Stopping forest loss in the land of Thoreau

States like Massachusetts are losing 72 acres per day to urbanization.

By Caitlin Carpenter | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 6, 2007 edition

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It's enough to make Henry David Thoreau weep.

New England – the home of Vermont maple trees bursting with sweet syrup, and balsam fir and red spruce spread across New Hampshire's White Mountains – is losing its forests.

Of all America's forests under pressure from development, New England's are shrinking the fastest.

The problem is severe enough that some conservation groups say they have limited time to act.

"The window for conserving forests is closing," says Andy Swinton, director of field science with The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit habitat conservation organization. But "there's really an opportunity here, because the next 20 years will determine the character of New England forests. This is a race against time, and the time to act is now."

The region's forests had made quite a comeback in the past two centuries: As agriculture declined, fields went back to wooded land. Now, however, those forests are under threat – from homeowners, this time. In their push to create more housing in an area where home prices are already through the roof, developers are moving into wooded land.

The numbers are stark, particularly in southern New England. By 2050, 70 percent of Rhode Island and 61 percent of Connecticut will be urbanized, according to a recent report in the Journal of Forestry by two researchers with the US Agriculture Department's Forest Service. Massachusetts is already losing 40 acres a day to development, estimates Mass Audubon. These three states will lose the highest percentage of forest of any state by mid-century, the Forest Service researchers say.

Part of the reason for the region's forest loss is its population density. Its urban areas are already so developed that they're pushing out, often into surrounding forests. The other factor is New England's development pattern and lifestyle.

Take long-distance commuting. The Southwest may be famous for its vast metropolises, but the trend is actually more pronounced in New England, says Kathy Sferra, a land protection expert at Mass Audubon.

For example: To be able to afford the cost of living, many workers live in less expensive housing far from the urban centers where they work. That leads to more crowded highways. In addition to the 40 acres the state loses every day to sprawling development, it loses an additional 38 acres to the "hidden" cost of development, such as road construction.

And, as in the rest of New England, most of Massachusetts' residential developments are low density, meaning few people living in large houses on big lots.

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