The Connecticut River valley looking north from the summit of Mount Holyoke in Hadley, Massachusetts 1900 and 2022A_Man_Who_Writes t1_j6cusns wrote
Always refreshing to see reforestation instead of deforestation.
DMala t1_j6d28yc wrote
It blows me away to see stone walls running through the woods and realize how much of it is less than 120 years old or so.
BrokedownAlice69 t1_j6d31f3 wrote
Gets me every time. I treated them like they were just no thing growing up. Then when I realized how ancient some of them were…
rexskimmer t1_j6d73dt wrote
We're actually going through a second phase of deforestation. Woodlands have been declining since the 80s due to development.
PabloX68 t1_j6fa5k7 wrote
Not true.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/pubs/ru/ru_fs161.pdf
If you actually look at the studies, the total biomass of trees in MA is increasing and the removal of live trees is going down.
I've lived in this state long enough to have seen many areas go from clearcut farmland to more wooded. Additionally, tree growth is many suburban neighborhoods is substantial.
rexskimmer t1_j6huab7 wrote
Increase biomass means younger 100-year forests are maturing, but there's still a decrease in acreage (even if only slightly in the last decade or so). We've seen a larger decrease in forest area since the 60s.
https://harvardforest1.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf013
https://www.fs.usda.gov/ne/newtown_square/publications/other_publishers/OCR/ne_2003_brooks001.pdf
OldWrangler9033 t1_j6dp7k0 wrote
Unfortunately, the Farm Lands from the 1900 would have been taken from out by housing development as well. Just too much demand.
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