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Understanding homes' harm to nature

Print | Comments () Posted by Beth Daley May 19, 2009 02:00 PM

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Towns with highest loss (percent change) in Index of Ecological Integrity.

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

Intuitively, it makes sense. Plop a home in the middle of a forest and the impact of that lot is going to be much more disruptive to species around it compared to, say, a new two-family squeezed into a spare lot in Somerville.

Now, Mass Audubon has placed a value on development’s ecological impact using a tool researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst developed that comes up with “scores” of the landscape based on each area’s ability to support plants, animals, and the natural processes that sustain them. Researchers looked at everything associated with a new home lot including habitat loss, the introduction of dogs and cats, and even nonnative plants and earthworms to develop the ecological integrity score.

Part of a Mass Audubon report that was released Monday, the scores place a spotlight on intact lands primarily in western Massachusetts and those that surround the Quabbin Reservoir, but also in southeastern Massachusetts, just south of Worcester and some parts of the North Shore.

The message? Officials should prioritize the most important ecological lands for conservation.

But there is other disturbing news.

Mass Audubon and UMass researchers estimate between 1971 and 2005, the state suffered a 23 percent reduction in its overall ecological integrity – but developed only eight percent of its land area. If the steady march of development continues to spread out from our cities, we will lose much more in the future.

For years, Mass Audubon only counted home development in one way: The footprint of a lot. But the newest tool they are using shows that the indirect impacts of development are three to four times greater than direct impacts. In some rural places, it can be as much as eight times greater.

The index, although it has limitations, is a powerful signal that the steady march of sprawl into dwindling intact lands out west and other parts of the state may needs a big stop sign. But how officials and conservationists begin to undo large lot zoning - and a cultural desire for bigger and bigger homes on bigger and bigger lots is anyone’s guess.

But if they don’t start trying, we could lose the places many of us love the most.