Why We Preserve Open Space
- To protect and maintain safe drinking water;
- To protect fragile Cape Cod ecosystems;
- To reduce the impact of development on town services;
- To enhance the quality life in Falmouth now and forever.
Falmouth, at the southwestern corner of Cape Cod, is a community fortunate to have many diverse ecosystems: salt marshes, estuarine great ponds, freshwater ponds, oak woodlands, pine barrens, coastal rivers, and sand plain grasslands. These ecosystems ensure a wide range of biodiversity and provide rich habitat for wildlife and vegetation: wintering waterfowl, native flowers, songbirds, and herring. Falmouth ranks 13th out of 351 Massachusetts towns for the number of rare species (33) living here.
Natural places enhance our quality of life, but natural places are disappearing.
In Falmouth, from 2002-2006, 1,350 acres were developed while 300 acres were saved for conservation. Fewer than 3,000 acres remain undeveloped while land prices keep rising. In 12 years or less, Falmouth will reach effective “build out.”
