(Continued from page 1) Following the Stewardship Council's vote on the Fells RMP the Friends of Fells executive director read a statement for the public record:
Application of RMP management policy that doesn't rest on facts and environmental principles is worse than mindless; it is inherently harmful to resources and visitors.
You have approved a resource damage plan for the Fells Reservation.
You have approved a RMP that directly contravenes its own proclaimed resource protection goals.
You have approved a RMP that directly contravenes its own proclaimed compliance goals.
You have approved a RMP that directly contravenes its own proclaimed stewardship partner goals.
You have approved a RMP that directly contravenes critical Stewardship Council RMP review standards, including key safety, remediation and enforcement issues.
You have turned your back on the primacy of resource protection.
By approving this RMP you join DCR saying NO to Sierra Club, NO to Mass Audubon, NO to Environment Mass, NO to the Environmental League of Massachusetts, NO to the Appalachian Mountain Club, NO to the six Fells district state legislators who have communicated with you, NO to the twenty-five years of service of the Friends of the Fells, NO to DCR Friends group organizations, NO to the majority demographic of Fells visitors (75% visit on foot) including families:
...all of whom for two years have begged DCR to demonstrate ability and will to impose remedial solutions to existing Fells resource and visitor impacts, including enforcement capacity, before considering expansion of bike access and uses.
You are saying NO to the fundamental principle Charles Eliot stated was the “primary and only justifying purpose” for creating the Urban Reservations: “for the enjoyment of that peaceful beauty of nature.”
Instead you have willfully chosen to embrace the RMP’s manipulative, deceitful claims, its selective dismissal of scientific data and visitor comments, and its gross misrepresentations of recreational ecology principles.
On these bases you approve a plan which serves only a special interest group, NEMBA, which, in its overt quest to convert every trail in the Fells to bike use, displacing those who would otherwise seek ‘enjoyment of that peaceful beauty of nature’ will be aided and abetted through use of thousands of dollars of annual federal highway funds funneled through the largesse of the Massachusetts Recreational Trail Advisory Board upon which NEMBA sits, a board appointed by the project manager of the Fells RMP who serves as the director of the DCR Recreational Trails Program.
During the December 20 Policy Committee meeting the Fells RMP project manager stated that after the RMP is adopted “We will find stakeholders who want to cooperate with us. If they don't they won’t be included in the future.”
In adopting this special interest driven Fells RMP the Stewardship Council has today joined DCR in ensuring which single stakeholder group this will be.
An October 5th, 2011 letter to the editor in Westminster, Mass, written by a mountain bike rider, characterizes the Fells Reservation as a “nationwide ‘flashpoint’ in the battle for bike trail access” and praises the ‘exhaustive’ Fells RMP for reaching conclusions that coincide with bike groups’ goals for expansion of bike access on trails in the Fells, Westminster and beyond.
It is easy to see why mountain bike organizations across the Commonwealth, and indeed the US, will thank you for your service, as you expand unfettered bike access throughout the Fells, to the detriment of all other values and all other visitors.
Mike Ryan, Friends of the Middlesex Fells Reservation
FELLS CONVERSION PLAN APPROVED
DARK HOLLOW POND NATURE TRAIL
The Dark Hollow Pond Trail is 3/4 of a mile long traveling north and south parallel to Rt. 93, and is blazed in yellow. Access is from parking on Fallon Road near gate 21 on the north side of Bear Hill in Stoneham.
To help explore and learn about the more than a dozen habitats found along this trail, botanist Walter Kittredge has produced a pictorial Nature Trail Guide including a map, available by clicking this link.
HISTORICAL/BOTANICAL HIKE
A Saturday, September 10, 2011, Historical and Botanical Hike was led by the Friends of the Fells in response to a request from the Medford Historical Society for its members and the public to experience a section of the Fells as described in historical accounts.
Thanks to outreach by our two organizations, 48 people attended the hike to Bear Hill Tower and the Dark Hollow Pond Trail, both areas described in Round About Middlesex Fells (1935) and A Lecture on the Middlesex Fells (1893), with Bear Hill being the location where in 1880, 200 people gathered for a meeting to create the Middlesex Fells
Association. On the section
of the Dark Hollow Pond Trail
many areas described in the
Friends of the Fells Nature
Trail guide were visited during
the hike which featured
informal presentations by
Friends board members Bryan
Hamlin, Mike Ryan and Walter
Kittredge (who is in the photo
in the lead to this story).
Hike participants discussing
plant species with Bryan
Hamlin along Dark Hollow Pond Trail route. Photo Mike Ryan
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Whip Hill Vernal Pool Photo Mike Ryan
SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT DECISION
The SJC ruled that sufficient facts had been presented by the Friends et al to rquire that the matter be remanded back to Superior Court so the case can be heard. It is important to note that the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions had filed an amicus brief with the SJC in support of the Friends legal case.
The goal of the ten year citizens effort remains; Environmental review of proposed project must be completed so that whatever is built on the former hospital site be at a scale which will not require character defining changes to the historic parkways or bring environmental harm to the Fells Reservation.
How is play a form of learning? Why are teachers resistant to taking students outside? What does it mean to educate the ‘whole’ child? Continued.
After the film, we will have an informal discussion and meet representatives of the Growing Center to learn about their programs and how to get involved, from running your own group to using the garden as an outdoor classroom.
For more information, contact Paula Jordan at paulajordan@yahoo.com
For more information on Mother Nature’s Child, please visit http://www.mothernaturesmovie.com/the-film/
Film sponsored by the Somerville Community Growing Center and the Children in Nature Initiative, an initiative sponsored by the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund.
MOTHER NATURE'S CHILDREN FILM SHOWING
