Conservation is no longer an issue that can be left to a few concerned citizens. What happens to our lands today affects every American. That’s especially true for America’s forests. Across the country, more than 10 million acres of forestland were lost between 1982 and 1997. That pace increased significantly and over the last decade, roughly 40 million forest acres changed ownership. Over the next 20 years, according to the U.S. Forest Service, as much as 26 million acres of our forests will be sold, much of it broken into pieces and either developed or the mature trees heavily logged. As forests become fragmented, their ability to filter our water and air is compromised and there is less space for wildlife to live and migrate. Thats why The Conservation Fund has made protecting our precious forestlands a top priority and why the acquisition of projects like the Four State Forest nestled in the Northern Forests of New England is so vital: goo.gl/A1NbmN. The Four State Forest includes 30,000 acres from the Tug Hill Plateau in central New York and stretches across Vermont, New Hampshire and up to Maine; these lands provide key habitat and connectivity for free ranging mammals such as the federally threatened Canada lynx. In addition, the majority of the lands are of significant importance to nearby conservation areas: the Beebe River tract next to the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire; lands adjacent to the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge in Maine; tracts in central Vermont that are a high priority for state level protection; and lands in New York with key connections to current conservation areas. We are protecting these lands as part of our Working Forest Fund model. For each Working Forest Fund property, we develop and implement sustainable forest management plans, placing conservation safeguards on these sensitive lands so the forests will always remain healthy forests. We then return them to private ownership or public agency stewardship. In this way, each one becomes a protected, working forest, boosting its local economy by maintaining jobs. The Working Fund has purchased over 20 projects, amounting to over 333,000,000 acres nationwide.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 01:00:01 +0000