Mitigation and Adaptation Strategy: Protect Interconnected, Resilient Ecological Reserves
- Develop comprehensive plans to protect important ecological areas within the watershed. Ecosystems are complex and vulnerable to damage by human activity and climate change.
- Connect and expand large conservation areas in order to allow plant and animal communities to migrate or adapt. Connections among protected areas expand their significance, especially when there are north-south orientations or areas with significant elevation change.
- Identify and protect optimum habitat for the endangered or vulnerable species within the watershed that have limited ability to migrate.
- Develop baseline documentation of existing conditions in order to understand and plan for the changes that are taking place within our watershed.
- Provide connectivity for wildlife to move through the landscapes. Many important wildlife species can move through developed areas that have cover and no barriers, significantly improving connectivity of reserves and allowing critical migration to take place.
- Road culverts can serve as barriers to aquatic and terrestrial species that would otherwise be able to move through the landscape. Doing an assessment of culverts in your community can reveal where they need to be replaced with more sustainable and ecologically friendly culverts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a program that provides funding for such assessments and replacements.
- Identify and control invasives, the non-native plants that displace native plants or have the ability to create monocultures.
Image top: Celebration for the permanent protection of the Pepperell Springs property in Pepperell, MA, accomplished thru a broad partnership of state and local agencies, conservation groups, and individual efforts.
