ABSTRACT

Timberland has become a focus of institutional investment in many parts of the world. In the US, in the past 30 years, vertically integrated forest products companies have sold over 10 million hectares of forest land to investors. This land provides cash flow from the sale of timber, and there is an expectation of capital appreciation. Within the portfolios of institutional investors, timberland is regarded as a safe investment and a risk-buffering asset. In the Northeastern US this change in tenure produced substantial regional uncertainty regarding patterns of timber harvesting, economic and cultural continuity, recreational access, and ecological futures. Based on planning and policy dialogue and public and private financing in a number of specific cases, institutional investment in timberland has been integrated into broader efforts to create multifunctional forested landscapes that ostensibly secure a broad range of social, economic, and ecological values. This chapter examines one of these landscapes in order to advance understanding of opportunities and limitations for achieving accountability applied to this class of land-governance arrangements. Through analysis of accountability arrangements in a specific place in which institutional investors have come to own land, the chapter focuses on grounded practices – rather than financialization in the abstract. The analysis identifies potential to integrate the strategies of institutional investors into public-spirited projects focused on environmental conservation and rural economic development. Yet, at the same time, this case highlights the capacity of institutional investors to adapt to local contexts in order to extract value and capitalize on investments made by public agencies and private conservation organizations. Beyond the specific case study, this cross-scalar analysis allows us to examine how financialization is manifested in relation to the history and ecology of a particular piece of land and the larger landscape within which the parcel and the relevant actors are embedded.