Private forests provide public benefits – and are under threat

Among the many beautiful qualities of trees and forests is that they know no boundaries. The 26-million-acre Northern Forest, the largest intact forest in the eastern U.S., is an ecological gem spanning four states and uniquely identified places – New York’s Adirondacks, Vermont’s Green Mountains, New Hampshire’s North Country and the Maine Woods. It is so expansive that, as a Maine landowner recently told us, “A lot of visitors assume this is a National Forest or park.”