Northern Maine is an undeveloped wildland home to diverse species of plants and animals (such as the moose, above) and, of course, New England’s spectacular fall colors. Photos © George Wuerthner.

By George Wuerthner
Forest Magazine, Summer 2002

From the top of Mount Kineo, the Maine Woods stretch toward the northern horizon. In no place other than Alaska have I had such a sense of vastness. Forty-mile-long Moosehead Lake, the largest freshwater body entirely within a state, lies below Kineo. This broad lake has two great arms surrounded by a forest shoreline that is mostly undeveloped.

In the distance, pockets of blue sparkle in the trees, and hills and mountains break up the horizon. The centerpiece of this rolling terrain is Mount Katahdin, the highest point in Maine and one of the highest summits in the eastern United States. There are eastern larch, aspen, paper birch and red spruce. There are bogs, muskeg and winding tannin-colored streams. Labrador tea, blueberry, cranberry, dwarf dogwood, twinflower and fireweed grow in the Maine Woods’ natural gardens. Moose, black bear, beaver and marten roam with loons, gray jays and ravens.

Much of this land is unpeopled. A 10-million-acre area in northern Maine has no year-round residents. Northern Maine is easily the largest potential wildland outside of Alaska but for one factor—nearly all of this area is part of the so-called working forest and is dominated by logging and supported by a broad range of environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society. Held as a model for the next century, the working forest provides for needs ranging from timber harvest and resource management to protection of other noncommodity values like wildlife and recreation—or so supporters would have us believe.

From an airplane it’s clear that the working forest is worked over. About 532,000 acres of Maine’s woodlands are logged each year, and the cut is accelerating. Perhaps the greatest impact comes from the 30,000 miles of logging roads that fragment the landscape. Formerly remote ponds and lakes are accessible to an increasing horde of all-terrain vehicles, four-wheel drives, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. The call of the loon is being replaced by the whine of the motor.

Maine may be the wise-use poster child, an ideal model to study large-scale private ownership of timberlands. Ninety-four percent of Maine’s forested land is privately owned; only 2 percent is permanently protected. No spotted owls will stop timber cutting and no federal government impedes the timber companies from cutting trees. Industry is unrestricted by environmental concerns or outside meddling of a national constituency. The result is that the Maine Woods are a designer forest, manipulated and managed to earn profits for timber companies. Yet the social benefits that are supposed to go along with unbridled industrial development and resource use aren’t being returned. Timber industry employment accounts for 3.4 percent of Maine jobs, and despite accelerated timber cutting, employment in the industry is shrinking. A 20 percent loss in jobs between 1985 and 1998 is due largely to technological innovations—not environmental lawsuits.

But something else is wrong. In the past three years, nearly 5 million acres of the state’s industrial timberlands have changed hands. Each new sale ups the ante for the owners. Paying off the massive loans requires even faster liquidation of the trees.

These land sales are fueling growing fears that timberlands will eventually be sold for subdivision. Many advocate maintaining the status quo—supporting the working forest in hopes of stopping recreation development and protecting the landscape. The Nature Conservancy and other organizations are funding the acquisition of land or purchasing development rights in the Maine Woods that generally preclude subdivisions but allow logging to continue unabated. Most of the Maine Woods in question are so far from population centers that subdivision and lakeshore development are not yet major problems, but forest fragmentation, changes in age structure, stand diversity, a decline in natural ecological processes like insect outbreaks and disease are ecologically far more disastrous. The real threat to the Maine Woods is from the working forest, not cabins.

An alternative is the proposed Maine Woods National Park and Preserve. A New England–based group called RESTORE: The North Woods proposes to establish a purchase area boundary of 3.2 million acres. Then acquisition of land from willing sellers would gradually create a land base for creation of the park. A 3.2-million-acre park and preserve would be larger than Yellowstone and second only to Death Valley National Park in size. Such a goal, however, is not as unlikely as it may seem. Some of the recent land sales in Maine involved more than 2 million acres, and acquiring the majority of the land may involve no more than five to eight landowners.

As outlined by RESTORE, the Maine Woods National Park and Preserve would surround Baxter State Park and the headwaters of five Maine rivers, including the Allagash, the West Branch of the Penobscot and the Saint Johns. The park would protect the largest remaining wildland lakes and ponds, all of Moosehead Lake and most of the other larger bodies of water in northern Maine. Finally, the park would include the 100-mile wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail and much of the terrain explored by Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s.

RESTORE’s goal is to protect an ecologically significant landscape in the Maine Woods that would be the centerpiece of a larger regional protected strategy. Though the timber industry opposes the park and preserve, a recent survey of Maine residents found a majority favored its creation.

I can see a time when hikers may ascend Mount Kineo and survey a vast, protected landscape stretching to the far limits of the horizon, land that is encompassed by the Maine Woods National Park and Preserve. It is a dream worth dreaming.

From the top of Mount Kineo, the Maine Woods stretch toward the northern horizon. In no place other than Alaska have I had such a sense of vastness. Forty-mile-long Moosehead Lake, the largest freshwater body entirely within a state, lies below Kineo. This broad lake has two great arms surrounded by a forest shoreline that is mostly undeveloped.

In the distance, pockets of blue sparkle in the trees, and hills and mountains break up the horizon. The centerpiece of this rolling terrain is Mount Katahdin, the highest point in Maine and one of the highest summits in the eastern United States. There are eastern larch, aspen, paper birch and red spruce. There are bogs, muskeg and winding tannin-colored streams. Labrador tea, blueberry, cranberry, dwarf dogwood, twinflower and fireweed grow in the Maine Woods’ natural gardens. Moose, black bear, beaver and marten roam with loons, gray jays and ravens.

Much of this land is unpeopled. A 10-million-acre area in northern Maine has no year-round residents. Northern Maine is easily the largest potential wildland outside of Alaska but for one factor—nearly all of this area is part of the so-called working forest and is dominated by logging and supported by a broad range of environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society. Held as a model for the next century, the working forest provides for needs ranging from timber harvest and resource management to protection of other noncommodity values like wildlife and recreation—or so supporters would have us believe.

From an airplane it’s clear that the working forest is worked over. About 532,000 acres of Maine’s woodlands are logged each year, and the cut is accelerating. Perhaps the greatest impact comes from the 30,000 miles of logging roads that fragment the landscape. Formerly remote ponds and lakes are accessible to an increasing horde of all-terrain vehicles, four-wheel drives, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. The call of the loon is being replaced by the whine of the motor.

Maine may be the wise-use poster child, an ideal model to study large-scale private ownership of timberlands. Ninety-four percent of Maine’s forested land is privately owned; only 2 percent is permanently protected. No spotted owls will stop timber cutting and no federal government impedes the timber companies from cutting trees. Industry is unrestricted by environmental concerns or outside meddling of a national constituency. The result is that the Maine Woods are a designer forest, manipulated and managed to earn profits for timber companies. Yet the social benefits that are supposed to go along with unbridled industrial development and resource use aren’t being returned. Timber industry employment accounts for 3.4 percent of Maine jobs, and despite accelerated timber cutting, employment in the industry is shrinking. A 20 percent loss in jobs between 1985 and 1998 is due largely to technological innovations—not environmental lawsuits.

But something else is wrong. In the past three years, nearly 5 million acres of the state’s industrial timberlands have changed hands. Each new sale ups the ante for the owners. Paying off the massive loans requires even faster liquidation of the trees.

These land sales are fueling growing fears that timberlands will eventually be sold for subdivision. Many advocate maintaining the status quo—supporting the working forest in hopes of stopping recreation development and protecting the landscape. The Nature Conservancy and other organizations are funding the acquisition of land or purchasing development rights in the Maine Woods that generally preclude subdivisions but allow logging to continue unabated. Most of the Maine Woods in question are so far from population centers that subdivision and lakeshore development are not yet major problems, but forest fragmentation, changes in age structure, stand diversity, a decline in natural ecological processes like insect outbreaks and disease are ecologically far more disastrous. The real threat to the Maine Woods is from the working forest, not cabins.

An alternative is the proposed Maine Woods National Park and Preserve. A New England–based group called RESTORE: The North Woods proposes to establish a purchase area boundary of 3.2 million acres. Then acquisition of land from willing sellers would gradually create a land base for creation of the park. A 3.2-million-acre park and preserve would be larger than Yellowstone and second only to Death Valley National Park in size. Such a goal, however, is not as unlikely as it may seem. Some of the recent land sales in Maine involved more than 2 million acres, and acquiring the majority of the land may involve no more than five to eight landowners.

As outlined by RESTORE, the Maine Woods National Park and Preserve would surround Baxter State Park and the headwaters of five Maine rivers, including the Allagash, the West Branch of the Penobscot and the Saint Johns. The park would protect the largest remaining wildland lakes and ponds, all of Moosehead Lake and most of the other larger bodies of water in northern Maine. Finally, the park would include the 100-mile wilderness section of the Appalachian Trail and much of the terrain explored by Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s.

RESTORE’s goal is to protect an ecologically significant landscape in the Maine Woods that would be the centerpiece of a larger regional protected strategy. Though the timber industry opposes the park and preserve, a recent survey of Maine residents found a majority favored its creation.

I can see a time when hikers may ascend Mount Kineo and survey a vast, protected landscape stretching to the far limits of the horizon, land that is encompassed by the Maine Woods National Park and Preserve. It is a dream worth dreaming.

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