We travel from one such project in southern India, to the USA, where the GEF works from inside the World Bank, to assess the gap between international policy makers and local realities. The Bengal Tiger is heading for extinction, thanks to pressure on land from a growing human population. But villagers claim the GEF project forced them off their land with inadequate compensation. "Welfare schemes only benefit the powerful people in the village". But at the first GEF assembly in Washington, their lament is blatantly ignored. Tempers flare as the World Bank is accused of "treating forests as their fiefdoms" and trying to adopt a "green veneer" through the GEF. This film reveals the disastrous waste of money environmental bureaucracies can cause, and implies an urgent need for scrutiny of world bodies like the GEF.

Produced by Conscious Cinema Productions