The new law strives to ensure that the total area public parks and conservation land in Massachusetts doesn't decrease.
A new-growth black cherry tree sprouts up in a stand of birch trees on protected conservation land in Weston, Mass. environmental activists have supported for two decades known as the Public Lands Preservation Act. The new law aims to guarantee that the total area of public parks and conservation land doesn’t decrease.of the state constitution through a policy called “No Net Loss.
“It is a tool for meeting the climate crisis. We need open space to mitigate against flooding. We need it to absorb carbon,” said representative Ruth Balser, a Democrat from Newton and co-sponsor of the bill. “What's good about that is that it would give the Environmental Office the opportunity to work with communities to help them find alternatives,” she said. The law requires an analysis of alternatives mapping out construction of the same project without compromising conservation land.
Robb Johnson, executive director of the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, who has been advocating for the bill, said that communities have ongoing needs to build, but that constructing on conservation land shouldn’t always be allowed.
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