March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Six months remain in The Nature Conservancy’s three-year, $3.5 million Maine Legacy fund-raiser that will have permanent, wide-ranging benefits for the state. The group is only $150,000 short of its June 1993 goal, and needs the support of the public to end its campaign successfully.

The Conservancy’s work is important. In its 36 years in Maine, it has created 86 preserves that protect 90,000 acres of some of Maine’s most ecologically diverse lands. The group has acquired these lands through donations of its 13,000 members and through public support. While not grabbing the headlines that some environmental groups do, the Conservancy is creating a crucial network of undeveloped land that will preserve the character of Maine for decades to come.

The Conservancy is to negotiation what a group such as Earth First! is to confrontation. Forget protests and politics, the Nature Conservancy is interested in making land purchases of rare ecological value. It allows other groups to lead the charge to change harmful environmental policies while playing a quiet role that is nonetheless essential.

The Maine Legacy program aims to preserve four areas in Maine: Cobscook Bay, which has the Northeast’s highest concentration of nesting bald eagles; the Maine woods, including the forests around Big Reed Pond and the Waterboro Barrens in the southwestern part of the state; coastal island bird sanctuaries; and wetlands throughout the state. The goal is impressive but attainable with the public’s help.

Land prices have remained unnaturally low in Maine during the recession, offering a rare time to buy land inexpensively. Though that is cold comfort to anyone who has suffered through the last couple of years of economic despair, the Nature Conservancy can take advantage of the prices to preserve even more of the natural areas of importance.

And that will be good environmental news for a long time to come.


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