US Treasury: $30 Billion In Libyan Assets Frozen next is Rainforest robbery - How Sarawak's Chief Minister became a billionaire

 Rainforest robbery - How Sarawak's Chief Minister became a billionaire

 The Treasury Department says that at least $30 billion in Libyan assets have been frozen since President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Libya last week.

David Cohen, Treasury's acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that the $30 billion represented the largest amount ever frozen by a U.S. sanctions order. He said that there had been no evidence that Moammar Gadhafi or agents working on his behalf had tried to withdraw funds before the sanctions order went into effect. Cohen, speaking to reporters on a conference call Monday, refused to provide any details on how many U.S. financial institutions held the Libyan assets or how the money was divided between Gadhafi and his family and the country's sovereign wealth fund.

By Bruno Manser Funds, Basel, Switzerland

 

Please read the compelling account of how Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak since 1981, became a billionaire and transferred vast sums overseas.

 

Campaign Update: Rainforest robbery - How Sarawak's Chief Minister became a billionaire

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends, the latest edition of Tong Tana, the BMF newsletter, is now online under:http://www.stop-timber-corruption.org/resources 

Please read the compelling account of how Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak since 1981, became a billionaire and transferred vast sums overseas.

The newsletter includes the following chapters: 

- Rainforest robbery: How to become a billionaire by logging and corruption 

- Samling and the Taibs: collaborators in rainforest destruction 

- The Boyert case and the FBI 

- The Taibs' Swiss Monaco connection 

- Taib's Canadian black money imperium 

- Put a Stop to the Rainforest Mafia! - Demands of the Bruno Manser Fund 

The newsletter is available in English, French and German. 

 

Please help us to highlight the Taib corruption case with anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering authorities around the globe and sign the online petition! 

Your BMF team 

Please contact us for more information: Bruno Manser Fonds, Socinstrasse 37, 4051 Basel / Switzerland, +41 61 261 94 74
www.bmf.ch, www.stop-timber-corruption.org. PS: Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/bmfonds

 

Please forward this to your friends.

 London kicked off the planned week of international protests against Taib’s 30th year in office this morning.  They staged a show of disgust outside the Central London headquarters of the wealthy propety company that is linked to him, Ridgeford Properties.

A good crowd of mixed Malaysians, Sarawakians and British sympathisers gathered to make their message plain.  “30 years is long enough”!

The banners spoke for themselves and a human monkey danced amongst the crowd to remind the cameras and journalists who had gathered from as far away as Australia and Italy that this protest is not only to support the natives of Sarawak but also the creatures of the jungle who are endangered by Taib’s relentless destruction!

The planned week of demonstrations is to mark the advent of Taib’s 30th Anniversary in office, which falls on 26th March.  The elderly chief minister has made it plain that he plans to carry on none the less and fight the coming elections – he has recently married a very young new wife to demonstrate his ability to go on and on and on.

However, as long-term dictators have started toppling from power in a wave of popular protests throughout the Middle East it is fair to say the timing of this election is not good for the frail 75 year old.

Slogans

The messages that could be read on the banners spelt out the protesters points of view – none of which could be articulated in Sarawak itself, hence the demonstrations abroad:  “Freeze Taib’s Assets Now” was one slogan, which reflects what has been happening to the former heads of state Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia.  “Respect Native Rights”, “Save the Borneo Jungle”, “Save the Sarawak Rainforest”, “Stop Illegal Logging on Native Lands”, “Taib’s Billion Pound Property Empire” and “Stop Timber Corruption” were just some of the messages the British protest sent back to Taib in Sarawak today.

The company Miracle Harvest Sdn Bhd, belonging to Raziah Mahmud, the sister of the Chief Minister, and her husband Robert Geneid, has certainly yielded some miraculous profits. They are particularly miraculous because the company has not yet started officially operating, according to Malaysia’s Register of Companies!

Like so many of Razia’s land companies, Miracle Harvest, incorporated 15th June 2005, uses the business address of Kumpulan Parabena Sdn Bhd.  Kumpulan Parabena is run by the Geneids and we have revealed that the Chief Minister also holds a substantial stake through the holding company Mesti Bersatu.

According to our researches the land titles which have been recently awarded to list of different companies based at this address amount to an area greater than Singapore!

In the case of Miracle Harvest, the approval had already been given by the Land Regsitry for an award to the company of 12,000 hectares for the purpose of oil palm plantation (OPL) three weeks before its actual incorporation date!  Land titles handed out to a company before it even comes into existence!

A case of 'Miraculous Pre-conception'?

So, can one detect the Hand of God behind such amazing developments, or perhaps just that of Abdul Taib Mahmud, who doubles up as the Head of the Land Custody and Development Agency?  The LCDA has been taking Native Customary Lands in the name of the State Government and then handing it to close Taib family members like his sister Raziah and son Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib and several others in a pattern that has been escalating in recent years.

Land Registry Records

We can see that in the case of Miracle Harvest Raziah’s husband Robert Geneid is clearly marked as the contact for the Land Title in the Land Registry.  He also lists his office and phone number as that of the Kumpulan Parabena HQ in Kuching, thus directly implicating the Chief Minister in the deal, who has a major stake in Kumpulan Parabena.

Cheap premiums = revenue loss

Our research indicates that the land given to Miracle Harvest was indeed handed out very cheap indeed and now commands a far higher market price. A total of 11 lots were handed to Miracle Havest along with a sister company also owned by the Geneids, Green Ace Resources, on just one day 25.5.2005.  They amounted to 20,000 hectares for an over all price of just RM 15 million.  The stated purpose for the hand out is”OPL”, meaning Oil Plantation.

This low premium marked a very poor return for the taxpayer and a vast potential profit for the Mahmuds.  Worse, such premiums are generally not demanded up front of Taib family members in deals like these.  The payments are allowed to be deferred and delayed or paid in installments – usually (according to insiders) until the land has been sold on at a healthy profit!

However, the ownership quickly moved on from the Mahmuds of course.  In 2006 the publicly-listed palm oil plantation company Kwantas announced that it had acquired 70% of the shares of Miracle Harvest (MHSB), along 70% of the sister company Green Ace Resources, which is also registered under the Kumpulan Parabena address.

It can only be as part of the same set of deals that Green Ace Resources (GARSB) was handed a huge area of 7,000 hectares in Mukah in the region of the Sungai Narub Reserve Forest on the very same day in 2005 that Miracle Harvest gained its own land titles.
Kwantas announced it had payed around RM 17million for the 70% purchase of these two companies, whereas the original premium for the entire amount charged earlier from Parabena was circa RM 15 million.

Sarawak Report would therefore like to ask who Kwantas paid for the acquisition which was made several months after Miracle Harvest/Green Ace acquired the Land Titles? Was it Miracle Harvest, which was still not yet officially operating, according to the Company Register?

We also ask why it is that, although Kwantas had acquired most of the shares of the company, Miracle Harvest continues to be based at the Parabena Office and is represented by Robert Geneid?

Up for sale!

We can now reveal that Kwantas has just started to dispose of its shareholdings in these land titles, giving us a good view of the genuine current market price!

The State of Sarawak originally received just RM5 million for the 7,000 hectares of land awarded to Green Ace Resources, yet last month Kwantas announced an agreement to sell its 70%  stake for a whopping  RM 32.4 million!

This means that the 30% of the shares still held by the Geneids are worth roughly half that amount – the same that was charged for the entire 20,000 hectares property portfolio handed to them by Raziah’s brother and business partner, Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, in 2005.

The real miracle would be if Raziah and Robert failed to cash in on their back-breaking efforts!

NCR land?

Selling on land with just a provisional lease? Tricky now that the Native Land Rights cases are starting to do so well in court! Of equal concern is the status of this land which is being sold on.

The Kwantas statement makes clear that the land  lease is still provisional. This means that officially some further agreement is needed before oil palm clearances can begin.

In practice the ‘provisional’ aspect of such licences are frequently and disgracefully brushed aside in Sarawak, as plantation companies simply ignore the existence of Native Customary Rights of the communities whose land they take. Given they have paid so much money to the Head of Government’s relatives to get it their attitude is perhaps understandable?

Certainly, in a recent court case the judge laid the blame for a similar situation on the state government for handing out NCR land rather than on the company that had bought the titles.  It is likely that as the number of native land rights succeeding in the courts increase that platation companies will be less willing to buy such plots from Taib’s many relatives!

So what is the problem with Lot 1 Block 194 Oya-Dalat Land District at Sungai Narub, Mukah?  Is it disputed Native Customary Rights Land?  is it part of the Sungai Narub Reserve Forest?  Or could it be both?

Greenwash peril?

The company to whom this land is being sold is the massive Golden Agri Resources Sdn Bhd, which is the Indonesian Oil Palm arm of the notorious timber giant Sinar Mas.

Golden Agri made a major ‘Green PR’ gesture earlier this month, Feb 9th, when it announced to the world that it will in future stop all further deforestation in Indonesia.

Can we be reassured that Raziah and Robert’s miracle Company will miraculously manage to fulfil the new-found green and ethical credentials of their new buyer as this sale proceeds?

- Sarawak Report

By Bruno Manser Funds

OTTAWA (CANADA) / LONDON (UK). Human rights and environmental campaigners from Malaysia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Switzerland have today protested against corruption in front of property companies associated with the family of Abdul Taib Mahmud ("Taib"), the Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The protests took place in front of Sakto Corporation in Ottawa and Ridgeford Properties Ltd in central London.

The Canadian and British governments are being asked to freeze the assets of nine Taib-associated companies in Canada and two companies in the UK which are estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. 

Protesters in front of Jamilah Taib's house at 688 Manor Avenue, Rockcliffe, Canada, the second most expensive private home in the Ottawa region. Jamilah is the daughter of the Sarawak Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, and a major shareholder of Cahuya Mata Sarawak (CMS), the Malaysian state's largest private company. CMS is being regularly awarded huge government construction contracts wihtout public tender. The company has also a 15-year contract for road maintenance of all of the state's public roads.

Protesters in front of the Adobe Tower at Sakto's Preston Square development in Ottawa. Suite 910, 333 Preston Street is the administrative centre of Taib-linked property companies in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US. The company is being chaired by Jamilah Taib's husband, Sean Murray, (Abdul Taib Mahmud's son-in-law) who sits on the board of various Taib companies.

Protestors at Preston Square, Ottawa, Canada, the headquarters of Sakto corporation. Sakto was founded in 1983 by Onn Mahmud, the brother of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud. Onn Mahmud's Malaysian company, Achi Jaya holdings, holds a monopoly over all timber exports from Sarawak. In 2007, Tokyo tax authorities found out that Onn Mahmud had set up a kickbacks scheme operating through Hong Kong. All Japanese shipping companies who wanted to export timber from Sarawak to Japan had to pay kickbacks to Onn Mahmud's Hong Kong agent.

Protestors in front of Ridgeford Properties Ltd at 10 Weymouth Street in central London. Ridgeford Properties is a wholly-owned subisiary of the Canadian Citygate International Ltd which is being directed by Jamilah Taib and her Canadian husband, Sean Murray.

Protesters in front of Ridgeford Properties Ltd at 10 Weymouth St, London. In the centre, you can recognize "Papa Orang Utan" (Peter John Jaban), the DJ of Sarawak's independent radio station, Radio Free Sarawak.

The Canadian companies blacklisted by the Swiss Bruno Manser Fund as being associated with the Taib family are Adelaide Ottawa Corporation (Business number 2028546); City Gate International Corporation (446027-8); Glowell Development Corporation (1545868); Preston Building Holding Corporation (2108122), Sakto Development Corporation Pte. Ltd. (155207-4), Sakto Corporation (340439-1), Sakto Management Services Corporation (655948-4), Tower One Holding Corporation (2028542), Tower Two Holding Corporation (2018543). The British companies named on the Taib family assets blacklist are Ridgeford Properties Ltd (3268801) and Ridgeford Consulting Ltd (5572163). Ridgeford Properties Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canadian City Gate International Corporation.

The Bruno Manser Fund also disclosed that it had lodged a detailed complaint with Jeanne M. Flemming, Director of Canada's Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC), in June 2010 already. Hitherto, FINTRAC has left the complaint unanswered. Earlier this week, the Bruno Manser Fund criticized the Canadian authorities for their close business ties with Taib-family companies. No less than eleven Ontario Government Ministries are occupying offices at Sakto's Preston Square Tower III in Ottawa.

Abdul Taib Mahmud has been Chief Minister, Finance Minister and State Planning and Resources Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak since 1981. He has abused his political power in a spectacular way for personal gains and has managed to turn the resource-rich state of Sarawak on Borneo into his own private estate. Taib has been particularly criticized for the destructive logging of hundreds of thousands of hectares of tropical rainforest and for the marginalization of the state's indigenous communities. Taib's fortune is estimated to be worth several billion US dollars.

The black list of Taib’s secret foreign assets

The following companies are, or have been, closely linked to the family of Abdul Taib Mahmud ("Taib"), who has been Chief Minister of Sarawak, Malaysia, since 1981.

Taib's ill-gotten foreign and domestic assets are estimated to be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of US dollars.

The Bruno Manser Fund and thousands of supporters around the globe are urging the authorities of the below-mentioned countries to investigate the financial transactions of the black-listed companies under their respective anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering legislations and to freeze all Taib family assets for later restitution to the people of Sarawak.

Australia: Australian Universities International Alumni Convention Pty Ltd (ACN: 081942903); Donmastry Pty Ltd (ACN: 093 907 843); Geneid Holdings Pty Ltd (ACN: 087759751); Golborne Pty Ltd. (ACN: 061844148); Golden Sovereign Development Ltd (ACN 103 925 613); Kesuma Holdings Pty Ltd. (ACN 105540636); Newtop Holdings Pty Ltd (ACN: 066588225); Ostgro Australia Pty Ltd (ACN: 094721070); Sitehost Pty Ltd (ACN: 062312743); Valentine on George Pty Ltd (ACN: 105541562)

British Virgin Islands: Astar Properties Ltd. (201522); CMS Global (BVI) Ltd.; Tess Investments Ltd (203511)

Canada: Adelaide Ottawa Corporation (2028546); City Gate International Corporation (446027-8); Glowell Development Corporation (1545868); Preston Building Holding Corporation (2108122), Sakto Development Corporation Pte. Ltd. (155207-4), Sakto Corporation (340439-1), Sakto Management Services Corporation (655948-4), Tower One Holding Corporation (2028542), Tower Two Holding Corporation (2018543)

Hong Kong: Grand Shine Trading Ltd (0127665); Grand Will Ltd (0133932); Herolite Investment Ltd (129119); Natalite Investment Ltd (129502); Regent Star Company Ltd (0130318); Richfold Investment Ltd (0130308); Whittaker Company Ltd (0161304)

Jersey: Sogo Holdings Ltd (43148)

Malaysia: Achi Jaya Holdings Sdn Bhd; Borsarmulu Resort Sdn Bhd (213014-M); Cahya Mata Sarawak Sdn Bhd (21076-T); K&N Kenanga Holdings Bhd; Kumpulan Parabena Sdn Bhd; Mesti Bersatu Sdn Bhd (758849-V); Naim Holdings Berhad (585467-M); Sanyan Group; Sarawak Aluminium Company (783974-K); Sarawak Energy Bhd.; Ta Ann Group; Titanium Management Sdn Bhd; UBG Berhad (240931-X)

United Kingdom: Ridgeford Consulting Ltd (5572163); Ridgeford Properties Ltd (3268801)

USA: Sakti International Corporation Inc.; Wallysons Inc (the owner of the FBI building in Seattle!); W.A. Boylston Inc; W.A.Everett Inc.

This list has been established on 21 February 2011 and will be regularly updated.

For more information, please consult our campaign site www.stop-timber-corruption.org

WASHINGTON -- The chairmen of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting decried on Monday a federal system that has allowed contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit fraud -- then get hired again and again.

"For the 200,000 people employed by contractors to provide support and capability in Iraq and Afghanistan, accountability is too often absent, diluted, delayed, or avoided," Republican co-chair Chris Shays, formerly a longtime congressman from Connecticut, said while calling to order a hearing of the commission Monday.

There are so many barriers to suspending or banning contractors with violations that "untrustworthy contractors can continue profiting from government work, responsible businesses may be denied opportunities, and costs to taxpayers can climb," Shays said in a statement co-authored with his Democratic co-chair, Michael Thibault, formerly the deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The commission last week issued a blistering interim report to Congress: "At What Risk? Correcting over-reliance on contractors in contingency operations," which concluded that "misspent dollars run into the tens of billions" out of the nearly $200 billion spent on contracts and grants since 2002 to support military, reconstruction and other U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And that could well be an understatement, the commission noted, because "it might not take full account of ill-conceived projects, poor planning and oversight by the U.S. government, and criminal behavior and blatant corruption by both government and contractor employees."

The report suggested that the government stop using contractors so routinely, start taking oversight more seriously and establish strong interagency standards.

It called for an end to contractors' current role in hiring other contractors, concluding that they tend not to erect the appropriate oversight firewalls.

And most controversially, the report said the extensive use of private security contractors -- which has surged under President Barack Obama -- raises use-of-force issues and creates a gap in legal accountability

So rather than let them run wild, the commission recommended that agencies relying on private security contractors be required to embed government personnel among them who would be "responsible for leadership, command and control, and oversight of all security contractors and operations."

(The commission also promised that its final report, due this summer, will further address the over-reliance on private contractors to provide "movement security" for government workers in war zones. That's a shot across the bow of the State Department.)

The commission's findings, however, are just the latest in a litany of official and journalistic reports about the enormous cost of waste, fraud and corruption in Iraq and, particularly, Afghanistan.

Just last month, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction warned that the entire $11.4 billion for constructing and maintaining nearly 900 Afghan National Security Forces facilities is at risk due to inadequate planning.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in 2009 that an estimated $3 billion to $5 billion in U.S.-funded infrastructure contracting had been wasted there.

McClatchy Newspapers have exposed example after example of waste and abuse in contracts for Afghan reconstruction.

A State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks revealed late last year that Afghanistan's vice president had been caught carrying $52 million in cash in a Persian Gulf tax haven.

(See 10 more examples.)

In his remarks at Monday's hearing, Scott Amey, general counsel for the nonprofit watchdog group Project on Government Oversight (POGO), testified that "contract award dollars have increased from approximately $200 billion in fiscal year 2000 to over $535 billion in fiscal year 2010." Meanwhile, however, "contract administration and oversight have decreased because the acquisition workforce is stretched thin," he said.

Since 2002, POGO has maintained a Federal Contract Misconduct Database, which served as the model for the government-created Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), due to become publicly available starting in April.

Witnesses at Monday's hearing said, however, that the federal database doesn't adequately record contractors' past performance.

As it happens, the Obama administration recently caved to pressure from contractors and won't be making that past performance data available publicly.

But even internally, witnesses said, the state of the data is abysmal. Of the 1,485 past performance reports required from the Department of Defense, only 140 had been entered into the database. Of the 174 required from the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, not a single one could actually be found, although USAID insisted 24 had been entered.

And Dan Gordon, President Obama's administrator for federal procurement policy, said three-quarters of the performance reports that were filed still lacked required documentation.

But judging from POGO's database, Amey testified:

Some of the largest service contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan have checkered histories of misconduct, including instances of shooting civilians, false claims against the government, violations of the Anti-Kickback Act, fraud, retaliation against workers' complaints, and environmental violations.

Amey also raised an all-too-familiar concern, though from another context:

The government's inability to hold all contractors accountable begs the question: Is the government so reliant on large contractors that bad actors are required to preserving legitimate competition and mission accomplishment? This might be the contracting version of "too big to fail."

Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for the Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail, bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed, follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook, and/or become a fan and get e-mail alerts when he writes.

SALT LAKE CITY — Hundreds of activists marched to the federal courthouse Monday to support a man who became an environmental folk hero by faking the purchase of $1.7 million of federal oil-and-gas drilling leases in an act of civil disobedience.

Tim DeChristopher, 29, has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to felony counts of interfering with and making false representations at a government auction. DeChristopher's fate will be in the hands of a jury – eight men and four women – once opening statements are made in the case on Tuesday. The trial is expected to last until Friday.

The possibility of just one juror sympathetic to environmental causes could keep DeChristopher from a conviction, although a hung jury could result in him being retried.

Prosecutors have offered DeChristopher multiple plea deals over the past two years, but he rejected those, opting instead to go to trial.

The trial attracted about 400 people wearing orange sashes as a symbol of solidarity, including actress Daryl Hannah. They gathered in Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park for an early morning rally, singing Pete Seeger's famous protest song "If I Had Hammer," shouting chants against government control of public lands and waving signs that called for DeChristopher to be "set free."

DeChristopher doesn't dispute the facts of the case and has said he expects to be convicted. He faces up to 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if he's right.

On Dec. 19, 2008, he grabbed bidder's paddle No. 70 at the final drilling auction of the Bush administration and ran up prices while snapping up 13 leases on parcels totaling 22,500 acres around Arches and Canyonlands national parks.

The former wilderness guide – a University of Utah economics student at the time – ended up with $1.7 million in leases he couldn't pay for and cost angry oil men hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher bids for other parcels.

"We were hosed," said Jason Blake of Park City, shortly after the consulting geologist was outbid on a 320-acre parcel. "It's very frustrating."

DeChristopher, who plans to testify, has said the government violated environmental laws in holding the auction. A federal judge later blocked many of the leases from being issued.

DeChristopher had offered to cover the bill with an Internet fundraising campaign, but the government refused to accept any of the money after the fact.

Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that DeChristopher is the only person ever charged with failing to make good on bids at a lease auction of public lands in Utah.

"There's people who didn't have the money, but they didn't have the intent to disrupt" the auction, assistant U.S. attorney John Huber told The Associated Press in 2009.

On Monday, the protesters – from toddler to seniors – marched through downtown to a plaza across from the courthouse where they continued with speech-making and singing, some led by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary. The group also staged a mock trial with participants standing nearly 9 feet tall on stilts and wearing oversized papier-mache masks representing DeChristopher, the government and a NASA climate change expert.

"I'm here to support Tim, whose selfless act saved Utah's red rock wilderness from exploitation," said Salt Lake City resident Sheri Poe Bernard, 55, who said she believes the lease parcels were not properly reviewed for environmental impact. "This is a very important issue ... and I think it's a travesty that our federal government would put Tim on trial when George W. Bush is not being prosecuted."

Bernard said she wrote to President Barack Obama, asking him to take notice of DeChristopher's trial and make Utah ground zero for a national conversation about climate change.

DeChristopher was not at the rally, but he raised his arm and waved to the loudly cheering crowd as he entered the courthouse.

Hannah, who has been a visible figure in many environmental causes, called him a "bright, beautiful example" of the kind of activism needed across the country, particularly at a time when people are "at the bottom of feeling their disempowerment."

Hannah said she believes DeChristopher's actions already have been proven justified because a federal judge turned back the leases.

"He took a moral stand against injustice. ... He's already been effective," Hannah said. "This case has the potential to be quite historic and pivotal in terms of our rights as citizens to peacefully protest and practice civil disobedience."

Filming outside the courthouse was Telluride, Colo., filmmaker George Gage, who with his wife has spent more than two years working on an hour-long documentary about DeChristopher. A rough cut of the film will debut at Colorado's Mountainfilm Festival at the end of May, Gage said. Gage also hopes the project will be accepted by Utah's Sundance Film Festival for a screening. The festival was founded by actor and director Robert Redford, who is also a DeChristopher supporter.

"I just think his whole message is so important," George Gage, 70, said. "We were really impressed by what motivated him. He is so much aware that we are wrecking this planet ... Tim is really concerned about what kind of world that his children or my grandchildren are going to inherit."

The protest march had at least one detractor. Highland real estate agent Robert Valentine mingled with environmentalists and talked about the need for Utah to "exploit" its natural resources to create jobs and fund the state's schools.

"I want to protect the natural resources. My hobby is hiking," the 69-year-old Valentine said. "But I think Utah ought to be allowed to have more control over the resources more than we do."