My Turn: Support new forestry deal for state landowners PHOTO/CHELI MENNELLA PHOTO/CHELI MENNELLA
Published: 2/28/2021 7:04:39 AM
Massachusetts has 3.1 million acres of forest covering about 60% of the state. About 2 million acres of that forest land is owned by private landowners. Our forests are essential to: protect wildlife habitat; provide clean air and water; provide forest products that we all use; provide economic benefits and jobs sustained by the forest economy; and to help mitigate climate change. Forests in Massachusetts sequester 15% of the state’s annual carbon emissions annually but with good forest management we could increase that to as much as 25% while greatly reducing our use of imported fossil fuels making it easier to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.