Here & There #39 - Can nature be 'nonpartisan'?

April 3, 2025

This article was originally published in the Here & There newsletter by Kyle Frost. Here & There is an email newsletter published every other Thursday.

Many of you likely saw (or shared) a viral Instagram post claiming “Trump has ordered over 100 million hectares of forest to be cut down. That’s nearly three times the size of California.” It’s been shared nearly 200k times. But, it isn’t true.

Meanwhile, REI recently posted an Instagram carousel focused on political advocacy. The comments are full of people still livid at REI for co-signing a letter of support for the nomination of Secretary of the Interior (among other things).

And, into this complicated era of environmental advocacy, the Nature Is Nonpartisan campaign emerged last week as a new bi-partisan marketing/advocacy organization, emphasizing working across political differences on environmental and outdoor issues. Response to the campaign has been mixed from both sides of the aisle, with one progressive critic decrying it as a “Trojan horse for conservatives”.

These three examples, viral hyperbole, brand backlash, and a mixed reception to a new bipartisan initiative, illustrate the fractured, highly politicized landscape that makes up modern environmentalism. Can anyone navigate it effectively?

Environmental Misinformation

The carousel went viral for a reason. It hit every algorithmic trigger, combining urgency, outrage, simplicity, and shareability. Unfortunately, the 100 million hectares stat is a misrepresentation of the executive order, U.S. Forest Service land management practices, and the realities of logging. Extremely concerning, yes. Accurate? No.

The executive order essentially instructs the Forest Service to “find ways around” existing regulations to open up additional opportunities for logging. The 100 million hectares (or 280 million acres) being cited seems to come from all public lands currently under management, and it’s an open question whether the logging industry can even logistically increase logging in many places (or if it even wants to do so).

The issue of logging and public lands in the United States deserves a dedicated discussion. But polarizing messaging used by prominent environmental groups and brands can sometimes paint these issues as universally black-and-white, damaging the ability of agencies to engage in necessary forest management. When misinformation spreads under the guise of advocacy, it damages credibility and makes productive dialogues harder. Not only that, it provides fodder for critics.

REI's purity test

The letter signed by REI (and 32 other members of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable) supported the nomination of Doug Burgum, a conservative governor who created an Office of Outdoor Recreation in North Dakota and also attended ORR’s National Outdoor Recreation Executive Forum. On paper, he’s about as good as one can expect from a Republican nominee to lead the Department of the Interior. However, in today’s hyper-partisan climate, any perceived alignment with Trump-affiliated politics can turn into a major issue (and has, in this case).

Between layoffs, union-busting tactics, and a consumer perception of shifting brand values, REI has left itself open to deserved criticism. But, the idea that brands and member organizations can pass every ideological purity test while still having a seat at the table feels…unrealistic. Being in the room still matters, but many don’t see it that way. When trust is already frayed, strategic engagement and pragmatism can look a lot like a betrayal of your ideals. But, is REI really where we should be directing our ire right now?

Nature is nonpartisan?

While the backlash against REI highlights how brand perceptions can shift rapidly in an ideologically rigid space, Nature is Nonpartisan (NINP) launched with the goal of transcending partisanship, but it faces its own perception challenges. Core to this is NINP’s Make America Beautiful Again (MABA) campaign, which says: “We urge current and future administrations to break free from political gridlock, take action to preserve America's natural beauty, and invest in nature, for current and future generations.”

In theory, any effort to promote conservation as a shared value is welcome. But in practice, credibility matters, particularly when there is so much performative work out there.

NINP’s team and board contain figures who introduce contradictions to the campaign’s stated bipartisan mission. David Bernhardt, a former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, was a central figure in rolling back environmental protections in favor of oil and gas interests during the last Trump administration. Brett Cooper and Isabelle Brown are Gen-Z political commentators, more well known for their critiques of culture wars and social issues than an interest in environmental and outdoor issues. Alec Sears social media presence leans heavily on partisan antagonism. And, for an organization purportedly full of savvy marketing and communication folks, the utilization of the slogan “MABA” with clear allusions to “MAGA” feels like a tremendously poor choice.

That said, there are figures within NINP who come from more progressive environmentalist backgrounds. Meg Haywood Sullivan has worked with both Protect Our Winters and Surfrider (among others), Debbie Levin is the CEO of the Environmental Media Association, and Michael Brune is a former Executive Director of the Sierra Club. It’s not just progressives, either. Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman, has publicly supported climate action and been vocally critical of many Trump administration policies. The founder of NINP, Benji Backer, was previously the founder of the American Conservation Coalition, which focuses on mobilizing conservative and right-leaning voices around environmental issues. He has a history of working to redefine environmentalism within the conservative movement. But, even Backer frames the opportunity in terms of partisan politics, as “The Right’s environmental moment".

For what it’s worth, I think many are prescribing significantly more weight and influence to NINP than it has earned. There are absolutely concerns, but in its current incarnation, it’s more of a social advocacy program in the vein of left-leaning organizations like Earthrise Studio. The website has a lot of platitudes but few specifics; I think it’s reasonable to withhold from completely writing the organization off at this stage.

An administration at odds with the environment

Any effort in this arena has to wrestle with the fact that many conservatives voted for an administration that isn’t just environmentally conservative, it’s openly hostile to the very idea of public lands and environmental protections.

Climate reviews have been stripped from energy permitting. Public comment periods have been shortened or eliminated. The administration has a stated goal of doubling oil and gas production on federal land by 2027. Once again, national monuments are back on the chopping block. And at the EPA, methane regulations have been rolled back, with officials calling them “unnecessary constraints on American innovation.” The EPA’s own internal assessments projected that these regulatory rollbacks would result in thousands of premature deaths due to increased air and water pollution.

It must also be acknowledged that for many, the distrust runs much deeper than policy. Environmental rollbacks are one thing. For folks whose lives or identities were targeted in other ways by the same administration, such as immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities, and Indigenous organizers, the idea of partnering with Trump-aligned operatives, (even if there is potential common ground), is a challenging one.
This is where things get tricky. Because if the goal is to build a coalition big enough to move any environmental policy in a positive direction right now, you’ll probably have to work with someone who doesn’t vote like you, post like you, or think like you.

A conservative history in environmentalism

Liberals cannot lay sole claim to conservation, although they’ve dominated the conversation in recent decades. Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt pioneered the national parks system and Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the late 20th century, conservative politics increasingly aligned with business interests that viewed environmental regulations as economic burdens. This shift turned environmentalism into a cultural battleground. Despite posturing to the contrary, there are many conservatives who work in conservation, recognize climate change, and care deeply about public lands and the environment, even if their approaches may not align 100% with dominant progressive environmentalism.

Progressive blind spots

t’s a mistake to think that progressive environmental policy is immune to criticism. While progressive movements have led the charge on environmental policies in recent years, they have often struggled to translate urgency into broad political support. Reliance on government regulation, ineffective messaging that hasn’t resonated with working-class communities, and apocalyptic rhetoric have made it easy for conservatives to frame environmentalists as out-of-touch. Mostly symbolic gestures like banning plastic straws have only fueled the perception that green policies primarily benefit the affluent. Poor optics around institutions like the United Nations Conference of the Parties, (a road is currently being bulldozed through the Amazon to serve the event), don’t help.

Conversations around nuclear energy and market-driven environmental reforms continue to create (quite significant) internal divides, even within the Democratic party. Well-meaning regulation has sometimes backfired, slowing both housing and renewable energy projects. Offshore wind approvals in the U.S. can take a decade, and large-scale solar and wind farms face similar hurdles. Does this mean that regulation is bad? No. But it must be acknowledged that top-down goals and heavy regulations have impacts on the ability to deploy these technologies…deployment that is also happening in red states as these technologies become more economically viable.

What does it all mean?

’m a pretty pragmatic person, and I spend a lot of time understanding tradeoffs related to environmental policy when it comes to the outdoors. I push readers of “Here & There” to explore, or at least entertain perspectives that might be counter to their intuition, or that of prevailing partisan messaging (on both sides). The “outdoor recreation industry” is not universally left-leaning, and outdoor recreation participants (of which there are 175 million each year) are not a monolithic voting block.

Compromises are made every day. Logging already happens on public lands, and in some cases may need to be increased in order to effectively manage wildfire risk. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is primarily funded by fees and royalties paid by oil and gas drilling offshore in federal water for oil and gas. US Fish and Wildlife funded $1.3B in conservation projects last year from excise taxes on guns and ammunition.

Modern conservation is messy, often contradictory, and full of tradeoffs. Maybe the outdoors is “non-partisan”, but the way we talk about them often isn’t. Where do you stonewall, and where do you work across the aisle? No one should stop pushing for radical changes. But when we don’t leave the door open to collaboration and compromise, I think we risk viewing anything less than 100% alignment with lofty goals as an abject failure. I can’t say if NINP is the answer, but the conversations they’re surfacing still matter.