(emailed 2014-09-04)

Dear Martha Coakley,

"We cannot wait any longer to confront the real challenges we face – confronting the reality of climate change, preserving diminishing natural resources, and mitigating threats to our environment, including pollution and deforestation."

The Silver Maple Forest of Belmont adjacent to the Alewife Brook Reservation in Cambridge is on the brink of being deforested for development. It is the last remnant of floodplain forest in the area, providing critical ecological services to humanity and nature.

It mitigates the effects of climate change and increasing urbanization, it provides a buffer to flooding, reduces pollution by sequestering carbon, provides homes for wildlife, and is an essential green space for people's well-being in one of the most densely urban areas in the country.

This may seem a small local issue, but all politics is local, and this is where the larger issues stated as your principles have to be acted upon.

Please speak out for the Silver Maple Forest before it is lost forever.

best, Walter

Walter T. Kittredge
Senior Curatorial Assistant
Harvard University Herbaria
22 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-2365
oaknashnthorn@gmail.com

http://www.silvermapleforest.org/
http://www.friendsofalewifereservation.org/
http://www.belmontcoalition.org/ (more)