New England Forestry Foundation Purchases, Conserves 1,285 Acres of Worcester County Forestlands

NEFF, America’s 6th-Largest Land Trust, Surpasses 40,000 Acres Conserved Through Ownership

New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) has announced the purchase of 1,285 acres of forestland across the towns of Ashburnham, Winchendon and Royalston in Massachusetts’ Worcester County. By permanently conserving these nine ecologically valuable forestlands, NEFF has completed the second half of a celebrated conservation land deal. In 2018, NEFF learned this suite of forests was going to change hands from Conservation Resources, LLC to new buyers; Mass Audubon conserved a 1,350-acre parcel in December 2023, and now NEFF has protected the rest.

With this purchase, NEFF has also reached a new benchmark: NEFF owns more than 40,000 total acres of forestland, in addition to the 1.21 million acres NEFF has conserved across New England through easements.

“Conserving these valuable forests as part of the New England Forestry Foundation’s continued large-scale land conservation efforts is a major win,” said NEFF Executive Director Bob Perschel. “We look forward to continuing to steward and grow our conserved lands, often in partnership with remarkable organizations like Mass Audubon and committed local communities, while also advancing our approach to climate-smart forestry.”

Some of these new NEFF forests connect to conserved lands like Royalston State Forest, Warwick State Forest, Lawrence Brook Wildlife Management Area and Millers River Wildlife Management Area, which means they now contribute to wildlife corridors and vast areas of contiguous, protected forestland.

“This acquisition is spectacular and is essential for meeting the state’s commitment to safeguard 30 percent of its land and waters by 2030,” said David O’Neill, President of Mass Audubon. “We’re thrilled to work with New England Forestry Foundation and others to protect strategic lands like these to help us all battle climate change and bolster biodiversity.”

Contributing to wildlife corridors and contiguous forestland is no small thing, but that’s far from the only ecological benefit of this land deal. NEFF’s land stewardship team used the MassMapper GIS tool provided by the state to confirm nearly every parcel—or a combined 1,041 acres—falls within areas Massachusetts has designated as “Core Habitat,” “Regional Connectivity,” “Critical Natural Landscapes,” “Priority Habitats of Rare Species” and “Natural Communities.”

Of all the information NEFF’s land stewardship team has learned about the forests newly in their care, Stewardship Associate Corey Wrinn was quick to call a 52-acre Red Spruce Swamp the “coolest” feature he found on them; according to MassWildlife, this vast swamp contains “Priority Habitats of Rare Species.”

NEFF acquired the land from Conservation Resources, an impact investment firm that primarily invests in timber and farm lands. Of the 1,285 acres NEFF has purchased, 792 are under a conservation restriction held by Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

NEFF Stewardship Associate Corey Wrinn

Including the more than 40,000 total acres NEFF now owns, NEFF has conserved more than 1.2 million acres of land since its founding in 1944. NEFF has long worked directly with family landowners to help them permanently protect their land, and also pursues select projects to conserve large parcels of unfragmented forests. Among the forests NEFF has conserved are Pingree Forest Partnership (conserved 762,000 acres via easement) and Downeast Lakes Forestry Project (conserved 335,000 acres via easement), both in Maine.

The Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance, awarded NEFF accreditation earlier this year, and the Alliance recognized NEFF’s accomplishment at its September 2024 LTA Rally in Providence.

NEFF’s new lands in Ashburnham, Winchendon and Royalston will be managed with Exemplary Forestry, a climate-smart forest management approach created through NEFF’s research that prioritizes forests’ long-term health and sets the region’s highest standards of sustainability for three key goals: Enhancing the role forests can play to mitigate climate change, improving wildlife habitat and biodiversity, and growing and harvesting more sustainably produced wood.

If applied across New England, NEFF estimates climate-smart forestry can keep more than 646 million metric tons of CO2e out of the atmosphere over the next 30 years. This 30 Percent Solution, as researched by NEFF, shows that climate-smart forestry has the potential to store additional carbon representing nearly one-third of the total energy-related CO2 emissions reductions needed across New England by 2050.

Having celebrated its 80th birthday in July 2024, NEFF has scaled up its programs in recent years: NEFF and partners recently launched the Exemplary Forestry Investment Fund, aiming to eventually own 100,000 acres of Maine forest by raising approximately $90 million and manage them using the climate-smart Exemplary Forestry approach developed by NEFF to improve carbon storage, long-term forest health, wildlife habitat, and sustainable timber value and production in partnership with local communities. NEFF and partners have also received a $30 million USDA Climate-Smart Commodities award to increase carbon storage in New England’s forests.

NEFF Stewardship Associate Corey Wrinn