Protecting Our Forests

Late last week, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced that it had completed Connecticut’s first Forest Resource Assessment and Strategy. Authorized by the federal Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 to conserve forest lands, protect them from harm, and to enhance the public benefit from trees and forests, the plan is supposed to serve as a framework for planners charged with managing the conserving the state’s natural resources. Their work is important not only for Newtown as a whole, which is home to the sprawling Upper and Lower Paugussett state forests, but to private landowners, who control 85 percent of the state’s forest land.

Despite its status as one of the nation’s most densely populated states, Connecticut seems to have an abundance of forest land. Fifty-nine percent of the state’s 3,179,254 acres are now classified as deciduous, coniferous, or wetland forests. Over the past 200 years, in Connecticut’s transition from its agrarian beginnings to today’s multifaceted economy, vast tracts of crop and pasture land have been abandoned to return to a forested state.

The great housing boom, beginning in the 1980s and continuing until the bubble burst in 2008, began to perforate Connecticut’s forested canopy with expanding pockets of residential development. That trend has slowed with the economy, giving local and state planners a chance to focus on our forest resources unpressured by constant and imminent development.

The value of most resources is almost always judged by the benefits they deliver to people. Most people understand the aesthetic benefits of a forest. Stand in the middle of one, and its beauty will be hard to deny. But one of DEP’s goals in promulgating a Forest Resource Assessment and Strategy is to publicly identify and fully realize all the less obvious benefits conferred on us by our forests, including “air and water quality, soil conservation, biological diversity, carbon storage, recreation, forest products, production of renewable energy, and wildlife.” When public policy fails to follow forest management practices that conserve legacy forests, protect forest lands from natural threats like fire, flooding, insect infestation, and invasive species, and enhance public benefits, the overall prospects for the state erode — often literally.

Newtown and its Conservation Commission have been regulating local forestry practices since 1983, recognizing long before many other towns the importance of forest conservation and management. Having the magnificent Paugussett forests within our borders has helped raise our consciousness on this issue. Now, with an integrated statewide strategy for conserving and enhancing our forests, Newtown’s efforts should benefit from a partnership with the state in its new commitment to a shared vision for sustainable and healthy forests throughout Connecticut.