Stopping forest loss in the land of Thoreau

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

from the September 6, 2007 edition

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Residential lot sizes have increased 47 percent since 1970 in Massachusetts, according to Mass Audubon. New England's average lot size for new residential construction is the largest in the country at 1.3 acres, and its median lot size is three times the national average, says the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Real Estate and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.

Meanwhile, the state's household size has shrunk 20 percent since 1970 to 2.5 people per household. Small wonder then that while New England's population increased 6.6 percent between 1990 and 2000, its total housing units grew 7.4 percent, according to the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training.

Houses are also getting bigger. The National Association of Home Builders found that 40 percent of new homes in the Northeast have four or more bedrooms, making the region the national leader in terms of the size of homes.

These trends have spurred conservation groups to work more strategically, buying and protecting large plots of land in key areas rather than small, isolated locations.

"We've learned that doing conservation willy-nilly doesn't help because we end up with fragmented forests," says Mr. Swinton. "Since development is going to happen, we now know we need systematic, collaborative planning with the government, land trusts, and nonprofits to make sure that development and conserved forest area are intelligently designed."

For example: The Nature Conservancy worked with West Greenwich, R.I., and other conservation groups to purchase 1,700 acres of forest surrounding its town in an effort to protect the land. The conservancy's Borderlands Project is looking to accomplish a similar feat in another town in Rhode Island or Connecticut.

Conservation groups are also helping local governments improve their planning for infrastructure that leads to development, such as roads and Interstates, while minimizing sprawl and forest destruction.

State governments are also getting involved. Last month, Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell (R) created a state office to "plot a new, antisprawl course." Rhode Island is now developing a land-use plan to encourage urban-center development. Massachusetts announced Aug. 4 that it would spend $50 million on conservation over the next five years, an increase of $20 million over its conservation spending during the past four years.

Forest-conservation groups next want to convince New England state governments to allocate some of the revenue generated through their greenhouse-gas reduction initiative to forest protection, according to Swinton.

Conservationists say that they'll need to bring all their tools to bear on the challenge of deforestation.

"Forests in this area made a comeback in the last century, but it looks like the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction," he says.

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