By Christopher Cousins, BDN Staff Bangor Daily News news story AUGUSTA, Maine — The Land for Maine’s Future board of directors convened another meeting Tuesday without a quorum and was unable to vote on projects that have been awaiting action for months. Among those absent from Tuesday’s meeting were all three members of Gov. Paul Read More
Forests and Wildlife
NRCM works to protect Maine’s natural areas and wild, undeveloped character, particularly in the North Woods. We support responsible land development and sustainable forest practices that protect sensitive ecosystems and wildlife. We work for increased public ownership of Maine lands, so future generations will know the Maine we love today.
Protection of Maine’s natural, remote areas was one of the issues for which NRCM was founded in 1959. More than 60 years later, much progress has been made but major threats to Maine’s land and water resources continue.
Read news & blogs about our work to protect Maine's forests and wildlife.
LePage Cabinet Members Again Skip Land for Maine’s Future Board Meeting
Board members express their frustration with the governor’s intervention as he tries to assert control over the state’s largest land conservation program. By Steve Mistler, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story AUGUSTA –– Three of Gov. Paul LePage’s Cabinet members did not attend a board meeting for the Land for Maine’s Future program on Read More
Exploring the Mahoosuc Public Reserved Lands: Grafton Notch, Baldpate, and More
The Appalachian Trail (AT) in Maine passes through four Public Reserved Land units as it winds its way from the New Hampshire border to Katahdin, but very few hikers know this, even though the first step into the state by a thru-hiker is in the Mahoosuc Public Reserved Land Unit. The land around Grafton Notch Read More
LePage Has Halted Operating Funds for Land for Maine’s Future
The governor already has withheld $11.5 million in voter-approved bonds that have yet to be committed, but now has frozen the program’s existing cash on hand as well By Eric Russell, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story Gov. Paul LePage has frozen operational spending within Land for Maine’s Future as his administration prepares to Read More
Governor LePage Tightens His Strangle Hold on the Land for Maine’s Future Program
By George Smith Bangor Daily News column Governor Paul LePage is withholding operating funds from the Land for Maine’s Future Program, strangling this important conservation program with more than 40 projects waiting for final funding. As one LMF Board member told me, “It just keeps getting worse.” The LMF Board now is struggling to get Read More
State Debates Where to Put Profits from Increased Timber Harvest
By A.J. Higgins MPBN news story AUGUSTA, Maine — A special legislative commission is taking a closer look at how the state can spend $8 million in funding generated from timber harvesting of public lands. Gov. Paul LePage has tried to use the money to pay for heating assistance for the elderly, but critics say Read More
A New Maine National Park: The “Wow” Factors
As I travel around the state and call or email my fellow Mainers about my main current, focus area here at NRCM, the National Park and Recreation Area proposal, I am sometimes met with a question best summarized recently by a friend (who wholeheartedly supports the idea of a park, by the way): “Where is the Read More
Heavier Logging of Maine Public Lands Focus of New Commission
by Christine Parrish Free Press news story A new commission has just been formed by the state legislature to study the impacts of a shift away from a conservation forestry focus on Maine Public Lands to the commercial timber approach it embraced in 2013 — and the possible uses of those new timber dollars. The Read More
This Year Could be a Triple Birthday for Our National Parks
By Lisa Pohlmann and W. Kent Olson, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News op-ed Tuesday, Aug. 25, is the 99th birthday of the National Park Service, and our Acadia celebrated its 99th in July. Take a moment to sing happy birthday to “America’s best idea.” Think of the spectacular places the park service manages Read More
