In May, a group of 20 academic researchers from several Northeastern institutions published a report, through the Harvard University Forestry and Ecology Research Center, remarking that the long-term trend of net gains in Northeastern forests--a function of agricultural lands reverting to forest--had begun to reverse itself over the past decade, due to the pace of real estate development overtaking reforestation, and recommended a robust program of conservation easements to maintain ecological integrity.

The broad recommendation, conveyed in an attractively produced report, Wildlands and Woodlands, is to bring 70% of the Northeast region--that is, the six New England states--under some sort of permanent protection, for instance through conservation easements, permitting the remaining 30% to remain subject to conventional demand, for development, agriculture, and other not-necessarily-forested uses.  Of the 70% that would remain under some form of protection (about 30 million acres), the authors recommend that 90% be maintained as privately owned "working" forest and that the remaining 10% be reserved as "wildland."

On "wildland," the report comments, "largely free from active management, these landscapes would be shaped by natural forces, the ambient environment, and legacies of prior history" and suggests they would distinguish themselves, in ecological function, from the other 90% by their generally higher age class and more complex biology.  (The report mentions nothing of their possible role in supporting marijuana culture or meth labs.)  These parcels would range in size, the authors recommend, from 5,000 to 1 million acres.

"This is a broad vision, not an implementation plan," admit the authors, although a persistent note of advocacy is detectible throughout the web site at http://www.wildlandsandwoodlands.org/, where one may download the report.  The web site lists funding from five foundations and "many friends of the Harvard Forest," as well as implicit cooperation from the Long Term Ecological Research Network.  Northeast industry, in any case, has taken note of what seems to be another edge of the wedge to implement the decades-old North Woods land-control proposal, and some have suggested the report may be used as a pretext to solicit the U.S. Department of the Interior for funding to purchase additional conservation easements in the region.