The Town of Mount Washington, on the South Taconic Plateau, is nestled within magnificent forest preserves. Mount Washington State Forest, Mount Everett State Reservation, and Bash Bish Falls State Park are irreplaceable parts of the most intact forest ecosystem in southern New England. “The forests of the Berkshire and Taconic Highlands of Western Massachusetts link the Green Mountains of Vermont to the Hudson Highlands of New York, creating a connected corridor of habitat for [plants and] wide-ranging species such as black bear, moose and bobcat … Forest cores like these often overlap with critical wetlands surrounding streams and rivers, all of which are some of the most resilient to climate change.” Go to The Nature Conservancy’s Berkshire Wildlife Linkage of the Appalachians website to learn more.
When I came to live in Mount Washington in the 1990s, I was introduced to the Taconic Plateau and the Town of Mount Washington as one of “Earth’s Last Great Places,” a Nature Conservancy (TNC) program that measured and recognized ecological health—biodiversity being a prime indicator. I wasn’t aware of all it took to preserve the integrity of these ecosystems.
People flock to where there is beauty and the promise of renewal for mind, body, and spirit. Huge numbers of visitors inadvertently bring non-native invasive plants and seeds on their shoes and cars. Residents plant horticultural varieties that compete with natives and are useless in the food chain of native birds and bees. Biological diversity was threatened in the 1990s and is today. Barberry and non-native honeysuckle shrubs displace flowering native understory species. Oriental bittersweet vines entangle and strangle native shrubs and trees. Stilt-grass smothers rare wildflower habitat and woody seedling regeneration.
Fifteen to 20 years ago, TNC mobilized botanists, land-care professionals, and volunteers to remove invasives from the tri-state South Taconics. The program proceeded with substantial federal funding. That thrust ended. The invasive threat is back.
“Thinking Like A Mountain,” from Aldo Leopold’s essay in “A Sand County Almanac,” urges awareness of how natural systems function when making decisions that affect the interface of humans and the natural world, to be aware of possible affects over long-time horizons.
To that end, the Town of Mount Washington Conservation Commission, in collaboration with the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), The Nature Conservancy, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, and Berkshire Natural Resources Council—all managing conservation land on the mountain—identified ecologically significant habitat areas spanning multiple properties within the town where populations of non-native species are compromising ecological integrity. Of utmost concern are roadways as the vector for entry into intact forest ecosystems.
The Mount Washington Conservation Commission and Select Board, with letters of support from representatives of the coalition, applied for and recently received a Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Fiscal Year 2024 Community Forest Stewardship Implementation Grant. Mapping work has begun.
All are welcome at the Conservation Commission’s educational events and, come spring, to volunteer for removing invasive plants. In the coming weeks, check the town website homepage for upcoming events.
