After several years of careful planning and invitations for public involvement to create a plan that will increase the resiliency of the woodlands in the Notch Reservoir watershed, restore its ecological function and intentionally manage the area using science-based, sustainable practices, a few citizens groups are now voicing opposition to the proposed forest management. 

 

Along with the city's leaders and the conservation organizations providing technical assistance to plan this restoration work, these groups share a sincere concern for the well-being of the forests.

 

However, one of their key objections to the proposed work is that Mother Nature can best manage the forest, and that humans manipulating the composition and structure of the forest is both unnatural and unnecessary for this landscape. 

 

Scientific research and historical context contradict this view. A broader understanding of the nature of both our regional forests and the role of humans that interact with them is necessary to understand what actions are called for and how they will work hand-in-hand with passive approaches to long-term stewardship.

 

For more than 10,000 years, humans have been integral in shaping the forests of this region. People both consume and influence the ecosystem services of clean air, water, food, fiber, shelter, and essential resources that the landscape provides. We have always been interdependent with the totality of life in this ecological landscape.

 

Some have suggested that the woods at Notch Reservoir are "pristine," or untouched by people, but this forest, like most in Massachusetts, re-grew after widespread land clearing in the 19 th century. While most of the forest re-grew naturally, the areas closest to the Notch Reservoir were planted in conifers — red pine, eastern white pine, and Norway spruce.

 

These plantations are now in decline. Invasive plant species, which crowd out the seedlings of native trees, have established in these declining plantations and will only increase in abundance if not removed as the canopy above them continues to disintegrate.

 

Additionally, in the naturally established northern hardwood forest upslope from these areas, an invasive pest, the emerald ash borer, has already killed more than 30 percent of the white ash trees over the past two years. Almost all the white ash is likely to die over the next few years, creating more canopy gaps for invasive plants to colonize.

 

The management planned for Notch Reservoir is focused on removing invasive plants and encouraging new, young trees to grow in the spaces that will be left by trees that will die in the next decade, whether they are harvested or not. Harvesting them now will allow the carbon in them to be stored in wood products instead of released to the atmosphere as the fallen logs decay in the woods. The city of North Adams has also committed to re-investing the income from the sale of the lumber into the watershed, ensuring that the work of removing invasive plants and replanting climate-adapted native trees to supplement natural re-growth can continue as they nurture a climate-adapted Notch Reservoir forest.

 

There are more than 1,000 acres in Notch Reservoir, where only about 70 have been identified for active management, while the forest stewardship plan recommends designating 267 acres as permanent reserves. Those reserve acres, along with more than 650 acres of its remaining public land, will be unaffected by this project.

 

Decisions about whether to take management actions in the forest now should keep in mind the goal of ensuring future generations will inherit a functioning landscape that continues to provide its ecosystem services undiminished. Active forest management, including cutting, has an aesthetic impact on the land, yet it diversifies conditions for wildlife (including fledging birds) and promotes plant and animal biodiversity for our future, representing a tradeoff that many believe is worth taking. 

 

North Adams should be applauded for being proactive in pursuing the best path to the resilience of the Notch Reservoir forest and the water supply it protects.

 

As the current and former board chairs of the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, we would like to invite you to walk with us in other places across the region that have lacked management, yet could have benefited from it, where invasive plants and vines have been allowed to take over, where stand decline and lack of regeneration have led to forests devoid of ecosystem health.

 

We would also like to show you places where proactive stewardship has occurred in years past and the forest has responded with vigor and health. Please visit WoodlandsPartnership.org to view our upcoming events and learn about our mission to support the communities of Northwest Massachusetts.

 

Dicken Crane of Windsor owns and operates the 1,400-acre Holiday Farm in Dalton and president of the Massachusetts Forest Alliance; Henry Art of Williamstown is professor emeritus of environmental studies and biology at Williams College, where he conducts research in the Hopkins Memorial Forest. He holds a doctorate in forest ecology from Yale University. 

 

They are the current and former board chair, respectively, of the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, a regional organization comprised of 21 towns in western Franklin County and Northern Berkshire.