Mapping known ‘wildlands’ in New England

A collective called Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities, which focuses on land conservation and environmental protection in New England, recently released a first-of-its-kind report mapping and describing all known wildlands in the region.

“Wildlands” refers to an area of any size and condition, permanently protected from development, in which management explicitly intends to allow nature to prevail with minimal human interference. Essentially, a wildland is a tract of land that is able to exist as it did before rapid industrialization put a strain on the environment throughout the region.

“Wildland conservation, like all of conservation, is only necessary due to unchecked development and destructive practices — first introduced to this region by colonizing people — that have threatened all natural systems and society itself,” the report reads. “As a complementary strategy to protecting Woodlands (actively managed forests) and farmlands, there are myriad reasons to protect Wildlands.”

These areas not only offer habitats for local wildlife and plant species, but provide critical infrastructure for slowing the effects of climate change. Right now, only about 25% of New England land is protected from development. The report’s authors argue that that figure must reach 80% to ensure the environmental future of the region.

“From Acadia National Park, Baxter State Park and the Wilderness areas in the White and Green Mountains to the state reserves and forever-wild easements on private lands, a thriving, diverse and much more expansive network of Wildlands is vital for counteracting the global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and their impact on human welfare,” said report co-author David Foster, director emeritus of the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, and former president of the Highstead Foundation in Redding, Connecticut, in a statement.

Trees in wildland tracts remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their trunks, branches, leaves and roots. Less carbon in the atmosphere means fewer effects from greenhouse gas, which means less heat will be trapped in Earth’s atmosphere. Wildlands also enhance landscape resilience to stresses from climate change, biodiversity loss, and habitat fragmentation. Finally, wildlands form a central component of “30 x 30,” the nationally and internationally embraced goal to protect 30% of the land and waters of the Earth by 2030.

The report calls for planners to center wildlands in their approaches, while also strengthening existing wildlands through permanent protection and landscape buffering.

Through public and private action, planners can also create more wildlands to sustain New England through what the report calls “an integrated conservation agenda.”

The collective suggests accomplishing its goals through seven pathways, which include expanded collaboration, education and outreach, community engagement, funding, research, accessibility and policy.

Connecticut is home to just over 2% of the region’s wildlands, many of which buffer the Appalachian Trail in the remote and rural northwestern corner. Among the state’s wilds are the Canaan Mountain Wilderness Area Preserve, a 2,260 acre expanse nestled in the rugged, high-elevation section of Housatonic State Forest; the McLean Game Refuge, just a half hour outside of Hartford in North-Central Connecticut; and the Connecticut College Natural Areas, three parcels of forest and salt marsh totaling about 200 acres, in the state’s coastal lowland.

Other Connecticut wildlands include the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s (DEEP) Old Forest Management Sites, like Gold’s Pines Natural Area Preserve in West Cornwall and Wangum Lake in Canaan and more. But the collective that issued the report said the protection DEEP can offer these wildlands doesn’t go far enough.

The report shows that while 81% of New England is forested, only a miniscule portion has been designated as protected wildlands.

In order to reach the collective’s goal of permanently protecting 80% of New England in a mixture of natural wildlands (at minimum 10%), productively managed woodlands (60%), farmland (7%), and other (up to 3%) by 2060, each state has to increase its pace of forest conservation. Connecticut in particular must increase its rate the most and more than quadruple the amount of acres it protects per year.