Every harvest. Every woodlot. One unbroken forest.
Working woodlots can keep cutting and keep the old-growth corridors that run through them connected, because every harvest plan is checked before the saw starts.
Why corridors break
Most woodlots are cut one plan at a time, one owner at a time. A patch cut that is sensible on its own can sever the only strip of forest between an old stand and the stream it depends on. Nobody sees it, because nobody draws the whole map.
Unbroken Woods draws the whole map. Neighbors record their core areas and the corridors between them once, with sources. After that, each harvest plan is checked against all of it, and a plan that breaks a link is stopped until the people who share the woods decide otherwise, on the record.
What we ask of each group
| If you are | What it offers you | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A woodlot owner or co-op | Plan your harvest and keep your neighbors' corridors whole, with a record you can show. | Join VergeCommon, where woodland projects are in testing |
| A consulting forester | A free, open check that shows which unit breaks which corridor, on a map, with the reason. | Run it on a client plan |
| A researcher or developer | An open method with stated limits and a published data format. | Review it or take an issue |
| A land trust or funder | Connectivity a community can show, decide on and record over decades. | Back a pilot woodlot |
The first season
Unbroken Woods No. 1. One real woodlot, mapped with its owner's consent: cores, corridors, roads and crossings, each with a source.
The season's plan, checked. We publish the corridor map before and after the planned harvest, including anything the check flags.
A field walk. A consulting forester walks the corridors with the owner. We publish the forester's review, criticism included.
Open review. Ecologists are invited to test the method against what they see on the ground.
What we will and will not say
- We will say
- Corridors were kept connected at the minimum width the owners chose, and which units would have broken them.
- We will not say
- That a stand is protected or verified old growth, that carbon was stored, or that species benefited, until field evidence and independent review support it.
Have a woodlot that could be first?
We are looking for one owner or small group of neighbors for the first season: woods you work, a harvest you are planning, and a willingness to have the map and the forester's review published. Your exact boundaries stay private unless you choose otherwise.