Stop Mass Audubon Logging Plans!
Demand Transparency on their recent $25 Million USDA Grant!
{{ FirstName | default: ‘Friend’ }}
Despite their long history of good work supporting biodiversity and habitat and forest protection, Mass Audubon isn’t always a forest’s best friend.
Currently, Mass Audubon is using arguably deceptive “climate-smart” jargon, to advocate its plan to cut 77 acres of mixed growth forest surrounding the Notch Forest Reservoir in North Adams. They are also proposing to develop a so-called demonstration forest, including logging every year for 10 years, in the rest of this 1088-acre town forest.
Is Mass Audubon planning to log on an even larger scale in Massachusetts? Audubon recently received a USDA $25 million grant to “…protect 10,000 acres of forests and wetlands in the Connecticut River Watershed….” Climate scientists agree that the optimal “management” of forests for the best climate results — for carbon capture, resilience, and biodiversity — is to leave them alone, NOT to cut them. Given Mass Audubon’s actions in North Adams, we have to ask whether Mass Audubon will use this grant to destroy forests on an even larger scale.
Click here to tell Mass Audubon leadership that you want them to stop the logging, and stop the deceptive marketing to local officials, and that you demand transparency about the $25 million taxpayer-funded grant!
Why the North Adams Case is so Concerning
This project directly threatens the sole drinking water source for North Adams. It will log on the slopes of historic Mount Greylock, webbed with underground streams, leading to the reservoir. It will clearcut plantations of spruce trees that were planted by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930’s to protect drinking water from ongoing mud and silt slides.
The project will also close the famous and historic Bellows Pipe Trail, rated the #1 best fall hiking trail by Condé Nast Traveler magazine in 2024, for an indefinite period and change it from a peaceful forest trail into a two-lane graveled roadway. This poses a direct threat to the local economy, highly dependent on “nature tourism”, in a community already designated an Environmental Justice Overlay District by the state.
By destroying acres of natural carbon capturing forests in the midst of the Climate Crisis, Mass Audubon fails the goals or ideals of environmental justice, and is directly undermining the Commonwealth climate goals. And, the absence of transparency regarding their plans for the USDA grant, opens up the possibility for greater harm to our climate protection efforts.
We need Your Help! Tell Mass Audubon to Do the Right Thing!
Please send a letter to Mass Audubon leadership. Urge Mass Audubon to stop their destructive logging plans in North Adams! Put Mass Audubon on notice that taxpayers want transparency about the environmental impacts of their plans for the $25 million taxpayer-funded grant!
Thank you for all you do! Your email and voice make a difference!
Please join us! We meet every other week via Zoom to plan legislative means to protect trees, at both the state and local levels, and to discuss what actions can be taken to address specific trees under threat.
To get the Zoom link and join the TreesPG Network, please fill out the short form here: https://tinyurl.com/join-TreesPG. Next online meeting: Dec 5 @ 7 pm
You can learn more about us here: https://ourrevolutionma.com/trees-as-a-public-good/. Email us at TreesPublicGood@gmail.com.
