This article is an op-ed submitted to the Harvard Political Review by members of the Responsible Investment at Harvard Coalition and does not reflect the views of the HPR.
The Responsible Investment at Harvard Coalition held a week of action in early April that we called the SHAME Tour—“Stop Harvard’s Argentine Mismanagement and Exploitation.” Two organizers from Corrientes, Argentina, spent 10 days on campus meeting with Harvard students, administrators, workers, and faculty to explain the struggles faced by those who live in the shadow of Harvard’s $55 million timber plantations in Argentina.
Andrew Wiltshire, the Head of Alternative Assets for Harvard Management Company, did not meet with Emilio Spataro and Adrian Obregon, two residents of Corrientes who live near the plantations, while they were on campus. Instead, rather coincidentally, the day that they boarded a plane back to Argentina, Wiltshire published an op-ed in the Crimson attempting to dismiss their stories and concerns as “deliberate misrepresentation.”
The tone and substance of Wiltshire’s attack on Argentine farming communities and students calls into question Harvard’s ability to engage in a good-faith, substantive dialogue with stakeholders about how to invest responsibly.
Making matters worse, the Crimson refused to allow us to publicly respond to Wiltshire’s attack on our campaign. Just days after Wiltshire’s op-ed was published, we submitted an op-ed in response on April 20. After over five weeks of more than 20 rounds of drafts and countless promises that our campaign would be given an equal forum to respond from the Crimson‘s President and Editorial Chairs, the publication refused to provide us with an opportunity to be heard. Through this, they effectively silenced student organizers and the small farmers impacted by Harvard’s irresponsible investments across the globe.
Wiltshire’s piece is particularly telling in that it does not acknowledge the affected community’s concerns or demands, offers no proof of effective environmental safeguards or substantive community consultation, and conveniently ignores the numerous irresponsible investments he and Harvard have made in the past few years alone.
Corrientes is one of Argentina’s poorest provinces, where the average community member earns $4,540 per year. (Putting things in perspective, Wiltshire earns this amount in less than two hours.) Yet Corrientes is rich in cultural and ecological heritage. It is home to both the indigenous Guaraní people and the protected Iberá Wetlands, the second largest wetland in the world. Iberá itself means “bright waters” in Guaraní, which many locals still speak as a first language.
Community members feel that their culture and way of life are being threatened by large-scale land acquisitions and profits reaped by remote owners such as Harvard. This deep community distrust has led to ongoing protests over the management of timber plantations spread across the 340 square miles of land that Harvard fully owns.
Spataro and Obregon flew from Corrientes to Boston to voice their concerns about Harvard’s mega-plantations and harm to their culture, local ecology, labor conditions, and public health.
They made three basic requests of Harvard: complete a comprehensive and participatory review of environmental and social impacts of the plantations, ensure a 2,000-meter buffer between plantations and communities, and commit to comply with legally required labor practices. These demands are endorsed by seven local environmental, faith-based, and farmer organizations, four international civil society groups, the Harvard Undergraduate Council, 10 Harvard student organizations, and over 1,100 people.
Even Wiltshire acknowledges, “Plantations can cause negative impacts in some cases if poorly developed or located.” Indeed, an internationally recognized Wetland of International Importance does seem a poor location for vast, non-native pine plantations. Yet Wiltshire seems to mistakenly believe that Forest Stewardship Council certification inoculates HMC against sustainability concerns.
The FSC was created by civil society organizations to provide a third-party certification process to protect the world’s forests. Recently, a number of environmental organizations in Argentina wrote to FSC headquarters, protesting the certification of plantations in the Iberá Wetlands and stating that “in high conservation value grassland regions, [FSC] standards are not strong or complete enough to preclude the emergence of numerous social and ecological externalities directly related to forest plantations.”
Now, local residents report that the trees are depleting the water supply at dangerous rates. We are happy to learn from Wiltshire’s op-ed that HMC is studying the effects of the plantations on the hydrology, and we expect that Harvard’s companies will inform local communities of these results as soon as possible.
Wiltshire also asserts that there is no contamination from chemicals. However, FSC records show that at least one of the plantations uses sulfluramid on at least one-third of the plantation area. This pesticide is under restricted use and phase-out in the U.S., and the EPA explicitly states, “sulfluramid rapidly metabolizes to PFOS… and can accumulate and recirculate in various organs, primarily in the liver. The mobility of PFOS in aquatic environments leads to the potential for PFOS to contaminate ground water.”
Wiltshire writes that “long-term water quality monitoring that has been underway for some time” but fails to offer proof of such monitoring systems or their results.
If Wiltshire is confident that timber plantations are “positive for the Iberá wetlands” and the people of Corrientes, he should be able to regularly release safety and environmental findings with stakeholders. According to members of the local communities, this has not happened.
Wiltshire also claims that HMC has engaged with community members’ concerns through public meetings. Yet according to recent FSC audits, only a select few civil society stakeholders were notified of Harvard’s consultations: a single national NGO, for example, and two local NGOs. It is bizarre that HMC considers this limited outreach to be “widespread community engagement.”
Community participation is essential for ensuring responsible ownership. In order to have meaningful community input, HMC must engage with all local stakeholders, in local languages, with thoughtful cultural competence, and with sufficient notice given to the community. Currently, these fundamental principles appear far from standard HMC practice. In fact, community members reported having little opportunity for engagement with Harvard’s companies. Rather, they faced retaliation when they voiced concerns. The situation is serious enough that community organizers traveled across the world to meet with HMC.
Wiltshire wrote that he joined HMC to be a part of its “careful professional management” strategy, noting of his colleagues, “None of them would knowingly engage in an investment project that they believed would harm the environment or hurt the interests of local residents.”
However, this “careful professional management” is the same strategy that included a Harvard manager in Romania who was arrested for corruption. In recent memory, Harvard’s natural resource investments have also come under fire for violations of environmental law in Chile, complicity in land grabs in sub-Saharan Africa, and irresponsible management in Argentina.
Wiltshire’s $6.6 million dollar annual salary reflects Harvard’s investment strategy: an outsized salary for outsized profits. Harvard seeks out the poorest provinces of emerging markets because the land is cheap, the market “inefficient,” and the local resources easily exploitable for profit.
This model of investing must change. Harvard needs to develop specific and transparent responsible investment policies that take environmental and social impact into full account.
Just last month, nearly forty civil society leaders expressed concerns about Harvard’s connection to “large-scale, neo-colonial ‘land grabs’” and non-transparent and “aggressive investments in land and natural resources” in “impoverished rural communities and environmentally fragile ecosystems.”
The Responsible Investment at Harvard Coalition is in contact with communities around the world that are impacted by Harvard’s investments and the coalition will continue organizing until Harvard develops transparent policies for responsible investment.
Any discussion of Harvard’s investment policies must begin with the facts. Sadly, Wiltshire has resorted to baseless smear attacks instead of respectful dialogue with stakeholders, including students and host communities.
We challenge Wiltshire and HMC to announce their policy for responsible investment, to release documentation on the Argentina plantations, and to publicly discuss these issues with student leaders, civil society groups, and members of the local community.
We must ensure that the university’s groundbreaking research and scholarships are not funded by destroying the planet or exploiting some of the world’s most vulnerable people.