North Quabbin Bioreserve

11 towns of the North Quabbin

A magnificent landscape-scale conservation effort.

Description:

The concept originating as a United Nations program, a bioreserve is a large land area most of which is permanently protected from development but showcases balance: conservation of biological diversity and protection of cultural resources and economic development and human activity.

 Here in the North Quabbin is just such an area - the North Quabbin Bioreserve, a huge swath of 120,000 acres in 11 towns, almost half of it permanently protected, the fruit of powerful effort and cooperation involving the state, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, and other public and private agencies. The key conservation value of this bioreserve is visible throughout the North Quabbin: the fact that the region boasts significant intact forestland and provides a home and a corridor for large mammal species, as well as numerous other species of animals and plants.

The North Quabbin Bioreserve was celebrated as a reality in 2002, with a dedication at the Tully Mountain Wildlife Management Area. Visitors here will look out over a magnificent wetland flanked by Tully Mountain; they will be moved as they stand in front of the glacier-deposited boulder with a plaque reading "Dedicated to the landowners of the Tully River watershed and to the citizens, working landscape, and biodiversity of Massachusetts."

The North Quabbin Bioreserve is only the second such in Massachusetts; the other is the 13,600-acre Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve in the Fall River area.

 

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