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Boston Globe editorial, February 18, 1997

Promised Land

Henry David Thoreau wanted to preserve Estabrook Woods in Concord and Carlisle as open space in perpetuity. Last month, a coalition of open-space advocates fulfilled his vision for nearly 1,200 acres of the woodland, even as the pressure of development crept along the property's fringes.

In Thoreau's time, 150 years ago, farmers wanted to clear the woods for crop and pasture land. Today, the pressure for development comes from people wishing to buy expensive mansionettes on 1 1/2 to 2-acre lots in these suburbs handy to both Routes 128 and 495.

The heart of the Estabrook preserve is a 672-acre tract owned by Harvard's Museum of Natural History. The land was bought in the 1960s as a research station with an open-space restriction. But without the permanent development exclusion put in place this year, this land could have been at risk. Next to the museum's land, the Middlesex School hopes to develop part of its open space as soccer fields and faculty housing. Harvard's decision to safeguard its land ought to encourage the private school to preserve its open space.

Town conservation trusts in Concord and Carlisle also contributed land to the open-space preserve. And several private landowners have also agreed to protect their holdings from developments. The Trustees of Reservations, which has vast experience as a nonprofit administrator of land and historic buildings, will oversee the land to ensure that it remains in pristine condition.

The trustees are negotiating a similar arrangement for much of the old Brooks estate in Medford. Open space is perhaps more precious there, but even in woodsy Concord and Carlisle much of the land would be fenced off by private development without vigorous conservation efforts.

Other communities in the outlying suburbs ought to heed the example of these two towns. Swatches of Thoreau's landscape are worth preserving throughout eastern Massachusetts against the encroachments of modern living.

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