The temperate forests of eastern North America support high biodiversity and critical ecosystem functions while providing natural resources and cultural benefits to an expanding human population. The region is shaped by a legacy of landscape change: major shifts in climate, vegetation and disturbance at millennial time scales; extensive deforestation for agriculture in the 17th – 19th centuries; and abandonment of farmlands, natural reforestation and increasing urbanization through the mid-21st century. It is now being (sub)urbanized and fragmented rapidly and exposed to substantial pollution and climate change impacts due to New England's location at the end of the nation's “tail-pipe”. The goal of the HFR LTER is to examine the drivers of landscape change for human populations and diverse natural ecosystems in the eastern U.S. Drivers range from microbes to moose, invasive plants to exotic insects, hurricanes to forest harvesting, and global climate change to regional land-use. Their consequences are explored through historical and regional studies, long-term measurements, modeling, and controlled experimental manipulations – several of which are well into their second decade.