Policy Priorities

Since our founders first organized to stop the killing of birds for their plumage in 1896, Mass Audubon has been fighting to conserve land and defend the biodiversity and wildlife of Massachusetts. Now, we’re continuing our historic mission with two more goals that meet the challenges of our time: breaking down the racial and socioeconomic barriers to nature in Massachusetts and fighting the climate crisis through nature-based climate solutions.   

Our policy agenda includes an ambitious legislative slate for the 2025-2026 session. Learn more here, then join us in advocating for a transformative policy agenda!  

Priority Issues 

A Campaign to Rescue Raptors 

Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) are devastating Massachusetts wildlife. When eagles, hawks, foxes, and other predators consume rodents that have ingested these deadly poisons, they develop uncontrollable bleeding that often leads to slow, painful deaths. We have been hard at work supporting local campaigns to get rid of SGARs in their communities, and now we’re gearing up to mobilize that energy towards the State House. H.965/S.644 would phase out the use of SGARs across the state, resulting in healthier ecosystems and wildlife everywhere. Get involved with Rescue Raptors

Clean Energy Development that Protects Nature  

Massachusetts needs to rapidly scale up solar and other clean energy resources to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Unfortunately, our current pattern of solar development is coming at too high a cost to nature—nearly 5,000 acres of high-quality forest and farmland have been converted to solar projects since 2010. Building on Growing Solar, Protecting Nature, Governor Healey’s Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting, and the 2024 Clean Energy Law, we're now hard at work to make sure new siting standards steer projects into the built environment, and away from our highest value natural areas, while requiring developers to pay for mitigation of impacts to nature and communities. Get Involved with Grow Solar

Nature for MA 

Massachusetts lacks a statewide funding mechanism for nature conservation, undermining our ability to reach our climate and biodiversity goals, which requires conservation of 30% of the state by 2030, and 40% by 2050. Mass Audubon is part of a diverse statewide coalition of environmental, conservation, and community organizations advocating to secure a sustainable, annual, equitable revenue source to drive the march to 2050. Let your legislator know you want them to support H.901/S.597

Accelerating Wetland Restoration Across the Commonwealth 

Wetlands are essential to climate action in Massachusetts—capturing carbon out of the atmosphere up to 10 times faster than mature forests and providing diverse habitats and vital buffers against storms and droughts. But our wetlands and rivers are degraded and fragmented by thousands of ditches and embankments, dams and undersized culverts, and other historic alterations. Our scientists and partners are working to revitalize these resources, but outdated regulations meant to protect wetlands needlessly increase costs and delay work to restore these systems. Bills H.1052/S.557 and regulatory reforms would streamline permitting for wetlands restoration, so we can accelerate the pace of rejuvenating these vibrant ecosystems.  Get involved by telling your legislator to support H.1052/S.557

Organizing Around Clean School Buildings and Climate-Focused Curriculums 

Mass Audubon’s educators and fellows across the state have been advocating along with community members and youth climate leaders to school committees on cleaner school buildings and more climate-focused curriculums. Our policy agenda takes this work to Beacon Hill, where we’ll be fighting to create a framework and support for all elementary and secondary schools to integrate interdisciplinary climate curriculums.  Our goal is to better prepare our high school graduates to address the defining issue of their time. Get involved by telling your legislator to support H.560/S.391

Additional Legislation Mass Audubon Supports 

Elevating Natural and Working Lands as Climate Solutions 

Natural and working lands, like forests and wetlands, pull carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere and store it. Nature currently removes 10% of the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions each year and is our lowest-cost option against our most expensive emissions reductions on our path to net-zero by 2050. To meet our ambitious climate goals, we must increase the potential of Massachusetts’ natural and working lands to store and sequester carbon. H.1005/S.549 creates enforceable goals for nature-based carbon sequestration and proposes a set of policies that will prevent the conversion of natural and working lands to other uses.  

Creating an Ecologically Friendly Mosquito Control System 

Massachusetts has an outdated mosquito control system that relies on widespread spraying of insecticides that harm human and ecosystem health. Bills H.985/S547 would create a safer mosquito control system by shifting the focus to more natural controls like restoring habitat for fish and other mosquito predators, banning aerial spraying, banning pesticides that contain PFAS, and allowing cities, towns, and landowners to determine the mosquito management method that works best for them. 

Horseshoe Crabs 

Horseshoe Crabs have thrived in coastal waters off of what is now Massachusetts for hundreds of millions of years. But climate change and decades of overexploitation have chronically depleted their populations, placing the endangered migratory shorebirds that depend on their eggs at risk. In addition to those stresses, they are harvested for bait for whelk, another overfished resource. We’re supporting H.898, which phases out the bait harvest of this ancient and iconic species. 

Green Budget Coalition and Environmental Bond 

Mass Audubon participates in broad-reaching coalitions whose goals are to ensure that the state is prioritizing climate and the environment in its state budget and capital plans. Through the Green Budget Coalition, we push to ensure that the legislature spends 1% of the state budget on staffing the agencies responsible for enforcing our environmental laws and implementing our climate plans. Through the Environmental Bond coalition, we work to ensure the Healey-Driscoll administration prioritizes land protection, clean water, and nature-based climate solutions in the state’s capital planning process.

Funding for Climate Adaptation and Mitigation 

H.938/S.572 would establish the Climate and Community Resilience Trust Fund, supported by a fee placed on real estate property insurance, and dedicated to solutions which reduce and manage climate change impacts. The fund would support community-identified planning and implementation strategies, particularly in environmental justice and low- to moderate-income communities disproportionately burdened by past environmental harms.