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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2013

  • Title: The Future Of Massachusetts Privately Owned Woodlands
  • Author: Leah L Nothnagel (Minneapolis Community and Technical College)
  • Abstract:

    Minneapolis Community and Technical College

    Leah Nothnagel

    Mentor: David Kittredge



    The Future Of Massachusetts Privately Owned Woodlands



    Massachusetts is a heavily forested state, most of which is privately owned. For this reason knowing future projections of land use by its owners is important in order to understand what the landscape will look like in the coming years. My focus is on the attitudes of the residents along an urban to rural gradient regarding the future of their land, community, and their views on conservation. My thesis is that in suburban to urban communities the residents will own less land, but will be more pro-conservation.

    For the project we sent out surveys titled “Community and Conservation Survey of Massachusetts”, which was sent out to residents along our transects, covering Boston all the way West to Athol and Palmer. From the surveys sent out, we received about a 30% response rate; which I then entered the participants responses into a spreadsheet and then analyzed the data looking for trends. From the responses we found that 50% of the participants felt they live in a rural community, and over half of all the respondents said they were unlikely to sell their land in the near future. Of all the respondents roughly 70% said that they found land conservation to be very important, and this is across both Urban and Rural communities. The differences in attitudes towards conservation not being too drastic. As this project is ongoing, I feel there will be much more to learn from the residents here in Massachusetts.

  • Research Category: Conservation and Management