SIERRA CLUB • June 10, 2024
By the 18th century, Europe had few trees left that were tall enough to be fashioned into single-stick ship masts—a construction superior to fastening two shorter logs together—so colonists coveted the long, straight trunks of eastern white pines. White pines were one of the first species that settlers targeted, reducing stand after stand of them to stumps and slash. In the 1980s, Bob Leverett and others began documenting remnants of forest in Massachusetts and beyond that had somehow escaped colonists’ axes. Enthusiasts and scientists have identified tens of thousands of acres of old-growth forest in the Northeast. “The best thing we can do for climate change with much of our forested land is to actually do nothing,” said David Foster, an ecologist who spearheads an initiative known as Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities, which aims to protect a network of designated wildlands spanning New England.