Schoodic trees… and more

The proposed timber cut on 3,000 acres of private land on Schoodic Peninsula (BDN, April 17, by Kathy Holliman) is a matter of legitimate public interest. The land abuts Acadia National Park. In the eyes of visitors, the private and public properties are indistinguishable. Ecologically, too, the parcels are of a piece. What happens on one affects the other.

According to the owner’s representative, a New York-based holding company, the cut will fully exploit the state’s legal definition of a clear-cut. The owner will take as many trees as is legally permissible but will attempt to avoid crossing the fine line that makes it a clear-cut. To thoughtful people, that’s a distinction without a difference. A clear-cut by any name is a clear-cut.

Siren Management Corp. of New York speaks for the so far unidentified owner. I talked with Jeff Heidings of Siren last week, asking if he would accept a visit from the superintendent of Acadia National Park and me. Heidings said no, and added that he had nothing to talk to us about. Earlier he stated that he wanted to get the cutting done before the law changed, an apparent reference to the upcoming statewide referendum to ban clear-cutting. Heidings’ tone was: I don’t care what’s going on in Maine.

Short of a clear-cut proposed at, say, the base of Mount Katahdin, it’s hard to picture a potentially more volatile cutting plan than one slated for land next to Acadia, the seventh heaviest visited national park in the United States. The timing is most unfortunate for many conservation moderates in Maine who want to see clear-cutting appropriately curtailed but not completely eliminated. If the clear-cutting ban were voted on now, it would pass overwhelmingly, say the polls. If a clear-cut — or anything that looks like a clear-cut — is executed on Schoodic, it could ensure passage of the complete ban on certain lands. Some think that would wreck the legitimate timber economy of Maine.

So, here’s what we have so far: 1) a beautiful piece of forested land that is connected to the park and visible from Winter Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Grindstone Neck, and several islands, and by anyone who sails Frenchman Bay; 2) a cutting plan that no one except a secretive owner and his representatives have seen, despite repeated requests by conservationists; 3) a New York holding company whose principal refuses even to talk with the superintendent of Acadia National Park; 4) a town, Winter Harbor, with minimal oversight provisions on cutting; 5) a state senator, Jill Goldthwait, who is trying her best to intercede positively; 6) a governor and his Department of Conservation committed to sustaining a healthy forest economy; 7) an electorate demonstrably poised to banish clear-cutting altogether; 8) a Maine timber industry that assuredly wants to see no conflagration; 9) a national — i.e., out-of-state — environmental constituency that is comparing what is going on here to the massive private cuts that have encircled federal lands in the American West; 10) an effort within Hancock County’s business community to develop sustainable, nature-based tourism; and 11) 3 million visitors ready to descend on Acadia National Park this summer.

The ingredients suggest trying the obvious rational thing — deferring the cutting until all legitimate parties can review the plan. The holding company’s consulting foresters, Mike Benjamin and the Dave Warren Co., have conducted themselves professionally. But they have not budged in their insistence that no one is entitled to review the plan. Friends of Acadia respectfully asks that they reconsider. If what’s planned is not a clear-cut, the owner has nothing to hide. More than the fate of Schoodic’s trees is at stake.

W. Kent Olson is president of the Friends of Acadia.