I’m a conservationist. It’s just that in this specific case what you’re trying to conserve is junk chock full of invasives nestled between two highways.

There is plenty of beautiful wilderness to protect which has to ACTIVELY be protected. Even the Estabrook Woods, for example, which are the biggest forested area close to Boston are a dying environment because of all the deer overbrowsing and an underbrush made almost exclusively of barberry, firebush, oriental bittersweet, and in the open areas, multi flora roses. Even the knotweed is creeping in now. NONE of those plants have any function for our native pollinators and fauna.

You see wilderness. I see a profoundly damaged environment that is not fulfilling its ecological role.

This is not a cut down all the trees moment! But it’s important to note that the only reason we have white pines everywhere is precisely BECAUSE we cut down our native hardwood forests for farmland. When the farmland was abandoned, the white pine seedlings germinated fast and shaded out most diversity. It’s not a healthy environment to begin with.