Re[6]: [at-l] What do you do...

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

"...Well just for the record more land around
these 2 lakes is privately owned than is owned by the state. Since no condo
colonies are there (on the private land), guess it's safe to say you are
blowing smoke," reports Clifford Haynes.

Well, admittedly, I use condos as short hand for development. Clifford's messages refer to land
that was part of the public lots settlement in Maine that occurred starting nearly 30 years ago. Maine had
preserved 400,000 acres in scattered 1,000 and 1,200 acre parcels when it sold its six or seven
million acre public domain, shortly after achieving statehood in 1820.

By 50 years later people were stealing timber on these scattered lots and the state had no real
infrastructure to protect its preserved lands. So to recoup some value from lands the state's
articles of separation from Massachusetts prohibited it from selling, the state sold cutting rights to the
preserved lands. Thereafter the state took the position that it had sold all the surface rights to
the lands.

In 1972 I began a series of articles pointing out the existence of the reserved lands and arguing
that the public still had the right to walk and camp and hike, and recreate on these lands as long
as they didn't disturb the cutting rights, which then tended to occur every 60 or so years.

A decade later the Maine Supreme Court ruled that not only did the public have this right, it also
owned the lands free and clear, since the cutting rights sold timber that existed at the time of the
sales, and this had either been cut or died of old age.

The state then swapped its scattered lots for large blocks of recreational lands, such as now make
up the 40,000 acre Mahoosuc Preserve and the 35,000 acre Bigelow Preserve and if I remember right,
about 16,000 acres between two lakes in the Rangeley-Saddleback region of Maine, that Haynes objects to.

Clifford Haynes seems to be arguing that I was "blowing smoke" when I did these stories and the
Maine Supreme Court was wrong in saying these were still public lands. And, apparently, he thinks
Maine would be better off if we had just continued to pretend these were private lands.

Admittedly Maine has not always done as I would have wished with these lands -- though I think the
Mahoosuc, Four Ponds, Nahmakanta and Bigelow Preserves through which the AT passes are well managed. Some of the
others are less well managed -- including the 16,000 acres, Clifford cites.

Frankly I've been too busy since trying to get other critical lands preserved to worry too much
about the mismanagement of lands the state already owns. I figure we have centuries to figure out
how to manage public lands wisely, but since virtually all the wildlands in Maine are on the market
to speculators, we have only a year or two to buy more land at a reasonable price.

I'm well aware of the nature of the private lands, Cliff cites. My brother last fall sold less than
an acre with a $10,000 camp on one of these lakes for $300,000. I doubt if the new owner will let
anyone camp on his acre for even the $16 a day Cliff finds exorbitant.

Weary