Many people know Mount Sunapee as a fun place to ski. Few know the story of its rare forest. Yet, audiences at the Claremont MakerSpace and Goshen’s Brook Road Inn recently heard Steve Russell, president of Friends of Mount Sunapee, tell that story about an enduring, exemplary forest in Mount Sunapee State Park.
“Everlasting Forests: The Mount Sunapee Story,” is a FOMS presentation about preservation efforts that began over a century ago. It is also about a critical and vulnerable environment, which has no permanent protective status.
“I didn’t even know there were old-growth trees up there,” offered one member of these diverse audiences, “and I ski there all the time.”
In cooperation with the Sullivan County Conservation District for its most recent two presentations, FOMS has been informing citizens in towns that surround Mount Sunapee about this irreplaceable old forest.
Russell stressed the importance of thinking of this area on the mountain, not as separate parcels with ancient trees, but as an entire and interdependent biological entity: an exemplary natural community system (ENCS). Through natural processes, the ENCS supports and protects itself through flora and fauna cooperation.
Russell stated that attempts to develop even small areas of this ENCS would damage and diminish the system. If preserved, this exemplary and old forest can be viewed, studied, and enjoyed into an ongoing future.
More about Mount Sunapee’s rare old forest and the Friends of Mount Sunapee
- Mount Sunapee State Park’s Rare Old Forest (FOMS brochure)
- Mt. Sunapee’s exemplary and ancient forests (FOMS article)
- How do you describe Mount Sunapee’s rare old forest? (FOMS article)
- Current Action
- Volunteer