Re[2]: [at-l] Maine AT Land Trust

[Bob C." <ellen@clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...When I flew over the land to the north of Katahdin Iron Works and south of
>White Cap last June I was struck by the number of roads and logging activity
>surrounding Big and and Little Spruce Mts." reports TJ on the land the Maine
>Appalachian Trail Land Trust hopes to help protect.

By world standards, Maine is a rain forest. Even degraded forests green quickly
here, and eventually recover. Within a decade even sophisticated satellite
imagery has difficulty distinguishing a clearcut. Only hikers sophisticated in
forestry matters recognize the changing patterns and shades of green they see in
the distance as stemming from decades of over harvesting. Rather most see only
forest as far as the eye can see, and mountains beyond mountains, stretching
north and west to Quebec. For the hiker basking in the illusion of wilderness,
it matters not that the forest cover is now dominated by sun-loving raspberry
bushes and low value pin cherry, poplar and red maples, not the spruce and fir
that sustained Maine mills for a century.

But the era of clearcuts is ending. Now the threat is encroaching development.
Typical is the 32,181 acre tract bordered by West Branch of the Pleasant River,
south of the tiny Gulf Hagas canyon preserve on the west and Whitecap Mountain
on the north. LandVest, which bills itself as an "Exclusive Affiliate of
Christies Great Estates," calls the area "a pristine wilderness" and a "superb
forest investment." In the weeks before the first advertisement appeared in
Downeast Magazine, however, bulldozers crushed the piles of brush from past
logging operations and trucks sprayed straw over the remains -- creating a
pretty picture of the wild mountains that surround the site, but not exactly the
kind of thing needed to entice a logging contractor.

TJ. Most of the northern Maine forests are in poor shape, which is why they are
almost all on the market. The mills mined the forests for decades and are now
selling out. The only question is who the buyers will be. For those pieces near
the trail, I hope our land trust will be one of them.

Percival Baxter, who spent a lifetime acquiring the 200,000 acres that became
Baxter State park when he gave the land to the state, was a shrewd businessman.
Virtually all of his purchases were of recently cut over lands or were purchased
subject to a final harvest.

Fifty years later the trees have regrown into a semblance of the "forever wild"
park Gov. Baxter had envisioned.

By the way, I lifted the first two paragraphs of this post from an essay I had
finished just yesterday as my tiny contribution to a book of essays that
hopefully be coming out in the spring that seeks to focus attention on the
northern forest, that stretches from the coast of Maine through New Hampshire
and Vermont to western New York.

Weary