The Millstone Trails Association operates 70 miles of trails, including the notorious Roller Coaster, on the former quarry land. A proposed community forest would protect the trails while guaranteeing close-to-home access to recreation for Barre Town residents and visitors.
recreation, protect water supplies and wildlife, and generate revenue from timber sales. Interest in community forests has risen along with a sense of urgency about preserving the region’s forested character. For the first time since forests began to reclaim farm fields in 19th century, forest cover is declining in all six New England states. This time it’s pave- ment and houses that are replacing the trees. In response, villages and cities across New England
are at the vanguard of a national movement to protect community-owned forests—or create new ones, as in Barre Town. More than 3,000 communities in the United States now own nearly 5 million acres of forestland, as residents recognize the multiple benefits forest owner- ship can confer. (On the proposed Barre Town Forest, the county forester has identified nearly a million board feet of high-value trees, worth an estimated $143,000.) “This new community forestry movement is not necessarily focused on protecting traditional jobs in the
“This new community forestry movement is not necessarily focused on protecting traditional jobs in the woods, but on a broader set of benefits to communities.” —Rodger Krussman, The Trust for Public Land
woods—though some community forests are—but more on a broader set of benefits to a community,” says Rodger Krussman, The Trust for Public Land’s Vermont and New Hampshire state director. In the last decade, the office has helped create or expand 11 community forests in those states totaling more than 25,000 acres. The movement began to take shape in 2001, when
TPL helped Randolph, New Hampshire (population 350), acquire more than 10,000 acres to create that state’s largest town forest and kick off the modern com- munity forest movement in northern New England. In