Re[2]: [at-l] Maine land buyout

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob Cummings)]

"...So now they say "OK...we (Maine's Paper industry)
> are outta here" and we find there are worse things in the
> woods than clear cuts.

The issue of the Maine paper industry is far more complex than the above comment suggests and more
complex than I suspect many on this list will want
to explore, but I'm certainly willing if anyone truly wants to.

Essentially, the industry said for years --- "look at the great forest we allow you to hunt, fish
and hike in."

A few of us from time to time suggested that it would be nice if we had assurances that this great
forest continue. For some reason the industry resisted (successfully) every attempt through zoning
and other laws to make permanent those conditions most of us found quite favorable.

Our worse fears were realized when the industry suddenly abandoned those harvesting practices they
had used for generations to ensure a continuing supply of wood fiber for their mills. Instead they
began clear cutting the forest at a rate four of five times faster than the trees were able to grow
back. Then they put the residual wasteland on the market. Virtually the entire commercial forest has
changed hands in the past decade -- half of it in the last three years.

Those new owners are selling out to the highest bidders. As a result the trail is truly impacted.
Not the narrow corridor that the trail traverses, but the area around the trail that for decades had
made the Maine portion of the AT truly unique.

I know some on the list blame the public for this sad state of affairs. But I don't know of a shred of
evidence that this is so. I don't think MF's speculation, without at least a few facts to support
it, is particularly useful in such debates.

Weary