The Massachusetts-based Partnership for Policy Integrity has been a vocal opponent of wood harvesting on public lands. They believe that ceasing to harvest wood would “expand our natural forests’ ability to store carbon.” This, of course, assumes that our forests are healthy (not plagued by pests or diseases, are diverse and resilient) and natural (not planted or otherwise influenced by intensive human land use both historic and present-day).

It would seem that an organization with the word Integrity in its title wouldn’t accept money from a billionaire like Fred Stanback, who is known to support anti-immigrant hate groups, but greed comes in all forms. Between 2015 and 2020, the Partnership for Policy Integrity accepted $625,000 from the Foundation for the Carolinas (largely funded by Stanback) despite its financial support of racist efforts to restrict immigration and implement policies such as separating migrant children from their parents.

America’s Voice, an organization with the expressed goal of providing a path to citizenship for undocumented citizens, wrote in a press release that Stanback “believes that immigrants are inherently inferior and that drastic steps are needed to control global population growth.”

The Partnership for Policy Integrity isn’t alone in accepting this dirty money. Joining the ranks are 350.org ($12,020,000 accepted between 2016 and 2020), Sierra Club ($49,530,000 accepted between 2015 and 2019), and Dogwood Alliance ($9,731,000 accepted between 2003 and 2020). For more information about this, see Politico’s report: “Immigration advocates press to cut off charitable funds for anti-immigration groups.”

Ironically, what these profitable anti-forestry organizations have in common is reliance on a narrative that places all evilness on the boogeyman of “industry” and thus conversely honors their own disciples with a manufactured morality built solely from notions of identity and opposition. Anti-forestry rhetoric is sustained by a narrative that all but directly annunciates orchestrated and impossible-to-coordinate corruption across federal, state, and nonprofit organizations, universities, research institutes, etc., (since all of the above support forest management) fueling a conspiracy that all public logging in Massachusetts is done in service to “industry” despite information shared about forestry’s diverse and nuanced intentions (most of these intentions in fact being a direct response to climate change).

Although New England as a region is heavily forested, our consumption of wood products is greater than our harvesting. Massachusetts imports 98% of its wood needs and, when accounting for local harvesting that ends up leaving the state (for lack of wood processing facilities) the state’s consumption rate in relation to production remains high at 94%. An obsession with the evils of industry as a catch basin for all argument results in further disconnect from consumption and production. This contributes to, rather than eases, environmental justice and inequity issues that are so important to address alongside any initiative hoping to tackle climate change.

The International Panel on Climate Change is in support of sustainable forestry, the most recent edition stating that management can help mitigate risks of climate change such as “droughts, fires, insect outbreaks, diseases, erosion, and other disturbances” and “can increase and maintain forest sinks through harvest, transfer of carbon to wood products and their use to store carbon and substitute emissions-intensive construction materials.” The report also finds that “forest genomics techniques can increase the success of both reforestation and conservation initiatives.”

Thoreau wrote that a “man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” In modern-day Massachusetts, in the age of globalization and climate change, this sentiment starts to mean something more altogether. We are rich with our forests and rich too with the ability to leave them alone, importing much of our needs from Brazil, China, Finland, Russia, Canada, and others.

It would seem that progressive environmental groups with true integrity would be in support of crucial forest stewardship measures, especially when those measures result in local, renewable resources. Sadly, we can trust these advocacy groups as much as we can trust any given political campaign. What an embarrassment if our legislators refer to this movement and the handful of researchers they promote again and again rather than to the greater scientific community (like our public research institutions, which are engaged in nuanced and evolving studies about how best to steward our natural spaces).

Kate Lindroos Conlin lives in Buckland and independently manages Society for Forest Stewardship.

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