Forest Reserves

Forest reserves are portions of state lands where commercial harvesting of wood products is excluded in order to capture elements of biodiversity that can be missing from sustainably harvested sites.

Reserves allow people to experience and to understand how forest ecosystems function when timber and other wood products that are normally extracted for human use remain in place.

Each matrix reserve will have an operational plan established with opportunities for public input to clearly define what activities will and will not occur, and to determine in advance how managers will coordinate with local officials in response to events like wildfires, pest and pathogen outbreaks, extensive blowdowns, and other natural disturbance events.

Patch reserves will typically be relatively small (tens or hundreds of acres) and will be defined by the extent of the unique resources (rare species, steep slopes, etc.) intended for conservation.

Reserves can be used to conserve small, isolated resources (e.g., particular rare species habitats, sites with fragile, highly erodable soils), and to conserve extensive representative portions of the diversity of relatively un-fragmented forest ecosystems that occur in Massachusetts today. Learn more from the Department of Fish and Game.