Activists have saved about 2,500 acres of open space near the Valley. They announced the news on November 13. The land is in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Part of the land is in Gilsum, New Hampshire, about nine miles from Keene. Another piece of the protected land is in Barre, Massachusetts, about an hour by car northeast of Springfield. Some is in Warwick, Massachusetts, about half an hour northeast of Greenfield by car. The activists have a web site: www.ForestSociety.org.

Sprawl is a major problem in the Valley. A Trust for Public Land report, "The Connecticut River: Quintessential New England," tells a shocking story with numbers: the number of people living in the entire length of the Connecticut River valley grew just eight percent from 1980 to 2000. But the amount of developed land grew 33 percent from 1982 to 1997.

There is a map at www.ValleyPost.org/node/137 (scroll down to the bottom of that page). Made by the Trust for Public Land in 2006, the map shows the Pioneer Valley/ Brattleboro/ Keene section of the Connecticut River watershed. Land outside the watershed is light green, meaning streams in that area do not flow to the Connecticut River. Dark green land has been protected from development, in many cases by www.LandTrustAlliance.org. On the map, red land is vulnerable to being paved with McMansions, Wal-Marts, parking lots, roads, and ChemLawns. Click on the map to enlarge it.