RESTORE: The North Woods

CONTACT:

P.O. Box 1099
Concord, MA 01742
978-392-0404
www.restore.org

Michael Kellett, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

RESTORE: The North Woods is a land and habitat conservation organization, founded in 1992, to help restore the northern forests of New England, from Maine west. Most of their efforts have been in Maine, though they have collaborated with other organizations to help protect old-growth forest on Mount Wachusett.

Historically there have been three principal approaches to environmental protection: preservation (i.e., set it aside, leave it alone), conservation (i.e., manage it to stop and prevent further deterioration, with possible enhancement), and more recently, ecological restoration—i.e., restore the ecosystem as closely as possible to its pre-human "wildness." RESTORE is dedicated to this last strategy, helping for example to achieve or strengthen legal protections for certain key endangered or threatened species such as the Atlantic salmon, and large predators such as the Canadian lynx and the eastern timber wolf.

RESTORE's newest initiative, "Mass Wild!," will bring this strategy systematically to Massachusetts. The first step will be to build a comprehensive map of lands best suited and ecologically most valuable, to be managed as "forever wild" or nearly wild; then a needs assessment will identify specific actions as restoration priorities. You are invited to help restore some of our wildness.

(2001: NATURE: Biodiversity)