Can We Preserve New England's Resurging Forests?

In the mid-19th century, the writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was living in Concord and writing about the region's fragile wilderness. He wrote: “The bear, wolf, wildcat, deer, and marten, have disappeared." Back then, farming, logging and hunting had decimated New England's forests and wildlife. But today the forests are back — and cover 80 percent of the region. New England is now the most heavily forested region in the country, and yet it faces new threats, including housing construction and urban sprawl.

Last November, we talked about this with David Foster. He's director of the Harvard Forest, a 3,500-acre research center in Petersham, Mass.