Even as we are in winter’s depth, the days are already getting longer here in the northern hemisphere. 

And in the deepest winter, with snow carpeting the ground and weighing down hemlock boughs, we can appreciate old-growth forests, the subject of this issue. We can walk in them and see the majesty of ancient trees. We can clamber over huge fallen logs that are covered with mosses, liverworts, lichens, fungi, and snow. We can see the tree cavities where birds and mammals will raise young in the spring and summer. We can watch as woodpeckers move quietly from tree to tree, gathering insects from under loose bark.

Old-growth forests are a vital part of the integrated approach to conservation set forth by the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities vision for New England. In each issue, we dive into a different aspect of the vision—ecological forestry in spring 2025, farmland and food systems in summer 2025, and the community-conservation connection in autumn 2025. All of the landscapes and waterways are woven together in their support of this vision. 

Ecologically managed forests provide us with many useful products—timber, paper, firewood, and mushrooms, for example—and they provide species habitat and carbon storage. 

Old-growth forests, on the other hand, are unique in their contributions to biodiversity; their high rates of carbon storage; their ability to mitigate flooding and improve water quality; and a sense of peace that visitors experience in ancient forests. They are critical to the tapestry of conserved lands in the region.

In September of 2025, more than 200 people gathered at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf campus for the Northeastern Old Growth Conference to celebrate old-growth forests. The conference theme, “Wildlands and Old-Growth Forests: A Vision for the Future,” set the stage for the gathering co-hosted by Middlebury College and the University of Vermont. It was a celebration of old-growth forests and a call to protect them, enhance them, and encourage places for them to develop and thrive in the future.

In this issue, we feature some of the high points of the conference, and we offer further exploration of old growth insights by a few of the speakers, as well as some other voices.

Lynda Mapes, a widely published reporter and author and a keynote speaker at the conference, arrived at Bread Loaf just in time to get into the woods to look at little things in old forests: slime molds, mosses, and salamanders. In her feature article she describes her experience in that first encounter, and also offers highlights of the conference. She talks about “turning toward new thinking,” to a hopeful future in which nature can be revered, and loved, and protected. 

What are old-growth forests? That question always comes up at these conferences (this was the eighth in a series), and we heard from several scientists on this. We offer a synopsis here: 

An old-growth forest is one that has been shaped primarily by natural ecological processes for several centuries. These processes include—but are not limited to—single tree death and decay; wind; fire; flooding; pests and pathogens; and ice and snow loading. Human influence has been, and remains, minimal. Read more

And where are old-growth forests? Sometimes where you least expect them. John Hagan and colleagues describe how the LiDAR mapping tool has helped them identify late-successional and old-growth forests in Maine. And David Orwig and colleagues describe old-growth forests hiding in plain sight, as stunted trees on a mountaintop in Massachusetts. 

Finally, where will old-growth forests be in the future? Where will they be able to develop in the next four centuries or so? We hear visions of rewilding the Northeast from John Davis and Jamie Sayen. This is one pathway to more old-growth forests, the pathway that was the theme of the conference: Wildlands. Rewilding. Passive Management.

Our suggestions for you: Invite people into old forests. Tell your neighbors and friends where they are, if they are on public land. Let children experience them. Walk in them yourself, every day if you can. Take in the softness of the ground, the moisture, the fragrance of decaying wood. Let those experiences deepen your connection to Nature and guide you to protect these special places.

With gratitude,
The Editors of From the Ground Up

Brian Donahue, David Foster, Marissa Latshaw (Publisher), Alex Redfield, and Liz Thompson (Managing Editor)