The Advisory Board is pleased to report that Division of Water Supply Protection (Division) may resume active forest management after an 18-month moratorium on timber cutting on state-owned lands. In our Proposed FY25 Budget -Comments and Recommendations, we emphasized that climate change demands both adjustments in forestry practices and increased efforts to manage for resilience and encouraged MWRA to use “its role on the Water Supply Protection Trust to advocate for continued, carefully considered, deliberately limited active forestry.”
Implementation Intent & Status:
“The Climate Forestry Committee (CFC) did not reach consensus as to whether active forestry is necessary on watershed lands to support water quality. Credible science was cited both supporting and opposing active management.
Given this circumstance, and that to date active management has contributed to maintaining a healthy forest filter that protects the water supply, the Division of Water Supply Protection will continue to utilize a broad range of forest management strategies across a spectrum from passive to active, with an emphasis on passive, to manage watershed forests.
In so doing, it will assess where passive management can best achieve management objectives and otherwise ensure that the climate guidelines recommended by the CFC are reflected in the decision-making process and forestry operations.”
Deliverables and Schedule:
“The Division will demonstrate and expand the use of passive management, including the designation of Forest Reserves on Water Supply lands.
Land management objectives will be clearly articulated both at the program and the project level and the forestry proposal process will be explicit, transparent and go through both internal and public review as documented in the Division’s current Land Management Plans.
Finally, CFC recommendations pertaining to performing forest management with climate in mind, including those addressing utilization of active techniques, will be considered in agency land management.”
Our take-aways:
- Active management of watershed forests occurs on less than 1% of the land per year to date. Passive Management is already deployed in certain areas. The new climate forestry guidelines will require that the Division increase its consideration of this technique and areas of the watershed managed this way into it’s management plans.
- There is a long history of studying the watershed forests including one underway, that compares active and passive management outcomes on water quality. We look forward to seeing the study’s results.
- There is a wealth of talent and subject matter expertise within the Division. We recognize that it is difficult to communicate work that is dynamic and spans long timeframes. Adding in the unsettled science of climate change impacts increases this challenge. Nonetheless, we believe that more transparency will increase public understanding and the support for the Division’s work.
