Ready, fire, aim

One could call the announcement by opponents of the Compact for Maine’s Forests that voter approval in November will lead to widespread posting of land a friendly caution, a portent of things to come, a public-service advisory. Or, one could call it was it really is — blackmail.

Compact critic Mary Adams, Garland’s self-named freedom fighter, is buying ads warning hunters, snowmobilers and other who enjoy the outdoors that passage of the Compact could lead to widespread posting by put-upon landowners. Not that she condones it, mind you; she just wants the public to know that forestry regulation can have the unintended consequence of spontaneously generating “no trespassing” signs.

At least Bud Landry of Abbot is more straightforward. He and his pals have 51,000 acres they’ll close down if the Compact goes in. No beating around the bush. Just good, clean retaliation; buying votes, not with cash but with a bludgeon. No clear cutting (actually, just less clear cutting), no cross-country skiing. So there.

Gov. Angus King is right to call the posting threat “the ultimate scare tactic” and right to wonder how a group so devoted to personal freedom can base its foundering campaign on this mean-spirited, vengeful non-sequitur.

The good news is that such a bad idea as this was not cooked up solely by cranky Maine landowners. They’re taking their cue from Ron Arnold of Washington State and from a group of Vermonters who are denying their neighbors access to 300,000 acres because they don’t like their state’s forestry laws.

Arnold is one of those tiresome individuals who claims to be pro-environment, just anti-environmental protection, and he comes to Maine with a half-cocked assault on the Compact. He makes a lot of noise, but he’s shooting blanks. Still, he sells a lot books and that’s what counts.

Then there’s the Vermonters, who spent more time coming up with a name — Property Owners Standing Together (POST) — than they spent thinking about for what they stand. POST President Ken Davis says if the government can take a landowner’s trees today, it can take a hunter’s gun tomorrow. That rascally government.

Recent polls suggest the Compact, which has the support of all large landowners and many small landowners, as well as the state’s leading conservation and sportmen’s groups, hangs in the balance, with many voters still undecided on the complex issue. If Mainers are half as ornery as they claim to be, this blatant attempt at coercion could well create a backlash at the polls that will give Adams some unintended consequences to stew about for years to come. Those who would hold a gun to another’s head may end up shooting themselves in the foot.