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).