NEW SALEM — Rolf Cachat was thrilled when vehicle horns honked at him Monday afternoon.
He joined Beth Adams and Don Ogden in holding signs where Route 202 meets Elm Street in New Salem to protest any future logging of the Quabbin Reservation.
Cachat said he has Native American ancestry and worries the state Department of Conservation and Recreation’s watershed forestry projects will harm or destroy sacred sites in the forest. He wore a homemade shirt that read “The Earth belongs to everybody” in English and in the language of the Delaware tribe of Native Americans.
Adams, co-founder and volunteer program developer of Mass Forest Rescue, a collaborative campaign to protect Massachusetts forests, said she joined the fight because she feels a connection with her environment.
“I believe the forests are part of us, that we are part of the forests,” she said. “I think that they’re important for our health and for preservation and protection of the climate. I have to take a stand here.”
The protest came as the state Department of Conservation and Recreation was about to do its annual tour of its watershed forestry projects.
Roughly a dozen people gathered at the DCR building on Elm Street around 3 p.m. for the beginning of the tour. The group included Adams and Cachat, DCR employees, some retired DCR foresters and other interested parties.
Prior to the start, Adams said she wants Quabbin watershed to be preserved instead of logged, though she stressed she is not trying to harm the logging industry.
“I’m not here to put anybody out of work, but I consider this my legacy issue, at 70 years old. I’m going to stay with this until my last breath,” she said.
Jonathan Yeo, director of water supply protection for the state, said the state has been actively managing the Quabbin watershed lands for a half-century to ensure the quality of the water supply for 2.5 million people in the Boston metropolitan area.
“The watershed forest is the filter for Quabbin reservoir water,” he said. “We’re blessed with the highest quality reservoir in North America at Quabbin. Keeping a diverse forest that actively filters and is healthy is our top priority, so we especially design forestry projects with that in mind.”
Of the 56,000 forested acres of Quabbin, 40,000 are “managed,” or subject to cutting, Yeo said. One percent of that, or 400 acres — spread over “hundreds of different locations of one-half to an acre” — are thinned or selectively cut in any one year, so those areas won’t be returned to for over 100 years.
“We’re also creating a diverse wildlife habitat,” he said. “These trees are growing fast and capturing carbon. All of this land is staying as forest and always will be, and we continue to buy watershed land.”
This past year, for example, “a couple thousand acres” were purchased to augment the Quabbin Reservoir and Ware River watersheds. “For us, the forest is the most important means of protecting the water supply,” said Yeo. “We’re keeping all of this land in forest state. Our projects are not at all designed to make money or profit.”
He admitted, “The first couple of months after a cut, it looks a little raw. But very, very quickly, the forest takes over,” as DCR team monitors the regeneration process.
Yeo rejected the suggestion of a permanent moratorium on cutting watershed forests. “That would take away our ability to protect the water supply,” he said. “It is a forest, and we will always be maintaining it as a forest, so it will always be capturing carbon, and that’s a benefit for us all.”
He added that the Sierra Club and Massachusetts Audubon Society are among conservation organizations represented on the Quabbin Watershed Advisory Committee.