A public-private conservation partnership in western Massachusetts is working to include Indigenous perspectives in its mission to protect forests and encourage sustainable development.
One of the most popular alternatives to fossil fuels, solar energy, has a problem it needs land. With that land hunger comes inherent conflict, recently highlighted in Belchertown where a vigorous local fight has sprung up over proposals to build.
STOCKBRIDGE â A guru of old-growth forests, Robert T. Leverett recalls first stepping into Ice Glen back in the early 1990s and thinking to himself, âOh, my God. This is the real deal.â
He declared it one of the most spectacular woodland stands in New England. But, today, he speaks with the funereal gloom of this misty-cloaked cleft just south of the village.
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âItâs sad when an icon of the Northeast forest is lost. Thatâs whatâs at stake here.â
â Robert T. Leverett, Florence-based co-founder of the Native Tree Society and co-author of âThe Sierra Club Guide to the Ancient Forests of the Northeastâ