John Heywood published a collection of proverbs in 1546, including: “You can’t see the forest for the trees,” which meant missing the larger picture by focusing on its details. In Greenfield, we have focused appropriately on replacing street trees — but do we “see” our larger forests?

According to Greenfield’s Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) for 2021-2028, our city comprises 14,020 acres. Sixty percent is forested (8,400 acres) — almost eight times greater than our agricultural land, and 1.6 times greater than our residential land. Many citizens are pleased that our Tree Committee is planting trees in Greenfield’s urban tree belt but many citizens haven’t read our forest goals that emphasize the importance of contiguous forests.

The dominant forests in our region are transition hardwoods and white pines, found in such areas as: the 90-acre Rocky Mountain Park, 200-acre Griswold GTD conservation area, 25-acre Lillian Street Conservation Area, and 39-acre Leyden Woods Conservation Area. 

According to the OSRP, “the overarching vision for the future of open space and recreation in Greenfield is to increase the City’s resilience to climate change through thoughtful conservation and stewardship of open spaces, woodlands, farms, and river corridors.” Forests are mentioned as a key natural feature of our environment: “The second highest natural resource goal in the Franklin County 2035 Regional Plan for Sustainable Development is to protect forests… keeping forest as forest avoids carbon emissions from land use conversion.”

“Fortunately, promoting the health of the City’s waterways and forests are compatible priorities,” the OSRP notes. “The protection of contiguous forestland and land along rivers and streams has the added benefit of also protecting the City’s drinking water supply and wildlife habitat.” Forest land was ranked as one of the most important open space assets to protect: “These natural resources help mitigate the impacts of climate change, including sequestering and storing carbon and absorbing and reducing floodwaters… One of the most effective, and least costly, strategies is to steward existing natural areas for increased resilience to climate change.”  A 30-acre stand of white pines can sequester between 45,000 and 120,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. A stand holds as much as 10 million pounds of stored carbon within its existing wood and roots. Forest harvesting accounts for 85% of the carbon lost from forests each year.

The OSRP citizen survey found that allocating funds for natural resource protection is “very important,” with 69% of respondents in favor of “permanently protecting forests in Greenfield from development.” “The challenge for many communities in Franklin County,” the plan concluded, “is to grow in population without diminishing natural resources like contiguous forests… carefully sited housing development can better meet the needs of residents in search of suitable dwellings and reduce impacts to the City’s natural environment.” The report suggests: “Greenfield Officials may want to focus on continuing the good working relationships with regional land trusts. By being prepared, Greenfield may be more likely to see the preservation of choice parcels of forest containing unique habitat, historic resources, scenic views, and trail systems.” Projects that help to address environmental challenges were seen as “very important” by survey-takers: “working with willing landowners to permanently conserve important woodlands,” and “permanently protecting land within the mapped river corridor of the Green River.”

The OSRP concludes with an Action Plan for “strengthening Greenfield’s resilience to climate change”:

  • Apply criteria to identify and prioritize protection of land in Greenfield with high-conservation value, such as… wildlife habitat, unfragmented forests. 
  • Increasing the long-term carbon storage of City-owned conservation areas and urban forests by maintaining or increasing forest cover.
  • Identify and protect parcels adjacent to conservation areas to reduce forest fragmentation.
  • Institute a new Chapter 61C, a program that would incentivize landowners to keep their forests intact (and not logged) to maximize carbon storage.
  • Encourage collaborations between advocacy groups and… woodland owners to help explain… land management options, including keeping forests intact to increase carbon storage.
  • Provide information on carbon trusts to private land owners.
  • Integrate the goals of the Open Space Plan into City policies and plans and make policies consistent with these goals. 

Making land use policies consistent with forest protection is made more urgent by increased incidences of heat domes, flash flooding, and wildfires linked to climate change. When developers bring in a project like the 32-acre Stone Farm Lane proposal, or the 29.6 acres of forest at the eastern end of Lunt Drive, we will see if Greenfield can “see the forest through the trees” by reusing already developed land instead.  Forest lots greater than three acres should be classified as “permanently protected forestland/undevelopable.”

Al Norman’s PUSHBACK column appears in the Recorder on the first and third Wednesday of each month.