GREENFIELD RECORDER • November 23, 2021
Land “management” by the Massachusetts Fish and Game Department is focused on resource extraction. The department seems unable to respond to climate change with the necessary emphasis on natural carbon capture and storage that the climate emergency requires. This ongoing destruction of older forests prevents them from ever becoming old growth, which now comprise less than .05% of our state’s forests. Old forests with very large trees are exceedingly rich in carbon and biodiversity, and ensuring their increase should be a conservation priority. The Baker administration has proposed that 50% of the state’s goals of reduced carbon emissions should be met by purchasing carbon-offset credits from other states. Forest ecologist Dr. Charles Canham notes that existing carbon-credit markets provide “no real offset to greenhouse gas emissions at all.” ~ Bart Bouricius, Montague, MA