Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of New England

New Report Outlines Funding to Conserve Half of Massachusetts’s Land

Harvard Forest’s “Wildlands and Woodlands” proposal to conserve roughly half of Massachusetts as protected lands has received a boost from a new report detailing seven strategies to finance the ambitious proposal. The new report is the product of a recent Wildlands and Woodlands Conservation Finance Roundtable. View the full press release. An eight page summary of the report is also available.

Harvard Forest Scientists Recommend
Protecting Half of Massachusetts as Forest

In 2005, the scientific report entitled Wildlands and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts, Dr. David Foster the Director of Harvard University's Harvard Forest along with his colleagues is calling for a bold new land protection effort to stave-off accelerating forest fragmentation in Massachusetts. Since its original release, this view has been expanded to include all of New England

The dramatic loss of forest open space to development prompts these scientists to recommend :

establishing large Wildland
protectwell-managed Woodlands and
forming Woodland Councils for privately owned properties.

View the press release and download the report

Wildlands and Woodlands - Update Released November 17, 2006

Since it release in 2005, Wildlands and Woodlands has stimulated coalitions, conservation efforts and outreach programs. "History has given New England and much of the eastern United States a second chance to decide the fate of this forested landscape and the natural infrastructure it provides." David Foster states in the new Update of Wildlands and Woodlands. This document highlights recent efforts to achieve the vision first set down by Wildland and Woodlands and to expand its focus beyond Massachusetts.

Now available: Report on the Woodlands and Wildlands Conservation Finance Roundtable

In April 2006, the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest convened more than three dozen experts in conservation finance from around the nation to consider innovative mechanisms for financing the Wildlands and Woodlands vision - a vision first articulated by David Foster and his colleagues in 2005.

The two-day working session, held at the Harvard University Center for the Environment in Cambridge, MA, yielded several highly inventive approaches to the challenge. The Report on the W+W Conservation Finance Roundtable is now available for download.

Outside Perspectives of Wildand and Woodlands

Contact: info@wildlandsandwoodlands.org