities or individuals and their formal and informal representatives, national or local government authorities, politicians, religious leaders, civil society organizations and groups with special interests, the academic community, and businesses.‘

To be quite honest - the key word is ‘may’. All those groups listed… they ultimately don’t matter, because they’re not in charge of the selection process.

‘To establish a systematic approach to stakeholder engagement that will help Project Teams identify stakeholders, …‘

Confirming that it indeed is the project team who truly is in charge, and…

‘To identify stakeholder priorities and assess the level of stakeholder interest and support for the project‘

… throwing in yet more subjective get-out clauses, thereby even further centralising power, and carrying on in a similar vein -

‘To ensure that appropriate project information on environmental and social risks and impacts is disclosed to stakeholders in a timely, understandable, accessible, and appropriate manner‘

… which all can ultimately be shaped as the ‘project team’ sees fit.

‘Since the full scope of project activities and potential stakeholders are not yet defined at this stage, an initial list of stakeholders should be generated. …. It is recommended that at this stage the stakeholder identification exercise is an expansive one so that relevant groups are not inadvertently excluded‘

Meaning that early talks loop in lots and lots of ‘stakeholders’ - which is great if inconveniencies need filtering out -

‘The initial list of identified stakeholders should be verified, modified and enhanced through interviews with key informants (eg. government representatives, local CSO representatives, experts etc.), consultations with already identified stakeholders, and site visits‘

… I’m sure you get the picture. Not only will the ‘project teams’ get an opportunity to remove inconveniencies, so will governments, cherry picked ‘experts’ and so forth. This is the express opposite of a democracy. This is very much how a dictatorship functions. And no, I really am not kidding here, proven by the two following sections -

‘The identification process must then be updated and refined as the design of the project takes shape and the full scope of the project’s activities—and range of potential stakeholders—are better understood‘

They will filter out anyone disagreeing, and claim it’s because they didn’t ‘understand the full scope’ or the ‘design was incomplete’, or -

‘Once the relevant stakeholder groups have been identified, the next step is to discern their interests in the project and how their interest may be affected. Identification of stakeholder interest can help illuminate the motivations of different actors and how they may influence the project, including potential project opponents.‘

… and there you go. There is precisely zero percent chance those who oppose will be selected as stakeholders, but even if they were, it would be in only an ‘advisory’ capacity. Oh yes, we’re yet to see the final get-out clause. In fact, here’s yet another -

‘As project information changes due to recommendations from assessments and mitigation plans, or as project activities are identified, the stakeholder engagement plan should be reviewed and modified accordingly to ensure its effectiveness in securing meaningful and effective stakeholder participation.‘

Now recall how the Landscape Approach arrived at the conclusion that everyone should be in broad agreement (though they pretended it was about trust)?

‘… social advisors or other expert staff should help design and facilitate the process and assist with participatory methodologies and other specialized techniques‘

Oh yeah, and if you’re too white, or too male, or too straight, or too educated, or too… intelligent, then they can straight up discriminate, claiming it’s about ‘participation’.

‘The grievance redress mechanism for the project needs to be described in the stakeholder engagement plan.’

This is ultimately about when they decide to evict those ‘indigenous peoples’ which they pretend to deeply care about from their home lands because they want to monetise the timber on their lands, and -

’The SEP should outline a reasonable budget for stakeholder engagement activities, including potential support for groups to facilitate their participation when necessary.‘

… is a great excuse, because 'they simply didn’t have the money’.

… and there are so many things to comment on here, so I’ll just pick a few because there are more documents to traverse.

‘The SEP is updated as and when the specific details become known, for example the specific locations, stakeholders and schedule of activities.‘

We saw this above, but when those problematic ‘stakeholders’ are ‘iterated’ out they will update the plan, and…

‘Briefly describe the methods that will be used to engage and/or consult with each of the stakeholder groups identified in section 4. Methods may vary according to the target audience. For example:
Interviews with stakeholder representatives and key informants;
Surveys, polls and questionnaires;‘

Ie, issue questionaires, allowing them to up-front discard all those with the ‘incorrect’ mindset.

‘The aim of consultations is to inform the Project Team’s decisions, where appropriate. Not all stakeholder groups can agree on project activities, their impacts and mitigation, so the goal of engagement is not always to achieve consensus but to hear from stakeholder groups and to take their comments and concerns into account in making project decisions.‘

What this of course means is that the project team will ‘listen’ to those who disagree, and promptly ignore them.

Already at this stage I believe this is as open-and-shut a case as that versus David E Margin, because I trust him about as much as this stakeholder selection process. But let’s carry on, and the next document is courtesy of the UK government; ‘Stakeholder engagement strategies‘¹³.

‘One aspect to be addressed in the production of the SMP is the means of engaging stakeholders to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their involvement and to avoid disputes. The specific techniques for achieving stakeholder participation are detailed in Annex A4, however a more important consideration is the extent to which stakeholders are to become involved in the SMP development process and on what basis should they be involved. The options range from full involvement of stakeholders in development of the plan, through to simply undertaking consultation/dissemination exercises at the start and end of the process.‘

… and there you have it. Only some ‘stakeholders’ even get to affect the development of the plan, meaning that almost certainly most are just there to be ignored.

‘In recognition of this, four basic stakeholder groups have been identified, together with the methods and merits of involving each group

These groups are:

• Client Steering Group

• Elected Members

• Key Stakeholders

• Other Stakeholders‘

I’m sure you can see where this is heading, but just to nail it down -

‘The four groups facilitate varying degrees of stakeholder involvement in the development of the SMPs offering differing levels of influence that stakeholders could exert in influencing the outcome‘

‘The Client Steering Group (CSG) has overall responsibility for the delivery of the SMP.‘

Followed by (in the ‘disadvantages’ section) -

‘Unless responsibilities are shared, all decision making power remains with this group, so Stakeholders may feel little or no ownership of the SMP on production‘

All the other groups are subordinate, unless responsibiliies are expressly shared. And my otherwise well-developed cynicism is a mere amateur compared to what comes next…

‘The involvement of Elected Members in the process of SMP development reflects the “Cabinet” style approach to decision making operating in many local authorities. Politicians are involved from the beginning, thereby reducing the likelihood that the policies will not be approved by the planning authorities‘

That’s where your ‘elected representative’ comes in. In other words - your ‘representatives’ will have ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT ON OUTCOME. They are but mere observers, as the billionaire class steals every penny in your bank account.

… and you’d have thought it’d be hard to top that, but this impressive document carries on in the same vein -

‘Assigning the correct weighting to opposing views‘

Again - even if you manage to pass through the initial selection process, and even if you manage to not be iterated out at a later stage, and even if you won’t be actively discriminated in a ‘participatory' manner, and even if they haven’t managed to run out of money by the time your opinion is heard, and even if the real stakeholders don’t ignore you wholesale… then they can still consider your opinion worthless through assigning it a weight of zero.

Finally - in the group of stakeholders which those ‘indigenous peoples’ will obviously be relegated to -

‘There will always be large numbers of individuals and organisations who are likely to be affected by the decisions of the SMP. It is unlikely to ever be practical to involve all these stakeholders on one of the three groups outlined above, therefore there will remain a group of ‘Other Stakeholders’. This group will be contacted directly by the SMP Consultant but will not be involved in the development of the SMP, other than at the very start and as a consultee on the draft plan‘

That’s right. Apart from early - promptly discarded - testimony, they won’t be listened to regardless.

Finally, let’s finish off with ‘Identifying and understanding stakeholders‘¹⁴., by the nauseatingly named ‘Climate Transparency Action’ -

It’s… another list of attributes which so obviously can and will be abused, right from the identification of people with power, to arbitrary prioritisation, to arbitrary evaluation of capacity, while at the same time suggesting that undemocratic organisations should be selected. Yeah, the IUCN, of course.

I guarantee you on thing. No-one, fully informed, would ever in a billion years agree with this, because it’s the express way to a dictatorship. And that really is expressly why they don’t tell you what they’re doing.

So let me briefly outline exactly what it is that they do.

Through the GEF, they create blended finance structures, hugely beneficial to the billionaire class, and with all risk shouldered by the taxpayer.

The Global Environment Facility

For this purpose, the lands monetises are those of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, and the objective is Ecosystem Services. These will be wrapped in a holding company of type Natural Asset Company, which will be floated on a stock exchange.

The Natural Asset Company

Carbon credits are a type of Ecosystem Service. These - through the UNFCCC/CBD ‘lever’ - will progressively spike in price, as they will come in ever tighter supply. And this will in turn result in higher prices for the food you eat, the energy you use, and so forth. And this will take place while they spend an ever-increasing amount of your taxes on ‘biodiversity restoration’ - like the Green Climate Fund above - which will then be capitalised on by the vulture class.

I’ve outlined this process before. And it is absolutely corrupt to the core, and the express result of several generations of treasonous politicians and billionaires, explicitly acting against the interests of their populations, and those who enabled them the opportunity to gather said extreme wealth.

The Grand Plan

There is absolutely nothing patriotic about selling out your fellow man. But the one missing thing from this entire chain which I was yet to document in detail was a description of how that ‘stakeholder selection’ process functions.

And this - unbelievably - through the GEF is clearly controlled by those very same forces conspiring against us.

1. https://www.cbd.int/ecosystem/principles.shtml

2. https://www.cbd.int/doc/programmes/cro-cut/eco/eco-guide-ad-en.pdf

3. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210595110

4. https://files.worldwildlife.org/wwfcmsprod/files/Publication/file/4ngjjgkf3e_Stakeholder_Engagement_Plan_GEF30x30.docx.pdf

5. https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-14/cop-14-dec-08-en.pdf

6. http://ofsds.in/Publication/Proposal%20on%20Satoyama%20Implementation.pdf

7. https://wwfgeftracks.com/sites/default/files/2019-02/Standard%20on%20Stakeholder%20Engagement.pdf

8. https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/about-wwf-gef

9. https://www.greenclimate.fund/projects

10. https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/resource-mobilisation/trustee

11. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2023-10/ES-2023-10-17%20EU%20submission%20NDC%20update.pdf

12. https://wwfgeftracks.com/sites/default/files/2019-02/Procedures%20for%20Implementation%20of%20Standard%20on%20Stakeholder%20Engagement.pdf

13. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a79791eed915d07d35b5cc2/smpg-vol2-appa.pdf

14. https://climateactiontransparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Stakeholder-Participation-Guide_ch5.pdf