COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE • June 1, 2023
New England is not immune to the global ecological crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, which both threaten human health and safety. We are racing to make up for decades of inaction and are leaning heavily on technology and intervention, from industrial-scale wind generation to large solar installations and electric transportation. Those are only part of the solution. We propose focusing on a natural solution–one that stores and removes carbon from the atmosphere efficiently while simultaneously providing co-benefits, from sustaining rich biodiversity, to producing clean water, to safeguarding places that benefit people’s mental and physical well-being. That is the conservation of wildlands stretching from Maine to Connecticut. A new report, "Wildlands in New England,” makes a compelling case for substantially improving the legal protection of the region’s existing wildlands in perpetuity, while doggedly pursuing the goal of tripling amount of protected forest land to at least 10 percent or more of New England’s total area. ~ David Foster, Elizabeth Thompson and Jonathan Leibowitz, Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities