There really just hasn't been
a more urgent moment in human history to conserve as much land as possible both
sustainable forestry and wilderness. There has been an incredible amount of
science that's come out in the last few years
that point to the unparalleled
value of wild forests to conserve biodiversity to hold off
extinction and to store and sequester incredible amounts of carbon. We know
that wilderness is an incredibly powerful natural climate solution
and we need to be conserving more of it. Northeast Wilderness Trust is a land
trust based in Montpelier Vermont but we work all
across new England and the state of New York
and we were founded in 2002 and have conserved 37,000
acres of land up to this point. All of the properties that northeast wilderness
trust protect are considered forever wild which means
from the moment we either acquire it or put an easement
on it there will no longer be logging and the property will
essentially be an old growth forest of tomorrow. We have to adjust our heads to
move in forest time. I'm deeply envious of the people
in 300 years who get to see the forests we protected today
when they're all grown up. Because i mean on the time scale of a tree
most of the forests in northern New England are like teenagers
and barely get beyond that. When there is some potential future time down there
where our properties have 300 year old trees
on it that's gonna be really cool. We are at the Brimhall Wilderness
Preserve in Bridgewater Hall of Vermont. We conserved this property in March of 2020. And so when I first came here and I met
this property I just had this really magical experience I was walking through
the woods and there was just a porcupine on a rock
looking at me and there were deer and there was moose rubs everywhere and it
was early spring so there were all kinds of little
amphibians in the vernal pools and it was just super magical. And I think
maybe I'm slightly biased but that magic has just sort of permeated every visit
since then and it sort of grew as a place that became really important to me
and it became really important to me to finish this project. So some of the features of this place
that make it important for wildlife are one
there's really mature forest there's a long history
of human westerners settling here and kind of clear cutting
taking down all the forest and so almost everything we have here is
second growth forest in the whole northeast.
Those forests have been used in a in a wide variety of ways ever since for
timber for sugaring for firewood extraction stuff
like that and so as a result sort of across the
region our forests are really lacking in that old forest structure
those big dead trees those big down logs and those are important for tons of
things, those are important for little tiny decomposers and
slime molds but they're also important for bears
which will hibernate in them for the winter and
coyotes will have their pups in them and fishers will live in them and hunt in
them and and so all the way from the large
mammals to the tiny mammals to the slimy little organisms that kind of
structure's really important. And it's rare, it's really rare, and this
place has a lot of it. And as a result,
we really wanted to protect this as it is. Babysitter swamp has always impressed me
as being unique practically from the first time I saw it
over 45 years ago because it's the only place along this
wetland complex that has old trees and as a wildlife
ecologist I began to recognize that there were things going on on that
property that were different than the other properties. It's the upper
tooth that inserts into and stops and anchors
and then it's the drag of the lower jaw that actually
makes the bite. "Wow" Isn't that cool? here you come feel this. Babysitter swamp is a name that I I gave this property because when
I first started coming here my research quickly helped me appreciate that it was
being used by mother bears and their infants. Basically
what happens is the mothers bring their little ones to these huge old trees and
the cubs climb the trees to get out of harm's way
while she feeds in the adjoining wetland. And there's a green up as we call it of
of sedges and forbs that happen there in
late April and may when she's using this place that are really
important food for her. What seems odd is that that this place gets used every
year and yet bears only have offspring every other year so what's going on.
A given mother bear will use the trees every other year but it's her daughters
that use the trees in the alternate years and that's what my research
revealed. And as a tracker and professional naturalist,
I know that the trees are getting used every year because of the scent marking
sign that I find the hairs on the trees the claw marks the bites. From the beginning I wanted to conserve
my property with Northeast Wilderness Trust. It was both
incredibly wonderful and logical that I do that.
There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not just immensely grateful for that
opportunity because here in the east where so much of our
land is privately owned we're really lucky to have this
organization helping us do this important work. So something can feel wild or have a
wild character but unless it's protected there's no
guarantee it will stay that way. I've seen too many wonderful places get
trashed. I've spent a lot of time in some of the wildest habitat
in North America and the thing that causes me great pain is the realization
that again and again no matter where I am from the Ungava Peninsula in
northern Quebec all the way across to the Arctic National Refuge
you know with 11 different caribou herds for example that I've studied,
none of it's safe. Very little of it is put aside as wilderness.
I think each and every one of us really needs to get on this
and work with organizations like Northeast Wilderness Trust to
put these wonderful lands aside forever. And large and small alike I don't care
if you want to conserve 20 acres or 200 acres or 2,000 acres it's all
important. The biggest threat to wilderness is not
what's actually happening to wilderness that exists but it's
the lack of wilderness areas in New England.
Out of all of the incredible conservation that's happened
across the region, which at this point is upwards of 25 percent
of New England has been conserved in some way, only about 1 to three percent
of all of that is forever wild. It's a radical act of humility to put a
piece of land into a designation that means humans
permanently will not do anything with it. Western civilization has dictated
that forests are there for our benefit. Our civilization has been built
on the backbone of these forest resources. Wilderness
conservation flips that entire thing on its head.
And it's about setting these places aside permanently
for their benefit not for ours.
