Prepared for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
June 2009
Avril de la Cretaz
Matthew Kelty
Lena Fletcher
Department of Natural Resources Conservation
University of Massachusetts Amherst
PREFACE
State Forest land located in the towns of Middlefield and Peru is the site of one of
eight large Forest Reserves in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Fig. 1). The Forest
Reserves were established by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and
Environmental Affairs (EOEEA) to create areas where forest development is the product
primarily of natural succession and natural disturbance. The Forest Reserve management
goal is to increase the area of late seral forest and to protect and conserve species that
depend on this habitat, while allowing the effects of natural disturbances to create
variation in successional trends in some areas. Only passive management is used in the
Forest Reserves, mainly focusing on restoring native habitat by removing invasive
species. Sustainable forest management, including timber harvesting, will be
implemented on state lands outside the reserve system (EOEEA 2009).