Habitat Management

The goals of Wildland acquisition are to protect and perpetuate ecosystems that contain significant fish and wildlife resources and to conserve biological diversity, and to provide adequate routes for public access to the lands and waters.

Biodiversity, simply defined as the variety of life and its processes, is a commonly used term in the conservation arena these days.

Early-successional wildlife species have been dramatically declining over the past 50 years primarily because of a lack of suitable habitat. The Upland Habitat Management Program (Upland Program) was created to address this decline.

Upland game birds of Massachusetts are found in different types of early successional habitats. Active habitat management has become a necessary tool to create, restore, and maintain early successional habitats required by upland game birds and numerous other species in Massachusetts so that we can continue to enjoy those resources in the future.

Acquiring important habitat is the primary function of the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and its Division of Fisheries & Wildlife's (DFW) Land Protection Program.

The Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (DFW) has statutory responsibility for the conservation - including protection, restoration and management - of Massachusetts' flora and fauna, and is responsible for the stewardship and management of over 140,000 acres of state wildlife lands.