In the June 16 front page article detailing a petition to stop management on state lands, Save Massachusetts Forests and Restore: The North Woods make two assumptions — that four years of signature gathering resulting in representation of 0.0007% of Massachusetts residents (assuming all those who signed live in our state) demonstrates unanimous support for the restriction of active management on public lands and that a limited selection of review papers written by individuals with known bias is evidence of scientific consensus. Forest ecologist and old growth expert Professor D’Amato recently said, at a webinar hosted by Vermont Land Trust, that managing for a single objective within a complex ecosystem, i.e. carbon at the expense of heterogeneity across the landscape, is flawed and outdated. We should really stop and ask ourselves a serious question: Why are we being told what to think about the woods by two individuals educated in political science and acupuncture? I’ll make an unsolicited recommendation to the news staff at the Recorder or any reader interested in these matters — reach out to Professor Joan Milam at UMass Amherst to hear what she has found in her bee survey work on state lands like Muddy Brook and Montague Plains.
Kate Lindroos Conlin
Buckland