Property Rights Activist Explains Trap Posed by Plan to Trade America’s Natural Resources

Wall Street proposed a new type of enterprise that holds the rights to ecosystem services like clean air and clean water produced by natural lands or farmland.
Property Rights Activist Explains Trap Posed by Plan to Trade America’s Natural Resources
The New York Stock Exchange, on Feb. 21, 2024. Peter Morgan/AP Photo
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Jan Jekielek
Jan Jekielek
Senior Editor
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A Wall Street proposal to create a new type of publicly traded company that would buy controlling rights to America’s public and private land could have allowed “world elites” to profit from the country’s natural resources, had it not been withdrawn three months later, according to Margaret Byfield, executive director of American Stewards of Liberty.

At the end of September 2023, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) filed a proposal to create and list Natural Asset Companies (NACs). These companies would pool investors’ money from around the world to buy the rights to land in the United States, with the goal of restricting its use to “sustainable” endeavors.

What is a Natural Asset Company?

According to the NYSE’s filing with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), an NAC is a new type of enterprise with the rights to “ecosystem services” produced by natural or working lands, such as national reserves or large-scale farmlands.