Russ Norton described the benefits of trees to our economy, climate, and human flourishing. Chris Powicki showed how two other Cape towns have stepped up to protect them.
Norton and Powicki were speaking at the first program of BCT’s 2026 winter series, Local Action for Local Outcomes, co-produced with the Brewster Ladies’ Library Association.
Powicki, a member of Brewster’s Energy and Environment Committee and chair of the Sierra Club’s Cape Cod and Islands group, also suggested citizens and community groups would need to mobilize to result in the kind of policy that now protects trees in other Cape towns.
Both speakers referenced the environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic value of trees, as well as the central role that trees play in climate change. Norton, for example, said that 20% of the Cape’s transportation emissions are removed from the atmosphere and stored by our trees and forests. He said that Brewster’s forests provide about $144 million in carbon storage capacity and $3 million in carbon sequestration. Both speakers emphasized the importance of planting more trees to respond to the Cape’s growing urbanization and loss of tree species due to disease and other climate-related factors.
Norton, Extension Educator for the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension’s Agriculture and Horticulture program and the UMass Extension Landscape, Nursery, and Urban Forestry Program, attributed the nature of the Cape’s trees and forests to our glacial past, starting 20,000 years ago when retreating glaciers deposited sand, rocks, and clay. This process created dry and infertile soil which was favorable for little but pine/oak forest. While the native Americans used controlled burning to manage the forest for wildlife, the early colonists used the forest for heating, turpentine, tar and building. By the late 1700’s there was little forest left. While it started to regrow, in the mid 1800’s much was cut again to make pasture for sheep for the rapidly expanding wool industry until the late 1800’s. Forests regrew to nearly 75% of the Cape and Islands until the 1950’s when urbanization caused significant deforestation, once again. Now, with new stressors brought on by climate change, pines and oaks will dominate our forests over other hardwoods.
Powicki focused on current state laws that protect trees, what actions communities can take to further protect the trees in their jurisdiction, and what specific steps Brewster could take to keep pace with other communities.
Massachusetts state law offers two policy protections for trees, according to Powicki. A Shade Tree law and a Scenic Road law make it illegal to cut or trim “public” trees without a public hearing. Brewster has established many scenic roads and could choose to protect trees under this law. And we could go even further, said Powicki, by passing stricter tree protection bylaws, like Chatham and Mashpee have done.
According to Powicki, Chatham’s Tree Protection Bylaw targets trees on public property including in public roadways, town parks, and town woodlands, but not private property. The bylaw recognizes the ability of trees “to improve air quality, protect from glare, heat, and noise, aid in the stabilization of soil, provide natural flood and drainage control, create wildlife habitats, enhance aesthetics and property values, contribute to the distinct character of neighborhoods, provide natural privacy from neighbors, and reduce ambient carbon in the atmosphere.”
Mashpee’s Tree Preservation Bylaw extends this type of protection to trees on private property. It incentivizes the preservation of the collective community tree canopy by requiring property owners to prepare a Tree Protection and Mitigation Plan before beginning a construction project and to replant or otherwise compensate the community for protected trees lost to development.
Powicki then turned to efforts in Brewster to advance similar tree protections. He noted that the Natural Resources Advisory Commission and the Energy and Climate Action Committee have sent letters to the Select Board recommending moving toward a tree protection bylaw, but no action has been taken at this point. Community action is key to changing that, according to Powicki, and to passing policy needed for local forest management and tree protection.