SHUTESBURY — A 202-acre site known as the Dudleyville Forest is being permanently protected as wildlands by the Kestrel Land Trust and the Northeast Wilderness Trust, a regional land trust.
The completed project, located off Montague Road, represents the latest collaboration between the two organizations, and came together with $175,000 from the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s Acquisition for Forest Reserves Grant Program and $85,000 from Mass Audubon’s 30×30 Catalyst Fund.
“Kestrel is proud to have embarked on this partnership with Northeast Wilderness Trust, beginning with the Dudleyville Forest,” Kristin DeBoer, executive director of Kestrel Land Trust, said in a statement. “With so much forested land in our region, the opportunity to conserve wildlands is clear.”
DeBoer explained that the idea is to create space for some forests to grow wild, and let nature lead the way. This project means that a relatively young forest, with a mix of white pine and mixed hardwoods, will develop into a mature forest without being disturbed by commercial forest harvesting.
“By protecting this forest as wildland, we’re not only supporting biodiversity and natural climate solutions, but we’re also respecting nature’s intrinsic right to exist,” DeBoer said.
Kestrel bought the land in 2025 with help from a $120,000 award from the Northeast Wilderness Trust’s Wildlands Partnership program, which provides local land trusts with the financial and technical assistance needed to protect more of their lands as wilderness. Kestrel Land Trust recently conveyed a conservation restriction on the land to the Wilderness Trust.
Dudleyville Forest was previously used for timber production, and a centuries-old dam was removed from the site in summer 2025. The property is now off limits to logging and development, with human management being minimal or non-existent. This conservation approach, allowing natural processes to prevail, is called “rewilding.”
Wildlands are seen as providing benefits for both nature and people, with both biodiversity protection and more carbon storage, but they represent just 2.3% of the state’s land mass.
This forest is seen as a key landscape west of the Quabbin region and is situated between several large blocks of conservation land, including the 3,486-acre Paul C. Jones Working Forest and Shutesbury’s Lake Wyola Conservation Area, which itself is near Kestrel’s Bright Water Bog Nature Retreat.
Shutesbury’s Open Space & Recreation Plan underscores that “one of the greatest ecological strengths of Shutesbury’s landscape is the prevalence of large, contiguous forest blocks.” The Dudleyville Forest project makes a substantial contribution to ensuring that ecological strength persists.
The Healey-Driscoll Administration’s “Forests as Climate Solutions” plan calls for 10% of the state’s forests to be set aside as forest reserves, or wildlands. The state also awarded a grant to Northeast Wilderness Trust to acquire River’s Edge Wilderness Preserve in Huntington, on which Kestrel Land Trust will hold a conservation restriction. That project encompasses 230 acres of forestland and over 6,100 feet of frontage along the Westfield River.
“The Wilderness Trust is proud to have played a part in making Dudleyville Forest Massachusetts’ newest wildland,” said Peter Mandych, land conservation director at Northeast Wilderness Trust. “Our ongoing collaboration with Kestrel Land Trust has now permanently protected more than 400 acres in the state’s Connecticut River Valley, expanding the reach and impact of the Wildlands Partnership program.”
