The Friends of Wakefield’s NEMT Forest is happy to share that it now has a pending 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

The Friends was incorporated in 2022 to promote, develop and provide continuing support for the preservation, scientific study of and public education about the natural heritage of the pristine NEMT forest at 100 Hemlock Rd in Wakefield.

The Friends’ mission continues today in efforts to protect the remaining forested wetlands on the site. Toward that end, the Friends is supporting an appeal by ten citizens of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) decision approving the project. The appeal asserts that the MassDEP has not properly considered the scientific and technical evidence submitted by the citizens and an expert that the new school building project violates the state’s Wetlands Protection Act (WPA).

Today, the forested wetlands are what remain of the pristine and uniquely biodiverse 16-acre forest on the NEMT campus. The school’s plan to build a secondary access road within 25 feet of several “jurisdictional” wetlands (under WPA), and around additional non-jurisdictional wetlands and a certified vernal pool, will effectively destroy what remains of the town of Wakefield’s only Rare Species and Core Habitat Forest, and is sure to destroy the wetlands within months of starting work in the area.

The Friends appreciate your ongoing concern for this forest habitat. Proper enforcement of environmental protections matters not just for the remaining NEMT forest but for forests and wetlands across the state.

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In my fifty years of surveying conservation areas in Northeastern Massachusetts I have never encountered an exceptional area. With a Floristic Quality Index of 46.6 [over 35 is “exceptional”] the NEMT forest is not just incredibly exceptional, it is unheard of even in areas of high biodiversity.

-Walter Kittredge (in 2023), Botanist & Curatorial Assistant (Retired), Harvard University Herbarium