Stories
A new wave of forest loss is underway in New England, at a rate of 65 acres a day. That’s the conclusion of a new regionwide study spearheaded by a Harvard University forest research group. And the authors say New England could lose more than a million acres of forest cover over the next half-century.
Read More
In the wake of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, observers are predicting that premiums for a cash-strapped federal flood insurance program are likely to rise. Along the Atlantic coast, meanwhile, communities from Rhode Island to Maine are already mounting a related challenge to the program: the accuracy of federal flood maps maps that designate who must pay those premiums in the first place.
Read More
Maine is home to hundreds of dams that have fallen out of use, a legacy of the heyday of its mills.
Read More
For more than half a century, a massive, oil-fired plant has been churning out electricity from an island in the heart of Maine’s Casco Bay, where sailors use its towering smokestack for navigation.
Read More
Unlike large hydropower dams, where there’s often serious political and emotional resistance to removal, conservationists are finding many landowners of small dams are happy to have them removed.
Read More
In New England, 22 percent of the region’s native plants are considered rare. Some of them are on the federal list of endangered species. Biologists worldwide and locally have been saving crop seeds, and seeds from other plants important to the ecosystem.
Read More
Bids are in for a slew of large-scale clean electricity projects that could influence New England’s energy landscape — and maybe its physical landscape — for decades.
Read More
The consequences of climate change, experts say, will disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color.
As Kevin Sullivan slowly rumbles his pickup truck across his 60 acres of property near the Connecticut-Massachusetts border, he leans in and asks a question: What’s farmland?
Read More
After years of encouraging solar development, Vermont seems to be attracting the attention of national solar companies.
Read More