Perhaps the greatest conman of all time has to be John Law, a Scottish playboy who’s so accomplished in the art of the scam that he was appointed the French Minister of Finance in 1720.

A son of the Scottish aristocracy, Law was a gambler and a ladies man in his youth. After burning through his inheritance, he left for the Continent.

In Paris, he befriended the Duke of Orleans, who admired his bold ideas. In 1715, King Louis XIV died and, as his heir was too young to assume the throne, the Duke of Orleans took the reins as regent.

Law saw his opportunity to try out the scheme he'd been thinking about for years. Not only did he have the ear of the regent, France was in a hole created by the late king's corruption, extravagance and costly wars. The country was in desperate need of a financial boost and Law knew just how to deliver it.

In 1716, he founded the Banque Royale in Paris to repay the debt resulting from the King Louis XIV wars. He convinced the Duke of Orleans of the need for paper currency and a bank to manage royal revenues; the bank would issue notes on that revenue and on landed security. The Duke of Orleans had such confidence in Law, he appointed him the Minister of Finance in 1720.

Law's bank was so successful he was allowed to merge it with the Mississippi Company, which had exclusive trade privileges with Louisiana. By 1720, the frenzy was in full force. Law first offered 50,000 new shares but found he needed to dramatically increase that number. Desperate to buy in, people lined up at all hours hoping to secure their place.

The hysteria became such a public nuisance that Law bought a hotel; a decree was issued stating that people could only buy or sell stock in the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons. There were more than 500 stalls set up in those gardens and a sort of wild, carnival atmosphere as people scrambled to get their hands on shares.

The prospects certainly appeared favorable. People saw others making their fortunes in a day; the word “millionaire” was invented to describe these newly rich Parisians. The bubble filled fast: on some days, the price of shares rose 10 or 20 percent in just a few hours.

When it collapsed, Law fled Paris in 1720 with an angry mob at his heels!

Today, a new generation of con artists has surfaced. Wearing the cloak of civil society groups, these organizations have worked out clever ploys to fill their coffers. Exploiting the natural inclination of the public, corporations and even governmental agencies to support or donate to good causes, they initially identify a “cause”. For the scam to work, the “cause” has to be one with a humanitarian ring to it. What better cause can there be but to save mankind from itself?

So effective have their ploy been that they’re certain that with such “causes” they’d have the world’s media eating out of their laps, especially those who do not do their due diligence to investigate the “facts” that these scammers dressed in the cloak of civil society groups trundle out with impunity!

Take the Melbourne Zoo. Knowing that palm oil is a third world commodity which is unlikely to have the wherewithal to respond to their machinations, the Melbourne Zoo carefully targeted this third world crop.

The zoo launched a “Don’t Palm Us Off” campaign arguing that the crop is responsible for dwindling forests that is threatening the extinction of the orangutan.

Never mind the fact that the crop is planted on only 0.23% of the world’s agricultural lands and yet supplies a staggering 30% of the world’s edible oil stocks. Never mind that the allegations of massive deforestation are patently untrue. They know that so long as they use emotive images of forest clearing by legitimate logging companies, they can pin the blame on palm oil. After all, it is so easy to take satellite pictures of an area of logged over forests and allege that it is clear evidence of deforestation caused by palm oil.

The fact that palm oil requires so little land to produce so much edible oil should clue in any objective observer that the deforestation claims are disingenuous. If the claims were true, how could Malaysia, which had been the world’s largest producer of palm oil for the past 100 years have managed to retain the 53% forest cover that it has today? 53% forest cover dwarfs the percentage forest cover of any western developed country anywhere in the world!

However, the soundbites of frivolous claims such as “over 300 football fields being cleared every hour” is bound to appeal. They know that such frivolous claims are not likely to be investigated: certainly not in SE Asia where topographical surveys and maps are not as up to date as in the west.

It also does not concern them that the fact that the orangutan population in the wild in Indonesia and Malaysia may be growing when new tribes of more than 2000 wild apes were found in the East Kalimantan province of Indonesia, as reported by National Geographic. With roughly 50,000 orangutans thought to remain in the wild, the new find could add 5 percent to the world’s known orangutan numbers, said Erik Meijaard, senior ecologist for the Nature Conservancy in Indonesia. How could 50,000 plus orangutans go extinct especially when Malaysia and Indonesia have established wildlife conservation programs in areas so vast that they exceed the size of some nation states like Singapore and Hong Kong?

Again, facts do not concern them and so Rachel Lowry, the Zoo’s Director of Conservation can go on air with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and articulate with all the verbal tricks that scammers use to gain the sympathy of their prey: “We have in horrifying footage, images coming through to us almost daily here at Zoos Victoria.

We have staff that go across to Indonesia for skill share programs that are bringing back reports of orangutans being displaced, being killed, essentially returning to burning fields or fields that have been cleared for - put palm oil crops in (sic).

And so the United Nations has warned that, you know, we've got one to two decades to save this particular species.”

If the zoo has these “horrifying footages” they certainly have not shared them with the world. In any event, even if such footages exist it is irresponsible of Ms Lowry to attempt to paint a picture of rampant torture and killing of the national mascot of Malaysia.

Of course, the irony is lost on Ms Lowry that the Melbourne Zoo which exploits animals by keeping them in captivity for the enjoyment of a paying public.

We can only surmise that the zoo cannot be too concerned with orangutan conservation for as at the date of writing they have yet to avail themselves of a matching grant provided by the US$7 Million Wildlife Conservation Fund established by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC). Unlike the Melbourne Zoo which talks up a good talk of conservation, the MPOC puts its money where its mouth is!

Their "Don't Palm Us Off" campaign is nothing but a cynical campaign designed to evoke a response from donors to throw money at them to fatten their bank accounts. Sure enough, in recent days Thornlands-based green company Orange Power have stepped forward to contribute up to $150,000 over the next three years to help Melbourne Zoo “protect hundreds of orangutans endangered by palm oil production.” Unfortunately for Orange Power their funds will almost entirely be used by the zoo, not to protect the orangutans, but rather for “other wildlife conservation campaigns” and towards the Victorian zoo's “Don't Palm Us Off” anti palm oil campaign in support for the Truth in (Palm Oil) Labeling Bill!

In the view of Deforestation Watch, if Melbourne Zoo really cares about wildlife, they should not just preach but act immediately to release all the wildlife held in captivity in its zoo back into the wild.

In conclusion, it is difficult to comprehend how cruel of Melbourne Zoo can be to ignore the plight of smallholders who, contrary to public opinion, cultivates more than 40% of the world's supply of palm oil. Most of the smallholders came into palm oil cultivation by participating in a wildly successful poverty eradication program called FELDA. None of these smallholders have anything to do with orangutan habitats and orangutans, in fact, do not even exist in West Malaysia where most of these smallholdings are located. However, like the con artists who have existed in this world since time immemorial, this small detail would not unduly concern the Directors of the Melbourne Zoo. Not when there are well meaning suckers lining up to fill up their coffers! THE END