Arnold Schwarzenegger, the one-time action hero fronting a blockbuster TV special on climate change next month, has financial ties to some of the world’s most destructive logging companies, an investigation group found on Tuesday.

The former governor and climate champion is a part owner of an investment company, Dimensional Fund Advisers, with significant holdings in tropical forestry companies.

A number of those forestry companies were implicated in highly destructive and illegal logging which has destroyed rainforest and critical orangutan habitat in Borneo, and fuelled conflict and arms trafficking in Liberia, the investigators from Global Witness said.

The group, whose founder won this year’s $1 million TED prize for its campaigns, said the holdings were at odds with Schwarzenegger’s public image as a climate champion. Tropical forests are an important store of carbon that would otherwise accelerate climate change.

“He is a very prominent environmental champion in his public life while profiting from some of the most egregiously notorious companies operating in the forestry sector, and in our view that is deeply hypocritical, ” said Oliver Courtney, a Global Witness spokesman.

There was no immediate comment from Schwarzenegger. DFA responded through an email from a public relations firm, saying: “We are a privately held company and cannot comment on Mr. Schwarzenegger’s investment in Dimensional.”

The emailed statement from Alex Stockham of Rubinstein Associates said DFA had systems in place for clients seeking to ensure investments free of serious environmental or ethical impacts. “Dimensional understands that some clients have perspectives and preferences related to social, sustainability and/or environmental issues and works to accommodate those preferences in customised separate accounts.”

Global Witness said their research indicated Schwarzenegger held an estimated 5% stake in the firm, which manages an estimated $338 billion globally.

Those holdings included $174 million in about 20 forestry companies. Global Witness has questioned the allegedly destructive activities of some of those firms.

The group said Schwarzenegger had disclosed the investment in DFA while he was still serving as California’s governor.

Schwarzenegger and DFA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It is not clear whether Schwarzenegger was aware of how the investments were made.

Schwarzenegger pushed for action on climate change while serving as Republican governor of California.

In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, he joined regional leaders from Indonesia and Brazil urging Barack Obama and other leaders to help developing countries stop deforestation.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks to Danish media as he leaves his hotel in Copenhagen o n December 15, 2009 to go to a press conference at the UN Climate Change Conference at the Bella Center. Photograph: Bax Lindhardt/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: BAX LINDHARDT/AFP/Getty Images

In his post-political career, he has raised his profile as a climate champion even further as executive producer of an ambitious new television series airing on Showtime from 13 April, Years of Living Dangerously.

The series – fronted by a slew of Hollywood A-listers from Matt Damon to Jessica Alba and Don Cheadle – aims to make climate change part of mainstream conversation.

“A scientist will never get the attention of an actor,” Schwarzenegger told a press tour in January. “I always felt there was a communication gap in bringing people in and making them part of the movement.”

For his episode, Schwarzenegger went out with “hot shot” crew to fight an active wildfire in Montana.

In his disclosure forms, which date from 2011, Schwarzenegger said he had stock of “more than $1 million” in DFA – the highest category. He also listed annual dividends of at least $100,000.

The forms did not require full disclosure of Schwarzenegger’s entire holdings in DFA, the group noted.

A number of campaign groups – and ethical investment networks – have grown more concerned over the years about human rights abuses and environmental destruction caused by illegal logging.

Global Witness singled out six of the forestry companies in DFA portfolios for engaging in deforestation on an industrial-scale in countries across South-East Asia and Africa.

Four of the companies held by DFA were blacklisted by investment managers for the Norwegian government’s sovereign wealth fund.



In 2012, the Norwegian government found one of those companies, Ta Ann, had clear felled at least 100,000 hectares of tropical forest in Sarawak - critical habitat for endangered orangutan. "There can be no doubt that [this destruction] will have serious, irreversible consequences for biodiversity and the ecosystem services delivered by the forest,” the Norwegian investigation found.

Global Witness said DFA had $4.15 million investment in Ta Ann as of November 2013.