MassLive - Opinion: A smart investment in the Massachusetts we want

Picture Massachusetts a decade from now.

Along the North Shore, restored salt marshes absorb the force of coastal storms before the water reaches homes and businesses. From the Berkshires to central Massachusetts, acres of intact forests shelter wildlife, absorb extreme rainfall and protect the streams and reservoirs that supply our drinking water.

Throughout the South Coast and the Connecticut River Valley, family farms remain working farms for generations to come. In cities like Boston, Lawrence, and Springfield, a child can easily walk from home to a shady park or trail. And all across the state, more people have access to the outdoors, whether they live on Cape Cod, in Chicopee, or in Chelsea.

This isn’t an environmentalist’s far-off fantasy. We know how to do these things. Across Massachusetts, local communities, land trusts, conservation organizations, municipalities and state agencies are already working to protect clean water and access to nature. What we have lacked is the sustained and reliable funding to do enough of this work, at the scale this moment requires.

Question 6 gives Massachusetts the opportunity to change that.

The proposal on the November statewide ballot is remarkably straightforward. Massachusetts already collects sales taxes on sporting goods like camping gear, golf clubs, and fishing equipment. Question 6 would dedicate a portion of that existing revenue to a permanent Nature for All Fund, ultimately directing as much as $100 million a year toward protecting clean water, conserving forests and farms, restoring wildlife habitat, improving parks and trails and helping communities prepare for flooding, heat, and other effects of a changing climate.

It does all this work without raising taxes.

To me, this just makes sense. We buy sporting goods to enjoy the natural world - and Question 6 lets us give back to it when we do.

We spend money every day dealing with the consequences of environmental degradation. We repair roads and buildings after floods. We pay to clean up polluted water. We build infrastructure to perform jobs that healthy forests, wetlands, floodplains and salt marshes can often do naturally.

Question 6 allows us to invest earlier and more wisely. We can protect our watersheds before water is polluted, conserve our wetlands before neighborhoods flood, keep our forests intact before habitats are fragmented and create neighborhood parks before another generation grows up in heat islands without access to nature.

That’s foresight — and it’s good fiscal policy.

The Nature for All Fund is also an investment in something Massachusetts values enormously: our outdoor economy and quality of life. At a recent rally for Question 6, I talked about the Commonwealth’s outdoor recreation economy that includes boating, fishing, hunting, hiking, outdoor sports, and — one of my favorites — birding. This economy has grown to more than $14 billion annually. Our trails, beaches, forests, rivers, parks, farms and wildlife aren’t amenities sitting at the edge of our economy. They are part of what makes Massachusetts a place where people want to live, work, visit, and raise families.

And we need to do more to protect access to those benefits in every corner of the state.

Question 6 is designed to support conservation in urban, suburban and rural communities. That could mean protecting the drinking-water supply in a small town, restoring a salt marsh on the coast, conserving a working farm, improving a rural trail, or creating greenspace in a neighborhood where nature and open space are scarce.

Massachusetts has set ambitious goals for conserving land and water. But goals without resources remain aspirations. Question 6 would give the Commonwealth and its partners something we have needed for a long time: a reliable way to turn ambition into action.

One of the things that gives me hope is how many different people have come together around this idea. Conservation organizations, environmental justice leaders, hunters and anglers, land trusts, businesses, outdoor recreation groups and community leaders have joined the coalition supporting Question 6. We don’t agree on everything. We don’t have to.

We agree that clean water is worth protecting. That forests and farms are worth keeping. That children should have places to play outside. That preparing for floods before they happen is a wiser investment than paying for the damage afterward. And that when we know how to protect the places that protect us, we owe it to future generations to protect them.

Question 6 gives us a practical way to do exactly that.

This November, we can vote to choose the Massachusetts I asked you to picture at the beginning: cleaner water, healthier forests, a thriving outdoor recreation economy, more resilient communities, abundant wildlife, working farms and parks and trails open to everyone.

We already know how to build that future. Question 6 gives us the means to get to work.

David J. O’Neill is president and CEO of Mass Audubon.