In 2019, a bill, H.897, was introduced in Massachusetts that would make all state-owned public lands off-limits to commercial logging. It would provide sweeping forest protections no other state has ever adopted and serve as a national model … to function as carbon sinks. Climate activist Bill McKibben lauded H.897 as “the cheapest and quickest step…to mitigate climate change.” …That the Massachusetts Audubon Society joined arms with the timber industry to defeat the bill shows how fervently the organization believes in the logging-for-wildlife approach to managing forests. Spearheading opposition to H.897, Mass Audubon signed an open letter to legislators urging them not to pass it. “We do not think the best way to maximize the contribution of forests to addressing climate change is to prohibit timber harvest on all state lands,” the letter said. Other signatories included the New England Forestry Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental League of Massachusetts. [Full access to this story may require a National Geographic subscription]