THE COASTAL PACKET: New England losing 65 acres of forest a day

Wednesday, September 20

New England losing 65 acres of forest a day

Press Herald-New England has been losing forestland to development at a rate of 65 acres per day – a loss that comes at a time when public funding for preservation of open land, both state and federal, has also been on the decline in all six states.

That’s the conclusion of a report by the Harvard Forest, a research institute of Harvard University. The study found public funding for land conservation in New England dropped by half between 2008 and 2014 to $62 million per year, slightly lower than 2004 levels. During the same time, the pace of regional land conservation slowed from an average of 333,000 acres per year in the early 2000s to about 50,000 acres per year since 2010.

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