Preserve The Goose Pond Forest

Editor: It is clear there is a housing crisis on the Cape. It is also clear there is a climate crisis, and it affects every living thing on the planet. The United Nation's Sixth Assessment Report on global climate change, released on Feb. 28, paints a dire picture.

The Earth is heating up at a pace unmatched in recorded history.

We can avert the worst consequences of climate change if we take serious actions now before it’s too late to slow or reverse the slide toward an uninhabitable planet. This requires action at every level: national, state, local, and as individuals. The goals are clear. We must significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and employ the conservation-based solutions available to us that store carbon. One is preserving and increasing the acreage

of forests and other ecosystems that absorb and store carbon.

While citizens and the town of Chatham are buying electric vehicles and installing solar panels, we also

need to preserve and expand the town’s acre age of protected lands, especially forests. Development can happen almost anywhere; a forest cannot!

The Goose Pond forest belongs to all of us and all those who come after us. Considering the desperate need to cool our planet, how can we think about destroying even one acre of forested land that is under our collective ownership? It is our moral responsibility to preserve every bit of forested public land. Yes, there is a need for housing. But the Goose

Pond forest is the wrong location for any type of development. Town meeting has affirmed this twice already. This annual town meeting you will have the opportunity to have the final word by voting for the conservation restriction to preserve the last 19 acres of the Goose Pond forest. Please vote to preserve the Goose Pond forest in its entirety.

DeeDee Holt

Chatham